Midnight Heist (Outlaws Book 1)

by Katherine McIntyre

  Leo spread his palms over the table. “We need to talk about Neo-National.”

  Fifteen

  By the time Grif and his Outlaws sorted through the files Scarlet had isolated from the hard lines at Torres Industries, a few things had been clarified.

  Dan Torres had no involvement in anything shady, based on his computer history, which Grif felt a significant amount of relief about. If anything, the man seemed as dedicated as they were to stomping out that sort of corruption.

  Phil Brennerman, the CFO, was who they needed to target. Every discrepancy when traced to the source had been managed by him, and if anyone in the building held the rest of the incriminating files, he did. Only problem was that while the computers were connected via intranet, most of the higher-ups had private servers under the sorts of firewalls that would require an in-person extraction of the data.

  According to the notes Dan kept on his computer, Phil Brennerman’s office had a high-tech safe in it which his father had told him to leave alone. Scarlet had peered into the man’s office, enough to catch a glimpse of the make and model. They had their target.

  Grif had stared at so many screens and reports today, he’d smoked through a pack and was ready to break the seal on another. No matter how many times he tried to close the tabs his mind kept opening on Dan, all he could think about was the way he ducked his head when he blushed, far too often, and how somehow, those gentle eyes pierced right through his defenses. Not like Grif could keep anything that pure in his life anyway. Everyone who entered his periphery ended up hurt or dead, and only his stubborn-as-fuck Outlaws clung on despite the odds.

  “Tuck, you better not slow me down,” Alanna called to him from the couch. They all sat in the living room, Alanna draped on the cushions like a starfish. Tuck hunkered down on the floor with his busted leg up on a pillow, and Scarlet curled into a chair with his laptop. John walked in and out of the room, too restless to do much else, with a frequency that made his skin vibrate. Grif’s ass had started to ache from sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table for far too long.

  “If you can’t do this job, sit out,” Grif warned. “Better to have one man less on the field than a hindrance.”

  “Anyone ever tell you your bedside manner is pure honey?” Tuck responded, casting him a half-lidded look. “Because it’s not.” Even so, Tuck’s gaze softened, because he understood. Grif wouldn’t put any of them in danger he didn’t believe they could walk out from. His Outlaws were more precious than any take.

  “What are you talking about?” John drawled, his eyes twinkling. “Our boss is all dulcet tones and sweet whispers. To our marks, at least.”

  For fuck’s sake. They wouldn’t be giving this one up any time in the next century. And Dan hadn’t texted him all day, which shouldn’t have sat like battery acid in his stomach. Grif pushed up from the coffee table, his limbs creaking with the effort. His hand slipped to his phone, but nothing new.

  The last text was the one from Luka the night before, a puzzle he had yet to sit and solve in full.

  He’d figured out the first piece—he met Luka back in his fighting ring days. On the ropes meant cornered on the defensive. Luka’s excuse at least.

  “Instead of sticking your noses into my illustrious sex life, I’ve got a better riddle for you,” Grif said, pacing across the tan carpet.

  Alanna threw a middle finger up. “Fuck riddles. They’re stupid.”

  “Astonishingly helpful, darling,” Grif drawled as he strode over to the window to catch a glimpse of the city. Already, the sun reached an apex, the midday blaze gilding the towers of concrete and steel. Scarlet slid forward in his seat, adjusting his glasses at the mention of a riddle. “Luka sent me a coded message last night. He got backed into a corner, which is why the fucker sold our job out, but I’m stuck on Eagle and 1935.”

  Except the date niggled in the back of his mind like a missed meal. They both had to be relevant things, but his brain kept skipping over the missing thought.

  “We can rule out the Roman Empire,” John drawled. “Don’t take Luka for much of a buff. It’s got to be underground related.”

  “1935,” Scarlet said, his voice echoing around the room. “I saw that on a file recently—within the last month. I just can’t place the date.”

  Grif gripped onto the window ledge and stared out the window. The blue skies mocked him as he spun worn tires in the mud over what should’ve been simple. If Scarlet remembered the number from the past month, chances were, it came from a job, one they’d gotten from Luka.

  1935, 1935. Luka wouldn’t be referring to the crash of the USS Macon, or the New Deal. Had they stolen any artifacts in the past month?

  Or failed to steal.

  “The Sunset Ruby,” Grif said, the words leaping from his lips. “He was trying to tell us something about the last mission. If he wasn’t attempting to make amends, Luka would’ve never responded.”

  “Well now, I’m all ears for some new information,” Scarlet said, running a hand through his dark hair. “I’ve been trying to trace everything related to the case, and it’s all locked up tight.”

  “Don’t suppose it’s coincidence Marco Nevarra used to be a part of the Crimson Eagles,” Tuck commented, his voice light like the mention wasn’t a locked and loaded bullet.

  Because of course Marco Nevarra had been the one who screwed them in the Sunset Ruby heist. But they couldn’t prove their innocence for shit, and the Chicago mafia would utilize every tool in their workman’s belt in the process. If he didn’t pay up, one by one his Outlaws would be left floating in the Chicago River.

