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Reece
Istep through the row of pine trees, their thick boughs keeping me cloaked in shadows from the glare of the round, orange moon overhead. After a glance in both directions, I take off up the long driveway, my shoes soundless against the black asphalt as I stick close to the edge.
At least this driveway’s paved. Last job’s was gravel, which made me have to go a hell of a lot slower in order to remain silent. I felt like a motherfucking sloth, half-expecting moss to be forming on my skin by the time I reached the house.
This job will be easier, faster, and smoother.
Should be.
Better fucking be.
I’ve been casing this place for a few days, and the security is nonexistent. With no front gate, no fencing, no dog, no cameras, no security system, there’s nothing to ward off intruders at all, not even an exterior motion-activated spotlight.
This mark’s definitely cocky. Stupid too. Kinda explains why someone made the order on him. He probably deserves what’s coming to him.
Cresting the hill, the massive white Colonial comes into view, so I pull my balaclava down over my face until only my eyes are visible.
Approaching the three-car garage, I slow my steps along the window to confirm both the hundred-thousand-dollar ebony Range Rover Sport and three-hundred-thousand-dollar pearl Porsche 911 GT2 RS are inside. Parked side by side, the two look like total opposites. Not only is this garage also lacking a single measure of security, but it’s got glass windows practically begging to be broken.So motherfucking cocky.
Shit like this tells me this mark’s never had to work hard for what he has. Work? Yeah, I’m sure he works a lot, but not hard. There’s no way he workshard. If he did, he’d value what he has a little more. I’ve seen places that cost a tenth of what one of these cars is worth that had more safeguards than this entire house does.
Thanks to both vehicles having blacked-out windows, I wasn’t able to see who drives either, but based off the intel given to me, one’s for the mark, while the other’s for the wife I was instructed not to go anywhere near.
I’m not sure why my boss would have any information regarding the mark’s wife and I didn’t make the mistake of asking. When given my next assignment, I usually get an address and a timeframe to have the goods to him by; that’s it. The rest is up to me to figure out.
Whoever hired Cyrus for this job though, knows the mark well because he had a couple more details for me. Along with the warning about the wife, he also told me which door to use as well as a general route to the laptop I’m here to steal.
Shit, the mark himself could’ve hired Cyrus. Or the mark’s wife. This is Fox Hollow; crazier shit happens here. Daily.
Crouching down in front of the door by the garage, I set my lock-picking kit on the ground and unroll it.
I wasn’t always this prepared, this…professional. Back when I was somehow getting by on sheer dumb luck rather than skill, I used to break locks to get into places. But that was before I knew anything about this world.
Before it became mine.
It’s not that I chose this life in particular, it’s that I didn’t have any other choice. I was a delinquent as a teenager, but I didn’t get in trouble for the petty crimes I committed. Mostly because I never got caught.
My dad, on the other hand… While he didn’t get caught for his bad deeds either, they did catch up to him. And instead of facing up to his mistakes, he took his own life, putting the full weight of his sins on the rest of our family’s shoulders.
Unbeknownst to me, my mom, and my twin sisters, Silvino Souza had a huge gambling problem, the kind that ruins lives. His secret gambling addiction ruined our fucking lives, and now I’m stuck working for the man who took on every bet my father made, even the one for the deed to our family’s business, Silvy’s Flower Shop. My dad had used his life’s work, my parents’ only source of income, as collateral on a bet, and lost. He lost it to Fox Hollow’s crime lord, Cyrus Andeno, who wasted no time coming to collect. The day Cyrus showed up at Silvy’s was the day I lost my father, along with any respect I ever had for him. Promising Cyrus he’d make things right, my dad ran to the back office, shut and locked the door, then blew his brains out using a handgun none of us knew he had.
Sometimes, when I’m in Silvy’s, I swear I can still hear the gunshot followed by the thud of my father’s lifeless body hitting the floor. They were the last sounds I heard from my old life.
My mother’s piercing scream cut off by Cyrus’s obnoxious fucking cackle were the first sounds marking this life—my current life.
Those days I was made up of two-thirds stupidity and one-third arrogance. At nineteen, I was young, dumb, and reckless as all hell. Cyrus was perceptive and calculated, his men strapped and ruthless. I didn’t stand a chance against any of them and I definitely didn’t have money to hand over. I barely made anything working part-time for my parents. It’s one of the reasons I stole shit. The other being I love the thrill of it. But I was small time and so was everybody I ran with. Nobody I knew back then had the kind of change Cyrus expected. That’s why when he turned to me and my mom, wanting what he was owed, I stepped forward before she could. I know exactly how Cyrus would have my mom—or worse, my younger sisters—pay it off.
I volunteered, thinking it’d be a short-term situation, but I quickly learned it was more of a life sentence. While I was scrubbing pieces of my dad’s head off every inch of his office, I found bank statements that were red long before his blood ever spattered them, so when Cyrus took ownership of Silvy’s Flower Shop, he also took on the debt. He paid it off, adding it to my newly acquired tab, and started shaving a hefty fee off the top of my mom’s monthly earnings, calling it “rent.” I’ve been pulling jobs like tonight’s for Cyrus ever since. That was six years ago, and so far, the debt still isn’t cleared.
With it being late October, the cold’s already settled in, eliminating the wildlife’s summertime lullabies, so it’s quiet out here except for what I’m assuming is a squirrel making its way up a nearby tree. I hold my position until the rodent stops, blanketing the night in silence once again, then press my ear to the door, listening for any movement inside.
Nothing.
Using the two towels draped on the back of my neck, I wrap each around a shoe, making sure the soles are completely covered before securing the tops in place with a couple pieces of cord. After determining which size lock pick I need, I set my lock wrench by my feet and return my ear to the door, this time right next to the knob. I work the lock pick in the keyhole until I hear each tumbler click, then slide in the lock wrench to hold them in place while twisting the knob. Holding my breath, I slowly crack open the door. Whether Cyrus’s client is inside or not, I’m not risking getting caught. I’ve never been to jail and I’m not about to get sent there over a fucking laptop.
I may not be triggering an alarm right now, but that doesn’t mean everyone inside is asleep, so I keep my hearing sharp, listening for any noise as I carefully replace my tools in my kit and wrap it back up. It’s two o’clock in the morning, so everybody should be knocked out, but…you never know. So many people get up several times a night either because they’re thirsty or they have bladders the size of hamsters.
There’s always the horny yet boring fuckers, too. Some couples only have sex under the covers of their warm beds in the dead of night where no one will ever hear or see them. Luckily, those sessions don’t last long. Cowards never do.
