Chapter Forty-Two #2
I blinked, completely frozen, while I watched him, my stomach flipping.
Unannounced. I wouldn’t have been able to stop the way my heartbeat had increased because it seemed as though this man …
Elio Marino … The Wicked … incapable of feelings, who never smiled, never had a girlfriend, didn’t often have sex, a psycho killer, wanted to spend time … with me.
Even if I succumbed, accepting that he wanted to spend time with me, there was still the fact that, for some reason, I wanted to spend time with him too. I bought the idea.
Why the fuck am I buying the idea?
Backtrack, Zahra, backtrack.
I gathered the bowl, his fork, and my fork. “Right … that sounds cool, but I’m gonna have to pass. I might doze off, and I don’t want to have to answer questions from Street about why I’m coming from the front door and not my bedroom, so…”
“Okay,” he stated.
“Yeah … but you can totally go and watch it alone—”
“I’ll read.”
I nodded. “Cool.”
“Hm.”
“See you in the morning or … whenever.”
“Okay.”
I gave another awkward nod and then turned on my heel. I could still feel his eyes on me, but I didn’t look back. I couldn’t.
If I did, I might succumb and stay.
And that was an action I couldn’t and shouldn’t take.
I was probably making a mistake not informing Angelo’s people of this new development.
Still, I needed to see it for myself, find the original painting first, and be one step ahead before letting their people in on the intel.
This might sever any trust we had so far formed with them, but we worked better without supervision, and this was the first legit lead we’d gotten in months; we couldn’t risk sharing that intel with people who might be careless with it.
It was why we were staking out a school close to the sock company, Dog looking through binoculars as we waited for the guards to change shifts again.
Devil and I remained in the back seat of the SUV we had taken out while Dog and Chika were in the front seat.
We’d waited a week to head out, dishing out a perfect excuse for our movement; it was a bonus that we’d garnered a little bit of freedom working for, no—with—Elio, through Angelo’s supervision and team.
Milk and Upper had stayed back, but they were in our ears and also had eyes on us, thanks to the direct link Upper had created from the surveillance cameras around this area and the whole district back to our quarters in the Marino compound.
We had a solid plan to infiltrate the building.
It was late in the afternoon, schools were very close to ending for the day, and I silently prayed that they changed shifts again when all the students had gone home from school.
Although we had tried to master their shift change, it didn’t have any order, so it was difficult to predict a set time frame.
It was not a big, structured building, it was just a small company that produced socks—the perfect front for the paintings being shipped.
Apparently, Arturo’s great-grandfather had attended this school by the side of the sock building when he was little; no one knew this because, according to Chika, Arturo’s great-grandfather hadn’t spent more than three weeks in the institution.
I squared my shoulders, looking to my side to find Devil’s quiet gaze on the weapon he held. I bumped my shoulder into him, and he looked my way.
I tapped my comm, turning it off while indicating that he turn his off. He did.
“You good?” I whispered into the space between us, not wanting our other companions in the car to get wind of it.
“Yeah, why?”
“Because you don’t seem like you’re good. You’ve been quiet all week.”
He looked away from me. “I’m fine.”
I wanted to drop it. That was the cue to drop it, but I decided to press. “You know you can talk to me.”
“Yeah.”
“Then talk to me.”
His lips went into a thin line as he looked out the window, like sitting beside me was suffocating him. “There’s nothing to talk to you about.”
I didn’t like how difficult he could get sometimes, bottling up his thoughts and dying safely in silence. It was unhealthy.
“Devil, I know we—”
He looked at me with dark eyes showing how badly he wanted me to stop trying to get to him. “I am fine,” he said. “Just don’t have a good feeling about this. It seems too easy, and you’re not seeing it, or listening to me, so I’m fine; we’re following your lead.”
I sighed. “I get it; you don’t like this—”
“You’re working on your own terms. We’re supposed to be a team.”
I frowned. “Everyone agreed to it.”
“Because you forced it on them; you gave no room for any other opinion, acted like you have some other personal shit to deal with.”
I looked up at the rearview to catch Chika’s gaze on us.
I looked back at Devil and said quietly, “We’re doing this for us, for our freedom.”
“A freedom we already have?” He raised his hand. “Look around; we’re fucking free.”
“Devil—”
“Maybe next time, leave room for other opinions because this isn’t your ‘freedom’ alone; it’s for everyone in Street.
