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They would all get out of this alive. Theywould.
They had to.
Wanting to keep her wits about her, Camila furtively turned her attention to the leader, who stood about ten paces away. Although it was a little difficult to tell from her vantage point on the floor, he looked to be about average height for a man—six feet, but no more. Like the other two robbers, he was dressed in all black, including gloves. The tactical mask covered his whole face, leaving only the smallest openings for his eyes, so there was no guessing what he looked like, even in a general sense. She studied him carefully, her fingers itching for the sketchbook and pencils that were in her bag even though the regular details, like hair and skin and eye color weren’t available to draw. Still, she could get him on the page. The line of his shoulders pulled tight beneath his gear. The texture of the mask over his face. The knot of his hands, firm over the weapon in his grasp.
He stood at perfect attention, carefully dividing his stare between the door the others had gone through and the group of patrons on the floor. Where the larger robber had a menacing, almost impulsive air about him, the leader had been perfectly calm this whole time. Which was kind of weird, actually, since he was robbing a bank at freaking gunpoint. Shouldn’t he be chock-full of adrenaline, like the rest of them?
Camila’s mind snagged on that thought in the same instant she realized the man was looking right back at her, and a fresh wave of fear burst through her chest. But in that same moment, the smaller robber rushed back in from behind the counter, whispering to the leader in harsh bursts. His body language was nine kinds of agitated, as if something were very wrong, and worry unfolded in Camila’s gut.
That worry became a pop of terror as the leader walked over to her. “Get up. Just you,” he added, his hand steady on his weapon to send the point home.
Panic logjammed in her throat, but she swallowed past it. She could do this. She might not be a badass detective like her older brother, or even an icy FBI agent like Roman, but she could stay calm and do whatever it took to get these robbers out the door before they hurt anyone.
Camila shifted, slowly moving one hand to the floor to push herself to kneeling. Roman, who had turned his head in her direction at the sound of the leader’s voice so close by, hissed out a protest.
“I’m stronger than she is,” he said, and weird how that one stung. “She won’t be as much help to you as I will, and you’re already behind. Send me instead.”
The leader didn’t budge. “No. You’ll stay where I can see you.”
“But—”
Camila cut Roman off before the leader could get any ideas on how to shut him up a different way. “It’s fine. I can do it.”
She found her feet as quickly as she could, but the leader stood in her path. “What’s your name?”
Of all the things he could have asked her, she’d expected that the least. “Camila,” she said, trying to infuse her voice with confidence she was one hundred percent faking.
“Camila what?”
Confusion replaced her fear for a fraction of a second. “Camila Garza.”
“Do exactly what’s asked of you, Camila Garza, or you won’t get the happy ending you’re hoping for.”
Camila blocked out the half dozen images the man’s words had conjured up—don’t think about bullets, don’t think about bodies or blood—and followed the smaller robber to the door leading to the back of the bank. They moved down a hallway, through another door with keypad access that had been propped open, heading further into the depths of the building before they reached an open vault door.
“Holy shit,” Camila breathed. She’d never seen a God’s-honest bank vault before. The interior space was smaller than she’d expected, but the massive door—and all the intricate mechanisms that normally held it closed—might as well have been torn straight out of a movie. Dread pooled in Camila’s stomach as she registered the sight of Rosalie slumped against the near wall, her hands zip-tied in front of her and her breath arriving in ragged, sawed-off gasps. Oh, my God, had theyshother? Wait, no. Surely, they would have heard a gunshot, and, okay, yeah, the woman wasn’t bleeding. But there was definitely something wrong with her. Not that the larger robber seemed to really notice. He stood a few feet away, busily stuffing money into a duffel bag. At the sound of her arrival, he turned to thrust his gun at Camila, gesturing her into the vault.
“You,” the man grunted, his voice a perfect match for his rough demeanor. “Pack.”
Camila saw the additional pair of duffel bags, still empty, at his feet. The survival center in her brain told her feet to move and her hands to comply. The sooner these criminals got what they’d come for, the faster this would be over, with everyone safe and sound. But Rosalie was half-conscious at best, which had clearly messed with their plan to have her help pack the extra bag after she’d opened the vault. She let out a weak cough, dry as sand, followed by a series of rapid wheezes, and realization clicked into place in Camila’s mind.
“I think Rosalie is having an asthma attack,” she said, her stomach dipping when Rosalie nodded. Well, that explained why the poor woman couldn’t breathe.
The robber snorted, his hands not slowing. “I don’t give a fuck.Pack.”
The smaller robber sprang to action, opening one of the empty bags and starting to stuff it with the stacks of cash lining the shelf in front of them.
But Camila saw the stark terror in Rosalie’s eyes, and she didn’t think. Just said, “You’ll give a fuck if she dies, right?”
The larger man stepped toward her, sending her heart crashing against her rib cage. “I’ll help you,” Camila blurted, holding her hands up in a show of good faith. “But this whole thing will be less messy for you without a body. Let me help her first.”
The man’s body language screamed “no”, but the smaller robber huffed in frustration, making the big guy say, “You have twenty seconds, and Iamcounting. Fuck around and I’ll kill you both.”
He nodded to the smaller robber, who turned to keep his eyes on Camila. She knelt down next to Rosalie, squeezing her hand in what she hoped was reassurance.
“It’s going to be okay. Do you have an inhaler?”
Rosalie nodded weakly, her eyes dropping to the pocket of her suit jacket.Thank God. “Okay, that’s great. I’m just going to—”
