I glanced down at her, noticing she wasn’t smiling now. Her auburn hair glinted in the sun, her black cat-eye sunglasses perched on her nose, obscuring her eyes, but I could still tell they were trailing Hero.
“My loose plan is to turn the tables back on her,” I said, surprised at how good it felt to tell someone. “I act as ridiculous andwild as she does and see if that makes her obsessed with me. I figured it got me hooked. Maybe it will work for her.”
Her lips pursed, and she looked up at me before a wide grin spread across her face. “I really thought you were going to give me some bullshit about waiting or letting her come to you or something. Mr. Rule Follower is breaking the rules now?”
“I’m going to break every damn one if it means this sticks.”
“Wow. I’m impressed. You may have single-handedly picked one of the worst paths to making a girl fall in love with you, and yet, I think it’s the best idea you’ve ever had.”
Rook stepped back out again, Regan next to him now. “What the hell you two? Can we get this done?”
Harper patted my arm, already walking toward them, and I followed. “Come on, lover boy, let’s go get some work done so you can wreck her life a little more.”
Another hour went by before we idled into a side parking lot, trying to angle our bikes all around the shipment to keep eyes on the cars. From where Evie and I sat on my bike, I could see Rook and Regan across the street to our right, and Hero and Harper behind a building to our left. Everyone else was set in position, each one of us keeping eyes on one car and following it if it left before Dimitri’s men got here. His shipments had been getting taken closer and closer to the time they arrived, the thieves getting the schedule down to the minute now.
“They should be here any second,” Rook said, all of our helmets connected.
Evie’s hands moved to my waist. She had barely touched me the entire ride, choosing to sit up as much as she could. I hadn’t been able to tell if she was mad at me. She definitely had an attitude, but there were no scowls or attempted murder to go along with it, so I wasn’t sure how angry she actually was now.
Her hands roamed, moving over my sides to my stomach. She didn’t have gloves on today and I could feel the second her soft fingers caressed my abs.
I wanted to groan, but our helmets were still connected to everyone. It was too dangerous to disconnect them now with the shipment already arriving. The slow deliberate touches were torture, my body begging for more.
I grabbed her hand, pulling it away with a shake of my helmet. Her quiet laugh filtered through the intercom and I leaned back into her, silently begging her to be quiet.
It only made her more bold. Her hands slithered under my shirt again, her fingers splaying out. A shiver ran down my spine, the cool breeze doing nothing to calm my body.
“There they are,” Hero said, making me snap to attention. The cars were lined up, ten of them total. All of them were in pristine condition. Dimitri used high-value cars to blend in and move drugs unnoticed—nice enough to blend in, but not so nice that cops wanted to pull them over.
Like clockwork, the thieves pulled up, blocking the cars with their beat-up trucks. Chaos erupted, and we could only watch. Dimitri wanted the thefts to stop, but to do that, we needed to find out who was giving the orders. His men were only five minutes behind, and Rook had already updated him that the thieves had arrived.
“He’s bringing in his men now,” Rook said. “If your car leaves,follow it. Otherwise, keep eyes on it and report back when they arrive.”
“Why the dramatics? Couldn’t they be here watching?” Zack asked. His eyes kept wandering to Evie behind me. Like clockwork, he would glance over every other minute, sometimes a scowl would cross his face, but that was when he was looking at me. Usually, his puppy dog eyes were trained on Evie, and I knew he was dying for her to look at him.
“They are blocking every other exit and dealing with it that way. They couldn’t block the exits until they knew for a fact the thieves were here. We are easy to hide on the bikes while he brings in his little army,” I said, my breath stuttering once as Evie’s hands found me again. “Is that an issue with you? Or would you like to stop and chat with Dimitri about why you think his plan sucks?”
“No,” Zack said. “I just didn’t get why we were needed. It seems like something he can handle himself.”
“I push to make him know we are needed,” Rook added, the rough edge to his voice letting everyone know he was getting annoyed. “Is encouraging people to give us a shit ton of money to sit and watch cars get boosted a problem for you?”
Zack mumbled, but the car he was in charge of took off.
“Are you fucking serious?” he said.
“Scurry along, little rat, we have work to do,” Hero said.
“Little rat? Why the fuck are you calling me little rat?”
Hero grunted, sounding offended. “You stole my food. The doughnuts I had on the counter? I woke up to find them gone, and I know you did it.”
“What the fuck? I figured you left them out so I could have one.”
“No, you can’t really touch his food,” Rook said. “Being called a little rat is the least of your concerns now.”
“What does that mean?” Zack said, his voice a little more panicked, but I didn’t think it was because he was speeding down the highway after the car. “What the fuck? It was one doughnut. What are you going to do to me?”
More cars moved now, including the one I had to keep eyes on. I reached down, patting her leg to get her attention.
