Chapter Twelve
Twelve
Jack’s practice “space” was a run-down two-story warehouse in Chicago’s Near North Side. The windows were barred, but outside I could see the heavy walls of a factory rising from the ground like a fortress. The air was thick with the smell of grease and motor oil, and the concrete floor was cracked down the center. Crates were stacked in odd configurations along one wall, and in the far corner, ropes and pulleys hung from rusted pipes above a twenty-foot square of worn blue mats. I stared at the corrugated tin walls, the rust-coated beams, the caged freight elevator, and the collection of safes scattered in one corner, and wished for the comforts of Rose’s garage.
“This used to be a machine shop.” Jack walked me around the warehouse pointing out the large wooden table where big pieces of metal had been cut and various pieces of rusted equipment with names I was never going to remember. Chloe had passed on the tour in favor of setting up her computer in the back office and hacking into someone’s Wi-Fi to give us Internet access.
“It’s um…got a lot of character,” I said. “Very apropos for a heist.”
Jack beamed and puffed out his chest like he’d built it himself. “I knew it would be perfect. After Chloe’s done in the office, you may wish to show your gratitude in a more personal way.”
My face flamed at the memory of our moment in the alley. “We agreed that encounter was a one-off.”
“I could wear the suit again,” he whispered. “You liked the suit.”
Yes, I’d liked the suit. I’d liked it a little too much. Suits, however, were not a good plan when it came to Jack. I only had so much self-control.
“No suits and no sex,” I said, turning away. “We have more important things to think about, like being whacked by the mob.”
“We could die happy…” He brushed the hair from my nape and nuzzled my neck, sending a shiver of electricity down my spine.
“Are we selling these safes to fund the heist?” Emma’s loud voice pulled me out of the moment. She’d been playing with one of the safes since she arrived, spinning the wheel and trying random combinations to open the door.
“Clare is fronting the money,” Jack said, glancing over when Clare walked in with her minions behind her and, curiously, Anil by her side. “This is her heist, after all.”
Clare dutifully tossed a duffel bag on the big table in the center of the room. “There’s enough cash in there to cover the cost of supplies.”
“It had better be in unmarked bills,” Emma said. “I had a tenant once who paid me in cash that he’d stolen from a bank, and they traced it to me. Nothing ruins a hookup more than having the cops bust down your door at three a.m. and handcuff you naked on the floor when the poor dude you’re with was literally in the moment. It had taken me so long to get him there, too. I had callouses on my callouses.”
“Don’t be unkind,” Anil said. “Clare wants this to succeed as much as you do.”
Emma’s mouth dropped open, and she shot me a puzzled look. I shrugged my shoulders, unable to answer the unspoken question.
Milan and Vito made themselves comfortable tossing knives at a torn work schedule on the far wall, riding up and down in the freight elevator, and testing each other on their safe-opening skills. When Simone and Gage finally arrived, I gathered everyone together around the large worktable and spread out the blueprints while Jack briefed them on the information he had gathered during his recon mission.
“The bunker where the vault and museum are located is here,” he said, pointing to a separate diagram on the blueprint. “It can be accessed from the panic room through this door…” He tapped a blue line. “The panic room is accessible from the games room through this door.” He pointed to another line. “That one looks like it’s covered, so I suspect it’s hidden.”
“The door to the panic room is behind a big mirror in the downstairs games room,” Simone interjected. “It’s got a biometric lock that works when either Vera or Peter presses it with a finger. It’s very comfortable. They’ve got a big-screen TV, computer access, a small kitchen, bedroom, and sitting area, and all the usual panic room security and supplies for short-term problems—thieves, kidnappers, and the like. Personally, I thought the dark wood and tapestry motif was a little dated and didn’t fit in with the light, airy feeling in the rest of the house, but Peter likes to pretend he comes from money. If there’s an apocalypse or a similar serious event, then they make their way to the bunker.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked the question that was clearly on everyone’s mind, given that everyone’s mouth was hanging open.
“I went to visit Vera,” Simone said as she reapplied her lipstick. “I thought we should find out if they were going to be away anytime soon because wouldn’t that make it easier to get inside to steal the diamond?”
“Simone, you can’t go off and do things that we haven’t discussed.” My voice trembled in a combination of shock and fear. “What if you tipped them off? What if Vera says to the police, ‘You know…Simone was here the other day asking about when we were going away,’ and then the next thing you know, the police are showing up at your door?”
Simone gave a light laugh and waved a dismissive hand in the air. “Simi, darling, subterfuge isn’t rocket science. I told Vera I’d stopped by to solicit her help with a charity event. We’d only met socially, and I always wanted to get to know her better. I’m glad I did. She had a black eye that she’d tried to cover with makeup, but you can’t cover up the swelling, and there are only certain foundations that are dark enough and last long enough to give you more than a few hours of coverage. I gave her a few tips…”
“Simone…” I stared at her in horror. “I didn’t—”
“I have years of practice. It’s nothing I can’t handle,” she said. “And it felt good to help her out. I want to be the kind of friend that you have—friends who would fight over beating up your boyfriend when he cheats on you with a heartless, conniving snake like Clare.”
