Page 25 of His Sinful Need

“Didn’t catch that?” Max says, touching his earlobe.

“Yeah, yeah. Gloat later.” I tap the comms switch on my earpiece and say, “Listen up everyone, that utility lane is closed off, like Pedretti said. So our only road out is this one. Plan A is the only plan. Everyone got it?”

“Got it,” comes Pony’s reply.

“Van?” I have to prompt.

A moment later, the reply comes, an ungracious, “Yeah.”

“We should walk away,” Max says, once I turn comms off again.

“We’re not walking away. I told you. This’ll be a piece of cake.”

I wish I could take his advice. But if we walk away from this, team morale will take another hit, and Anna-Vittoria might take the Big One away from us. From me. The team is completely committed, and they’re hungry for a win. So even though in the depths of my gut I have a bad feeling that Max could be right, I don’t want to call it off.

I pull over to our designated wait point, and we do what we’re supposed to do there: we wait.

“Eyes on,” Van’s voice comes through a few minutes later. “Here he comes.”

“Max, you good?” I ask, making sure my ski mask is perfectly adjusted before I put the car in gear. We need to time everything just right.

“Always,” he says.

Seconds later, the target comes into view, and it’s go time. All of us move in as it drives under the road overpass, Pony cutting off the road from the front and Van coming up on the driver’s side. To the passenger side, there’s nothing but the brick wall of the overpass.

The driver tries to ram Pony, but the van has been reinforced, just like my Ford, and it rocks, but doesn’t budge. The armored car backs up instead—but it’s too late. I’m right in behind him, blocking him in, and the Ford doesn’t move any more than Pony’s van.

“Go,” I bark out, and we move.

We’re coordinated to the hilt, almost balletic. Van and Rook run up to handle the driver, Van sliding a smoke bomb underneath the chassis of the armored car. It goes off before the driver can even pull his gun, and in seconds the compartment is filling up with smoke—and the back of it will be, too.

Giddy hits the gadget he and Rook and Max worked on to interfere with the back-to-base alarm. It’ll only give us a few extra seconds of time, but they’ll be worth it. And then, just like we planned, the occupants of the armored car are frantically diving out of the vehicle, coughing and choking, trying to get away from the smoke.

Max and I cover the two in the front, ordering them on the ground, hands behind their heads. Van does the same with the guy from the back, while Jazz and Tank—with fitted gas masks in place so they can breathe through the smoke—run out with bags to collect the cash.

It’s all going perfectly. Jazz and Tank are already running back to Pony with bags full of money, three full seconds ahead of schedule.

They dump and head back for the second run—the last run.

“You worry too much,” Rook calls over with a grin at Pedretti.

“Keep your head in the game,” I snap at him.

So far, the driver and his co-guards have stayed cool under pressure, but that’s exactly what worries me. They’retoocool.

That’s when a hail of gunfire erupts from nearby buildings, bullets whizzing past us. I throw myself at Giddy, get him on the ground, and we scramble into a nearby narrow alley. My foot lands on an old half-brick as we go, turning my ankle painfully, but I barely notice in the panic.

All the yelling and cursing over the headset is doing my head in, so I pull it out of my ear a little and grab Giddy, force him to look at me. “You hit?”

He pats himself down. “No. But shit, Bricker—are we gonna die?”

“Not if you do what I tell you.” I wish I believed it as easily as he seems to. But we have to get out, and I don’t plan on leaving anyone behind. “You’re leaving, right now. Go up there—” I point up the alleyway. “Gonow, ditch the shotgun on the way, and look like you’re minding your own business while you walk—walk—to the pickup point for Plan B. Okay?Go.”

Giddy goes.

“Little help,” comes a call. It’s Van.

Van, who, when I look back out around the corner, I can see peering back at me from behind the armored car, pinned down by a sniper.

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