Page 113 of The Square

But the Watsons are like family too. They have been around us for several years now. We’ve done jobs together and we played the game of who can steal it better. Sometimes we won, sometimes they won, but the fact is… they’re here. Right now, with us, doing this.

And we’re all here for the same reason.

Some might say we’re all here for Andra. And I guess that’s true. No one wants her to be collateral damage in the shit we do. But that’s not the only reason we’re here. We’re here for each other.

We might never admit it. We might even hate it. But it’s the truth.

So I say, “OK,” and leave it at that. Because we’ve made our way across the lawn and are now on the walkway that leads around the house.

There truly is no one here. No lights on in the mansion, no outside lights on the walkways, no cars in the driveway. No one and nothing moves except us.

I spot Danny, Charlie, and Brenden on the other side, coming in from their neck of the woods.

Charlie and Brenden are clowning around like twin brothers. Jabbing each other, smacking each other, and generally being fucking idiots. They aren’t loud. Not in any real sense of the word. But they are loud in this world of thieves we’re in right now.

They chuckle and joke as we make our way down the dark pathway toward the front of the house. Danny probably wants to murder them. He catches my eye and shakes his head.

Why do you like this asshole?that shake says.

He’s fun, my silent look back replies. And he was there for me.

Which makes Danny sigh as our two groups meet up at the front door.

The front door.

Which is ridiculous.

“Dun. Dunt, dunt, dunt, dun. Dunt. Dun. Dunt. Dun,” sings Brenden as they close the last few yards between us.

“Neener neeer. Neener neer. Neeener neer. Nit net,” adds Charlie.

We all just look at them like… Mission: Impossible song? Really?

Danny’s look says: How the fuck these two idiots are still alive, I’ll never understand.

My look says: I got nothing for that.

Russell slaps them both upside the head and says out loud, “Shut the fuck up.”

Charlie and Brenden try for a look of professional gravity but fail miserably. Charlie says, “Ain’t no one home, mates.”

To which Brenden replies, “Look, the arseholes didn’t even bother locking up.”

We all turn to stare at the door, which is slightly ajar.

“What the hell is happening?” Eliza asks.

“It’s a trap,” Russell says.

“Or,” Charlie adds, “blokes have up and left,” and pushes past us to give the door a shove. “And there ain’t no fucks left to give about security because there ain’t no one here.”

The door opens wide with a creak that seems oddly out of place and creepy as fuck at the same time. Beyond is just a hazy darkness. The outline of a grand staircase. The faint moonlight passing through a long hallway coming from a window on the far side of the house.

And silence.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE - DANNY

Everything about thisplan is wrong and every one of us knows it.