“I’m standing right here,” Clare said.
“I know you are, darling.” Simone gave her the sweetest smile. “That’s why I said it.”
“So, what else did Vera tell you?” I loved Simone in that moment and hoped she would say other mean things to Clare that I, as the leader of our ragtag heist crew, couldn’t say.
“I asked about her security system,” Simone continued. “I told her my husband, Richard, and I were planning to upgrade after seeing a lot of ne’er-do-wells on the street, and she gave me the name of the company they use: SecureCom.”
“Oh my God.” I scrubbed my face with my hands. “Now they’ll definitely suspect you were involved.”
“Don’t worry.” Simone reached over and patted my shoulder. “No one would ever, in a million years, think it was me, and that made it even more exciting. My heart was pounding. Pounding. The day I met you and unwittingly introduced you to a mob boss has turned out to be the best day of my life. At least, I thought it was until I met Joseph’s brother Tony in your office…”
“Tony?” I shared an incredulous glance with Chloe. “Since when are we calling the mob boss who wants to kill us by his first name?”
“I didn’t know I could feel like that,” Simone continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “What a man! So handsome and confident. Such a presence. And a criminal. Imagine. I didn’t know my breath could still be taken away. It was a thrill. An absolute thrill. And now I get to be part of an actual heist and help people in real ways.”
Apathy in a crew was bad, but I hadn’t considered that overexuberance might be worse. “What else did you do while you were there?”
“I asked her for a tour, of course. I said Richard wanted more space for our city place and I would love to see what they’d done with their new home. She was most obliging. Vera told me Peter insisted on having a museum in the bunker to display his collection of erotic art and treasures. It seems very likely that’s where the diamond would be. Vera says he often entertains his friends down there and she thinks he also uses it as a secret sex dungeon because she’s caught him bringing young ladies down there when he thought she was asleep upstairs.”
“And she thought that was okay?” Chloe stared at her, aghast.
“That’s the price we pay to live this life,” she said with a shrug. “Peter and Richard and many of the other new tech billionaires have the money but not the social status. They don’t know how to navigate high society. They don’t know what art to buy, what clothes to wear, what charities to support, or how to tastefully decorate their homes. So, they find a spouse who does, and we have an understanding. We introduce them to society, put on the charity events, and try to make them presentable in a level of society they would never otherwise be able to reach. They bail out our usually bankrupt established-pedigree families so we can live the life to which we are accustomed.”
“But what about love?” Chloe asked.
“Love is rarely part of it,” Simone said. “It’s more like a business arrangement. But sometimes the trade-offs…” She pressed her lips together and then sighed. “The biggest issue is that men—and it is mostly men, I’m afraid—with that much money can buy their way out of any problem. When there is no accountability, there are no rules. And when there are no rules…” She touched her eye. “We don’t always make the best choices when we’re young.”
“I’m sorry, Simone,” Chloe said gently.
“No need to be sorry,” she said. “I made my choices. The only one I really regret is the prenup Richard made me sign. If I divorce him, my family loses their estate and goes into bankruptcy, and I get only a small monthly allowance to live on. That’s why I’m so invested in your heist venture. It’s exciting to think that I might get $1 million of my very own. I might actually consider leaving him. It’s an incentive to do my part.”
“You did great at Vera’s place,” I told her. “It’s too bad you couldn’t get an invitation to see the museum. Then we wouldn’t need to break into the house, the panic room, or the bunker.”
“I could ask Vera to host a charity event at her house,” Simone offered. “I would insist you organize it, but we’d need to do it soon. They’re planning an extended trip on their super-yacht in the next few weeks.”
“I was on a yacht once,” Emma said. “This guy, Jerry, stole a boat to impress me and took us out on the Columbia River during a massive storm. Thirty minutes later we had to call the coast guard. I had tied myself to the railing so I didn’t get tossed overboard, and Jerry thought it was some kind of kinky sex game. He stripped off his clothes and left the helm, all ready for stormy sexy times. A huge wave hit us and over he went. When the rescue helicopter picked him up, I got a good preview of what wasn’t on offer. He said it was shrinkage, but in my book that was vacuum-packed. It all worked out for the best. He wound up in jail, so there was no awkward ‘Sorry, your dick is too small’ the next day.”
“I learn so much from Emma,” Anil said. “I miss living with her.” He shot Clare a longing glance. “There’s a space in my life for an older experienced woman to teach me things.”
Bile rose in my throat and I fought back the urge to retch. Beside me, Chloe choked back a gasp.
