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Camila’s hand was halfway to Rosalie’s pocket before the smaller robber had grabbed her wrist to still her. He thrust a finger in the air, a nonverbalstop, reaching into Rosalie’s pocket himself. He rummaged for only a second before coming up with the inhaler and shoving it into Camila’s palm. Their gazes locked for a fraction of a second, and Camila recognized something not-quite-right about the man’s eyes. She stared—whatwasthat?—but then the larger man’s voice yelling at her to hurry up made her heart smash against her rib cage.
“Okay,” she said, her voice shaking as badly as her hands. But Rosalie needed her help. As a guidance counselor, her office was next to the nurse’s, and she’d done extensive first aid training just in case it was ever needed. Camila had seen enough kids use inhalers to know the basics, so she uncapped the inhaler and lifted it to Rosalie’s mouth, giving her two successive puffs. Rosalie’s breaths slowed a little, a tiny bit of the panic leaving her face, and it would have to be good enough for now.
Camila tucked the inhaler into the woman’s bound hands and turned toward the robbers, ready to make good on her word, if only to get them all out of there alive. She loaded the money in front of her into the bag at her feet, and having a task to focus on, albeit an utterly illegal one, strengthened her resolve.
“I’m done,” she said once the bag was full. The smaller robber hefted the bag from the floor with a soft grunt, nodding at the larger man. Camila’s heart raced. They weresoclose to getting out of here now that all the bags were full.
But before she could check on Rosalie, before she could so much as say a single word, the muscle-bound robber lunged. Something cold and hard smashed against Camila’s skull, pain exploding in a starburst from her temple outward, and her vision shrank until the only thing left was darkness.
5
Roman used all of his strength just to breathe. He’d been on high alert, memorizing everything he could ever since the three assailants had entered the bank and made their intentions clear. This crew was fucking good, though—military-grade gear, precision timing. Not your run-of-the-mill smash and dash, this whole job was clearly well-planned, which meant there was no way these guys were virgins. The point man was scissor-sharp, having moved just far enough behind Roman after sending Camila to the back that Roman couldn’t see him, even though he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the man sawhim. Roman had no way of looking around to gather even the smallest scrap of intel about the man without being noticed. He sure as hell couldn’t gauge where the second man had taken Camila, or guess why they might have needed her.
Fuck. He had to get to Camila. Had to keep her safe.
He couldn’t let her die.
Control the situation, his inner voice commanded, yanking him fully back into the moment. Emotions made people stupid. Made them panic. Got them killed. He needed to come up with a strategy, something rational that would ensure everyone’s safety now. He wasn’t armed—he didn’t make a habit of carrying his weapon unless he was in the field—but it didn’t matter. Getting into a shootout with three heavily armed robbers with a bunch of civilians in the mix would be the highest order of stupid. Once everyone in the bank was safe, he’d be able to lead a team of FBI agents to take these assholes down.
The time would come for these three criminals to end up in jail for the rest of their lives. Right now, Roman was outmanned and outgunned. Acting like a cowboy would only get him—and the innocent people around him—killed.
Not fucking happening. Not today. Not ever.
Roman scraped for an inhale, using the opportunity to mentally review as many facts as he could. There was damn little to go on, which pissed him off. With the point man out of his line of sight, Roman couldn’t gauge anything other than the seconds dropping off the clock, and yeah, he’d been counting. He knew the guy was still there even though he didn’t have eyes on him—there had been no footsteps toward the doorway leading to the back of the bank, and anyway, he was too smart for that. He’d never be so careless as to leave them all unattended. Despite the fact that all three assailants were packing some serious hardware, Roman didn’t get a sense that the point man planned to harm anyone unless he felt he had to. This job was too well-strategized to be a one-off, and a body trail would attract far more attention than they’d want. The best plan was to lay low and let this crew steal the money they’d come for.
At least, for now. After they’d gone?
Roman wasn’t going to rest until all three of them were behind bars.
The preteen girl beside him let out a shaky exhale. She’d calmed a little bit, her cries having turned into hiccupy breaths as her mother had whispered, “it’s okay” over and over in her ear. There was damn little that made Roman’s composure hitch, even for a nanosecond. His fellow agents hadn’t nicknamed him The Iceman for nothing. So the speed with which the girl’s terror had sliced through Roman in that instant when he’d first seen her? Yeah, he’d have to figure out how he’d letthatslip past his defenses later, so he could make sure it never happened again.
He’d recovered quickly, at least, strategically soothing the girl’s panic so the assailants wouldn’t do anything stupid to keep her quiet. And they hadn’t.
Not yet, anyway. The point man might not lean toward violence, but the big guy with him? Yeah, he was a bar fight waiting to happen.
Heavy bootsteps sounded off from behind him, and Roman measured the risk of turning his head for a split second before deciding the assailants would be distracted enough to make the move worth it. The two men who had taken Rosalie and Camila behind the counter and out of sight rushed back into the lobby, making Roman’s pulse escalate. Neither woman was with them, and Roman’s fingers tightened against the back of his head, every instinct he had screaming for him to make sure they were unharmed.
No gunshots, the rational part of his brain reminded sternly. It was a good sign.
Not that his instincts were going to give a shit until he saw Camila, alive and unharmed, with his own two eyes.
The point man shouldered the duffel bag that the larger accomplice had dropped at his feet. The other two men had bags of their own, and Roman’s breath jammed in his lungs as the point man turned toward their group.
“I have control of the video feed of this room. That means I’ll be able to see you after I walk out that door. You will allslowlycount to one hundred before you move. Not doing so isn’t a risk you want to take.”
Pulling a nine millimeter handgun from his hip, he sent a pair of shots at the ceiling to punctuate the threat, the deafeningpop-pop!making everyone other than Roman cry out. With all the patrons paralyzed into place, the group turned toward the door and fell out, gone as quickly as they’d appeared.
Roman was moving before the door had fully shut.
“Is anyone hurt?” he asked, jumping to his feet and scanning the patrons, his gaze lingering for an extra beat on the preteen and her mother, both of whom shook their heads.Thank fuck. “See if your cell phone works,” he barked at the bank manager who had been working alongside Rosalie. “If it doesn’t, use a landline to call nine-one-one and tell them there’s been a bank robbery and the three assailants are armed and on the run.”
“B-but he said—”
Roman shook his head, already at the door leading to the back of the bank. “He said it to scare you. He needs the lead time to get away. He’s too smart to risk coming back. Tell the nine-one-one operator that FBI Agent Kai Roman is on-scene.Go. And you”—he turned toward the middle-aged man who had been on the opposite side of the bank when the robbers had arrived—“come with me. Everyone else, stay here until the police arrive.”
Dropping his credentials seemed to do the trick, giving the manager and the other man the reassurance to take action. The man moved toward Roman as Roman moved toward the door to the back of the bank. He ran down the main hallway, sweeping every space he passed for Camila and Rosalie, coming up empty until he reached an open vault door. His heart launched against his sternum—she cannot be dead, she cannot be dead—but he didn’t hesitate to run past the threshold.
The first thing he saw was Camila crumpled in a heap on the floor.
