Page 6 of Mile High Heist

Someone dropped in the chair beside me. I tensed, right before I recognized the stupid haircut.

“No,” I said without looking at him.

Nate said nothing, which spoke volumes about his guilt. He always had a wisecrack or a dumb joke at hand. Gritting my teeth, I shot him a dry look.

He was pale again, his face pinched up like he’d swallowed something rotten. Even though he was sober now, fresh off a four-month rehab program, he looked like he’d just come off a two-week bender. His stupid, frat-boy haircut only made it worse.

“Here,” he said quietly, and slipped a burner phone into my pocket. “Zola said it’s fixed now. And to not smash this one into a wall.”

No fucking promises.

At my silence, he sighed and stood. Then he hovered, as if to say something, but I wouldn’t hear it.

He was part of my crew, but he was all but dead to me.

I heard him walk away, disappearing into the busy airport rush.

Ryle returned and handed me the whiskey, his mouth stuffed with limes. I took another drink, toeing the line of sobriety.

“You look weird,” Ryle mouthed, juices dripping down his chin. “I’ve never seen you in a suit before.”

I glanced down at myself with a grimace. As part of our cover, I was dressed the part of lawyer. I was even wearing cufflinks, like a megadouche. The last time I wore a suit had been during my own trial. That suit had been borrowed from my old man, too big on my skinny eighteen-year-old frame. Not that it had won me any points. I’d been found guilty. My lawyer at the time, a prick named Bart, had barely spared me a second look as I got dragged away for two years.

Those two years made me the miserable asshole that I was today.

“At least you’re not wearing eggplant,” Ryle went on, never one to be deterred by silence. He tugged at his tie irritably. “I look like a giant dick. I know the Godfucker did this on purpose because I swiped his Amex.”

My mouth twitched. That had been a fun bender. We took our victories where we could these days.

Ryle turned toward me, frowning. “I look like a twink, don’t I?”

“You are a twink.”

“Rude,” he whined. “And not the point. Do you think Callum thinks I look like a twink? Do you think he’s into that?”

“How the hell would I know?”

“You guys talk,” Ryle said, making it sound like an accusation. “I know you talk about me.”

We didn’t, actually. Callum was a gruff, stoic ex-marine who could break a man apart with his bare hands. Ryle had been completely infatuated with him from the moment he joined the crew. Not that he’d been subtle about it. The kid practically pawed at the ex-marine like a cat in heat. Callum treated him like a bemused older brother. Whether he had reciprocal feelings for Ryle was a mystery to me.

I wasn’t exactly an expert in relationships. I’d been told—repeatedly—that I had the emotional tolerance of a tadpole. My walls had fucking walls.

Ryle sulked at my silence until his burner phone buzzed between us. He perked up. “That’s Zola. Our mark has checked in.”

Instantly, I was on high alert. Our mark, former CIA agent Peter Vincilli, was a big hitter. He’d stolen directly from the CIA, which put him on every watchlist in the world. Then he’d sold the prototype for a ball-tingling half-billion dollars. Our biggest score yet.

Not that Preacher would throw us a bone. We’d still be eating expired noodles and drinking stale beer by the end of the job.

“Zola is hacking the flight manifest,” Ryle muttered, squinting at his screen.

As we waited for the specs to be transmitted to our burner phones, I scanned the lounge and the sea of suits again. The ex-con in me hated lawyers. They were as bad as cops. Worse, maybe. I thought about Bart again, the way I’d fucking debased myself begging him to push for a lighter sentence.

He hadn’t. To him, I was just another hopeless, teenage delinquent. Better for everyone if I just died in prison.

“She got it,” Ryle said, ripping me out of my thoughts. I wasn’t surprised. Zola was our resident hacker. She was ballsy, intelligent, and stubborn as hell. She always got the job done. “Whoa,” Ryle said.

“What?”