“Simone may not need to ask Vera to host an event,” Jack said, giving us a moment to recover. “I think I’ve found another way in.” He pointed to a faint line on the blueprints. “There’s an escape tunnel leading from the bunker into a back alley. The only problem is that the door is completely sealed and can only be opened from the inside.”
“Does anyone have explosives experience?” Anil asked. “I can handle all the mechanical and engineering stuff, possibly the biometrics, but often in my video games, the simplest solution is to blow things up.”
“Vito is an explosives expert,” Clare said. “He has a PhD in chemistry.”
“No fucking way,” Emma whispered in my ear. “I would have put my money on Walking Dead , not Breaking Bad .”
“I study energetic materials.” Vito had never spoken before, and his Italian accent was so rich and captivating that it pulled me in and closed off all my other senses. Smooth and warm, it brushed over my skin like a summer breeze…
“You may want to close your mouth,” Jack murmured in my ear. “It’s embarrassing. You’re starting to drool.”
Vito continued as if unaware that his voice had more than a few members of the crew shook. “That includes pyrotechnics, propellants, and explosives. I mainly work in demolitions.”
“I’m interested to hear how you got into that field,” Emma said. “Why don’t you start from childhood and just tell us your life story. Take all the time you need.”
Disappointingly, he shook his head. “Not today.”
“I think we’ve got a good idea of the obstacles we’re facing.” I shook off the spell and walked over to my old heist-planning whiteboard, which I’d brought from Rose’s garage. “I’ve written down your roles, and now we just need to figure out who is going to do what.”
“Unless Jack wants to step in, I’m the most experienced person here,” Clare said, frowning at the board. “I should be the leader.”
“This is my crew,” I said firmly. “We’ve worked together before. We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. There’s no way they would work for you.”
“I’d work for her,” Anil said. “I’d do anything for such a beautiful woman.”
“Anil!” Emma barked out his name so loudly even Milan and Vito froze. “What the fuck, dude? She’s the enemy. Cristian is being tortured because of her. The boss of mob bosses is going to be giving us all Sicilian neckties because of her. We’re here because of her.”
“I believe in second chances.” He smiled at Clare. An amused Clare smiled back. I remembered that smile from when she’d tried to upsell me at Bloomingdale’s. It had been hard to resist.
“Vito can handle explosives, but what about her?” Gage lifted his chin in Milan’s direction.
By way of answer, Milan threw ten knives in quick succession, forming a frame around Gage’s head in the thick wooden pillar behind him.
“Yeah, I remember the knives.” He absently touched his shoulder. “You got any other tricks?”
Milan shrugged off her jacket and posed beside the wall. She was wearing a pair of tight black shorts over fishnet tights and a midriff-baring tank cut deep to reveal her substantial cleavage. With a flip of her long, dark hair and a pout of her lips, she earned herself the role of our Distraction.
Gage coughed lightly after I explained that Milan’s role would be to distract people from what we were doing and then use her knives if anyone got in the way. When I looked in his direction, he drew a line across his throat. I wasn’t oblivious to the threat. Gage wasn’t the kind of man who made statements like, “They’re gonna slit our throats at the end,” without good reason. But Clare needed us alive to do the heist, so I tucked that worry away for later.
I could see the crew getting antsy, so I decided to wrap things up. “We’ll meet back here tomorrow. Emma, you drive around Vera’s house and check out escape routes. Jack, you can take another look at those tunnel doors. Vito, you can start putting together an explosive to blast the tunnel door if Jack can’t find a way to get it open from the outside. Chloe will work on cameras and hacking the security system. Simone is going to find out when they’re leaving for their cruise and whether there is any chance Vera would be interested in hosting an event. Clare can buy the list of supplies I’ve posted on the server—”
“What about Anil?” Chloe asked.
“Anil…” I trailed off when I saw he’d moved to sit beside Clare and was now whispering in her ear. “Anil.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t call me that. It makes me feel old.”
“You are old,” he said. “Approximately four dog years.”
“We’ll need a fake Florentine Diamond,” I said, ignoring his insult. “There are pictures online of the replica in the museum in Vienna and Chloe has pulled up some additional pictures from the Internet. Do you still have access to the 3D jewelry printers at your work?”
“I run the department now,” Anil said proudly. “I can make whatever illicit jewels I want, when I want, how I want.”
“I’ll help Anil get the specs for the diamond,” Clare said, “and if I have free time, I can help Jack.”
I didn’t want her to help Jack, but I could hardly play the jealous girlfriend when I’d broken things off. I also didn’t want Clare to know I cared. It was better to let her think her ploy to destroy our relationship had worked, rather than to let her know that every time I looked at Jack, I wanted to believe every story he’d told me about being detained in submarines, thrown out windows, and left in ditches. I wanted to believe that he was indeed part of a secret covert organization and not just a professional thief with a conscience. I wanted to believe that maybe there was a chance for us to work through our issues, rebuild our trust, and find our way back to each other. But deep down, doubts still lingered. Deep down, I was still afraid.