Page 7 of Heist in Paradise

She came up empty. “How did we forget this?” she asked incredulously. “That’s, like, one oh one.”

Because we are off our game. Because it is a trap. Because this whole thing is doomed.

A deep, uncomfortable tightness settled in my chest. “Leave it,” I said. “We’ll just have to go in blind.”

“Ew,” Ryle said. He squinted up at me, shading his eyes. “You don’t look so hot, Jax.”

“Says you, puke monkey.”

He laughed, and just like that, the tightness eased.

I scanned the beach for Madoc. A moment later, he stepped out from the shadows of the palm trees, his face lowered, a gun held loosely in his left hand. No threats found.

I watched him without watching him. He’d removed his oversized sweatshirt and knotted it around his waist. His inked arms were on display; a majestic crow on his left elbow, wings embracing his impressive bicep. His other arm was a network of barbed wire and stemmed roses, ending at his shooting hand where a skull grinned rose petals. It was morbid as hell and pure him. Dark, deadly, and bitterly romantic.

My own ink told a similar story. I had each of their names on my skin. Callum on my bicep. Strength. Zola on my hand. Intelligence. Ryle on my ribs. Compassion. Nate on my collarbone. Charisma. Madoc on my shoulder blade. Protection. I had a crow behind my right ear that I scratched at like a nervous tic. It already felt raw as hell.

“Wait,” Zola said as we shouldered our packs. Already the sun was hotter, bleaching the world around us. She tapped away on a portable device. “Alright. Our mark is officially in the sky. His plane boarded twelve minutes ago.”

“We got eyes on him?” Callum asked.

Zola confirmed: “Private Jet chartered to a Mr. Theodore Salvadore, destination Cancun International. Arrival time is six am, Sunday.”

“Twenty hours, give or take,” I said. Plenty of time to get in and out. The isolation continued to bother me. If everything went to shit, we’d be trapped. No quick getaway, no clean escape.

Shaking my head, we headed into the island. A fork appeared ten minutes into the rainforest. I considered both, staring hard left and right. Without the drone, all I had was guesswork.

“Left,” Madoc said. He took the lead without question.

The heat intensified. The air became thick and soup-like. Nate kept up a constant stream of babble—“I’ve heard the spider monkeys here can give you herpes” and “…say what you want, herpes or not, it would still be cool to keep one”—as we bashed our way through the foliage.

Then we were climbing. My thighs burned, and sweat ran in rivulets down my back. Madoc lost his shit and swung a branch directly into Nate’s motormouth. The resulting scuffle was short-lived, a victorious Madoc falling into step beside me. The silence was brief.

“Soldier Island!” Callum crowed suddenly, like he’d been struggling for some time to find the words. At our questioning looks, the large man wiped his brow and said: “It’s been buggin’ me for hours, what this all reminds me of. It’s Agatha Christie.”

“Who?” Nate asked, still petulant as he rubbed his jaw.

“Who? Who!” Callum made an aggrieved sound. “Aye, the American education system triumphs once again. You, lad, need to visit the shelves once in a blue moon. It’d do wonders for ya’ wooden head.”

“I’ll have you know, ginger, that I attended some of the finest institutions in the country.”

“For all the good it did ya’.”

Zola wisely stepped in between them before Nate decided to throw himself at the larger man. “I think I read that one in juvie,” she said thoughtfully. “From memory, ten strangers are called to a mysterious island by some rich white dude who picks them off one by one.”

“Hey. Spoiler,” Ryle protested from the rear.

“It is kinda spooky,” Zola remarked. “Salvadore has properties all over the world, but he chooses this place as his main residence. Nobody needs this much privacy unless they’re up to no good.”

“Maybe he’s running secret lab experiments,” Nate said excitedly.

“For the hundredth time, Jurassic Park isn’t going to happen.”

“Bite your tongue, Muggle.”

Nate started loudly humming the Jurassic Park soundtrack.

My right eye twitched in annoyance. Madoc grabbed another branch, but Nate dodged his next swing. It was around his fourth verse that we struck gold. The path ahead cleared, paved steps built in. There was a notable glimmer above, like sun glare on a windscreen. We were close.