Something is going to go so fucking wrong today, I feel it in my gut, and all casualties will be your fault because you choose to blindly trust a stranger rather than the people you’ve lived with for years. ”
“I’m not—”
“Hey.” Dog turned his head to the back seat. “I’m going out for a smoke. Zahra, you coming? Monitor me and shit?” He stared at me pointedly.
“I’ll be right out.”
He glanced at Devil and then left the car.
I turned to Devil again. “Just trust me, okay? I know what I’m doing.”
He looked away and muttered, “You always do.”
I sighed, opening my mouth to say something, but thought better of it, deciding to get out of the car. My leather pants stretched as I closed the door and walked to the back of the vehicle, seeing Dog leaning against the trunk.
“What,” I snapped.
He turned off his comm and lit the cigarette between his lips. “He’s right, you know? Keep going at this pace, and you’ll run whatever race you’re running alone.”
“Oh, so you’re the reasonable one now.”
“Don’t pick a fight with me; I’m tryna help.”
I leaned on the trunk right beside him, staring at the school bus by the side of the school building. “I’m not running any race.”
“But you’re going faster than we normally do; we might be unable to keep up.”
I shook my head, clenching my jaw. “I just feel guilty.”
“For what?”
“For this,” I said with a sigh, “all of this.”
He looked at me with a frown. “What’s there to feel guilty for? We all want this gold. We all want to go after it. As fucked up as it sounds, we love our new home too. No one’s complaining.”
“What about the vacation? Taking a break from stealing, traveling around the world, giving Milk her American dream? All our plans, cut short, just like that. If I hadn’t thought it was a good idea to steal from Marino, we might be on some faraway island, drunk off our asses in some fancy beach house, wearing nothing but colorful bikinis with dried puke at the side of your lips because you can’t hold your damn liquor. ”
He laughed. “Yeah, that’s fucking accurate.”
“I know.” I smiled, but it died down as quickly as it came.
“I just feel like if we can do this, find the gold, and the flash drives, we’ll be set for life; we wouldn’t have to steal or commit crimes.
We could do whatever we want, go wherever we want, marry a stranger in Las Vegas, and laugh about it the next day. ”
“But we don’t have to rush,” he said, looking down at me as he threw the cigarette away. “We don’t have to lose track of ourselves. If we’re careful, we’ll have a lifetime to fuck with life.”
Something twisted in the pit of my stomach. “Yeah.”
“Awesome, so fucking take us along. We work better when we do shit together. With Devil’s gut, your determination, Milk’s charm, Upper’s brain, and my fuckery, we got this.”
I allowed a smile to curl against my lips. “Yeah. You’re right.”
He nodded, looking around us. “Perfect timing, cause some other car just came by.”
“What?” I followed his line of vision, spotting the matte black car with all-black tinted windows.
“Shit, turn on your comms,” Dog urged.
Upper’s and Milk’s voices filled my ears when I pressed the small button.
“Guys! Get the fuck out of there; it was a bloody trap!” Upper yelled.
“Why aren’t they responding?” Milk’s worried voice filtered in at the moment I locked gazes with Dog.
Fucking hell.
Dog and I both turned to return to the car, but Devil was already coming out, disarmed, hands in the air as Chika followed, holding a gun to Devil’s head.
I grabbed my gun from the holster, pointing it right at Chika while Dog did the same.
“The fuck, Chika? You’re a bad guy?” Dog sounded genuinely surprised.
“I’m literally dressin’ as Guy from Free Guy; how the fuck did none of you clock that?”
“We don’t watch a lot of movies, better things to do and all,” Dog said.
“Yeah, whatever; you’re surrounded. Drop your weapons, or I’ll blow his brains out,” Chika said.
“Bloody fuck,” Upper’s voice rang through.
“Wait,” Dog said, “I have a question. Do you really have a job in London where they sexualize your names?”
“No. God, no,” Chika said, looking like he was surprised we were having this conversation.
Dog blinked. “Oh, so that means no one has done it yet. Folks, we can make my future restaurant with that theme. It would rock so hard; we could go all dark, maybe not like the dad-pants costume, something sexy?”
“Could work; I like it,” Milk said.
“It would totally sell in a city like Miami. Oh fuck, the beaches and titties.”
“That sounds amazing,” I added.
“What is happening right now,” Chika asked.
“What would you call it, though?” Upper asked.
“Probably something sexy too, attractive to the eyes. Itsy, bitsy titty,” Dog said.
“Too wordy,” I said.
“Yeah, guys, I don’t think this is the right time for this conversation,” Devil said.
“Oh right, Sauce Boy,” Dog said. “Where were we? Lost track back there with the whole future-planning thing.”