Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
I’d spent the better part of a year planning this job, researching, schmoozing the right employees, waiting for the right opportunity.
All to have it fall apart because I got my wallet lifted.
“Can I ask something?”
“Yeah,” I said, turning to look at her since there was no activity at the warehouse yet.
“If you know who you were working with, why isn’t someone coughing up blood somewhere yet?”
“Because neither of them fit the description you gave me. I want to see if you spot him here before I start knocking heads. There’s a chance they weren’t to blame. I don’t take joy in hurting people if it’s not necessary.”
“So that thing about the mob having morals is true?”
“To an extent, yeah.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning we will do anything necessary, up to and including some gnarly torture,” I told her, thinking of Brio and the stories of his little ‘adventures,’ “to defend what and who is ours. But we don’t hurt women and kids. We try not to hurt anyone who is innocent. We might be wise guys, but we’re not bad men.”
“And you also don’t want to fuck up any insider you have at a place like this, in case your heist is never found out.”
“There’s that too, yeah,” I admitted. The mob was nothing if not greedy for more well-paying jobs.
“What happens if I don’t see him today?”
“We come back tomorrow for the night shift. Figure we’ll be miserable enough being here all day. Better to split it up. If you don’t see him then, it’s time to go make some visits.”
“While we’re still in this area?”
“Don’t worry. That’s not the kind of shit I’d bring you in on.”
“Why not? I think I might enjoy watching the bastard who fucked up my face get his equally as messed up. Oh, here we go,” she said, leaning forward toward the dash as the first car pulled into the lot.
It was a slow trickle. The ones who showed up twenty minutes before their shifts just to sit in their cars and mentally prepare for their days only climbed out when it was five minutes to opening. The vast majority of the employees showed up with little to no time to spare. And a few were late.
Max fell back in her seat, sighing. Frustrated.
“There are others who come in later,” I told her, trying not to be frustrated too.
Sure, I’d shown her a bunch of the employees whose pictures I’d found on the website, but there were a lot of other random people who apparently didn’t warrant a headshot on the website. The people in logistics, janitorial, security, drivers, etc.
This was a reasonably large operation. That was the only reason I’d been able to pull off the job I had.
“Okay,” Max said, rustling around in the snack bag to pull out a bag of Twizzlers. “So, tell me the job. And don’t try to tell me it’s secret or some shit like that. I’m not going to try to rob a diamond warehouse.”
That was fair. If she wanted to, she clearly would have had the skills to do it. And we were already so deep in this together, what were a few more details?
“Part one involved making two contacts inside the building. One, an IT tech.”
“Who could fuck with the cameras to hide the heist.”
“Yep,” I agreed, loving how sharp she was. “The other was someone with access to the diamonds.”
“To grab them.”
“To switch them,” I corrected.
“With what? Zirconia?
“Moissanite,” I corrected. “It’s slightly more expensive but it’s also more convincing. It does fade over time to be less of a dupe, but I only needed it to pass a quick glance-over inspection in case schedules ended up differently than we planned.”
“So, the person with access to the real diamonds just brought in the fakes, swapped them out, and brought them to you?”
“That’s about the gist of it, yeah.”
“Why, though? If they were capable of doing it, why not just do it themselves?”
“Obviously, the IT guy couldn’t do it himself. And the other contact couldn’t do it without the IT guy and the fakes. That was where I came in. They got paid in advance with strict instructions not to make any big purchases in case the heat started.”
“And you’re not only out the diamonds, but the advance you paid out to those guys.”
“Yeah.”
“Shit. You’re not at risk of, like, losing your apartment, are you?”
“Nah. Things will shake out. If I can’t recover them, I’ll just be busting my ass more than ever this year to try to recoup the loss.”
“Want a Twizzler?” she asked, flicking one toward my face.
“They taste like cherry plastic.”
“They’re strawberry,” she told me, taking it back and nipping a bite off of it. “I’m not judging you and your boring-ass protein bars.”
“They might actually keep me full while stuck here for hours.”
“You underestimate how little I can survive on,” Max said, making my heart sink at the reality behind those words.