Look like you’re someone else. Act like you own the world. That’s how we succeeded in what we did.
“Let’s go,” I said, and Cullen and Frankie climbed out of the car, with Frankie going to the trunk and opening it. He grabbed the black duffel and closed the lid silently. The duffel held all the tools Wilder would need for cracking the safe, as well as a few items we’d need to clean up afterward.
Cullen handed out the black beanies and we put them on.
“We’ll look like a couple of punk assholes,” Cullen said, and we all grunted in approval.
“Better to look like a bunch of punk assholes than be identified and be motherfuckers behind bars,” Wilder said in a gruff voice. I tipped my chin toward the building and we all started moving forward. We could bullshit later. Until then, it was time to focus.
Chapter Two
Amelia
I rubbed my eyes, the table lamp in front of me bright and slightly blinding, but it allowed me to see the inventory forms in front of me, the ones that were printed so small I practically needed a damn magnifying glass to read them.
Richard was in the front doing a last-minute sweep of what we needed to order, which was the reason I’d agreed to stay and help. It was the end of the month check, and I always felt so bad he had to do the shit all by himself.
He was old and a widower, having lost his wife five years ago, and I knew this jewelry store was his life. Hell, he and his wife had opened it over twenty years ago, something she’d dreamed about starting, and he hadn’t denied her. And it had turned out to be very successful. I kind of thought of him as the father I’d never really had. Not to mention he worked around my school schedule.
I felt a twinge of guilt at that last thought.
A shitty childhood, an abusive father, and a mother who was looking for love in all the wrong places and had ignored me on most occasions. But I’d adapted, grown into the person I was today. And that’s what mattered. Then Richard had given me a job, a young girl with no work history, who’d come in to the interview with a ripped blouse and stained slacks. He hired me and over the years had become someone I trusted and cared about.
But what would Richard think or say if he knew I actually wasn’t even going to school anymore, that I didn’t register for classes because my financial aid had fallen through and I just couldn’t afford it?
Would he be disappointed? Would he consider me a liar, a failure?
Or maybe he’d understand that life happened, that I had to eat and pay my rent, and there was always next fall, or even summer classes.
I closed my eyes and rested my head in my hands, so exhausted that all these numbers were starting to blend together. Technically, I wasn’t even licensed to be doing this stuff, but Richard trusted me. He knew I’d never screw him over.
I heard something out the back door but didn’t pay much attention to it. With the tattoo shop right next door, and the bar directly behind us, there was usually commotion in the ally in the form of drunken people or friends loitering. But it being a Thursday night and rather late meant those other two businesses were closed.
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the paperwork, grabbing a pen and marking inventory. The sooner I got this done, the sooner I could go home, maybe take a long, hot bubble bath, drink a glass of wine… or three.
Another five minutes passed, when I heard a thump at the front of the store. Being in the back office meant I was kind of secluded, with the door shut and a row of filing cabinets blocking my view. I listened, not hearing anything and about to go back to work, when I heard a very muffled, deep grunt.
I stood, feeling my brows knit as I stared at the door, which I could now see over the row of stainless steel gray filing cabinets. “Richard?” I called out his name and waited a second, not hearing him and growing a little bit concerned. He was old, so maybe he’d fallen, hit his head on a display case?
I took a step forward, but before I could reach the back door, there was a buzzing sound behind me. I looked over my shoulder just as it was thrown open, two very big men storming inside dressed in what appeared to be some kind of dry cleaning uniform. But it was clear they were here for a very different reason, if their skull masks were anything to go by.