  “And we still owe that fucker money, even after he set us up?” Alanna asked, kicking the end of the couch. “I knew the bastard was a turncoat.”

  Grif swallowed hard, his nails digging into the window ledge. He wished he could offer up some magic solution, that he had a quick fix to nail a “screw you” to Nevarra’s skull. However, they couldn’t afford to make a public enemy of the Chicago mafia, not if they wanted to stay upright and breathing the sludge they called air around here. No matter what underhanded shit Nevarra had pulled, at the end of the day, the Outlaws owed money.

  Their debt would be paid, or blood would be shed.

  John let out a low whistle. “Did I miss the point where we got cursed or jinxed? Because damn.”

  “Curse of the Sunset Ruby,” Scarlet responded, his tone gentle compared to the acid-wash of the others. “Obviously we blame this mess on the old artifact.”

  A genuine grin slipped to Grif’s lips as he met his eyes. “Definitely the Sunset Ruby’s fault. Look, I’m not going to lie to you guys—this situation’s miserable.” He could feel their gazes press on him, each of his Outlaws paying rapt attention to the garbage he spewed. But leading didn’t revolve around believing in himself, it meant believing in the people he surrounded himself with—and his Outlaws were the best.

  “Our backs are to the mats, and there’s a KO punch speeding our way,” he continued. “But the Torres Industries job is lined up and ready to go off in days, and we put in the steps, did the work. We’ll get the payday and never do a job for Marco Nevarra again. And if Doncaster or Kirklees shows up, we’ll shoot them in the fucking face.”

  “If it wasn’t a little dangerous, this wouldn’t be any fun.” A feline grin rose on Alanna’s lips.

  “Hear, hear,” Tuck said, saluting with his mug of coffee.

  “Let’s rob the reaper another day, Outlaws,” Grif called to them, the thump, thump, thump of his heartbeat rising. Alanna let out a hoot and John a loud whistle. Every member of his crew stared back at him, unwavering. A deadly quiet settled over them, the slow, sinuous thrum in the air, the sting of the breeze, and that fresh hit of ozone before the lightning struck. All of this could blow up in their faces.

  They’d keep fighting anyway.

  The buzz of Grif’s phone sliced through the hush.

  Sixteen

  “What about Neo-National?”


  Dan might as well have been sitting in a Tilt-A-Whirl with the way the room started spinning. He sucked in a sharp breath to focus on Leo, who closed the office door behind them.

  Leo wouldn’t stop pacing, and the shup-shup-shup of his shoes to carpet drove him nuts. Dan wanted to stick his foot out to trip the guy just to get him to quit it. But with the way the exhaustion barrel-rolled into him, the most he could manage was a tap to his desk to get Leo to look front and center.

  “You asked me to work my brand of magic on the acquisitions,” Leo started. If Dan hadn’t already been feeling queasy, that would’ve slammed the nausea right into him. “And I started noticing some familiar patterns with the Neo-National account—the way they were set up kept pinging my radar, so I delved into the website development and started hacking into their databases. A certain signature was marked all over it, one I recognized.”

  Leo stopped pacing and jammed his hands into his pockets. “It doesn’t hurt I’ve been a fan of Scarlet’s finesse in hacking for years, so I’ve dissected their patterns and style for ages. In fact, I consider Scarlet’s work a big influence on my own.”

  Dan’s eyebrows drew together. “So, you’re saying someone hacked into their files?” He’d wasted all his brainpower on the meeting, and Leo kept rambling, which made drawing sense from his statements like plucking strands from a carpet.

  “Here, move out of the way,” Leo said, stalking behind the desk and crouching in front of Dan’s computer. Leo’s fingers flew across the keyboard, the clack, clack, clack of the keys the sole sound in the room. He’d already started entering in code, turning Dan’s console into an unfamiliar landscape. “So,” Leo continued, the glare of the screen reflected on his glasses. “Remember how I installed a keylogger on your computer? A day ago, either you developed advanced computing skills and dove into some deep company files, or someone else was hacking into your computer.”

  Brennerman and Len had been skulking around that day, but he didn’t think the two of them possessed a scrap of computer knowledge between them.

  Leo let out an annoyed hiss as he shot Dan a look. “Are you still not connecting the dots?”

  “Not when you’re leveling a bunch of hacker babble at me,” Dan shot back. He didn’t even have the energy to get defensive, since Leo was the one person in this company who hadn’t screwed him over.

  Leo rifled a hand through his chestnut hair and let out a sigh. “So, like I was saying, each hacker has a signature style. And Scarlet’s code, their footprint, stomped all over your computer, deep digs into the financials of our company. The time stamp can’t be a coincidence, because it was the same time as your meeting with Neo-National.”

  Dan hadn’t wanted to go there. The moment Leo said there was a problem with Neo-National, he’d felt a tickle in the back of his brain, like half a refrain of a song he once knew. Like maybe he’d always known something didn’t feel right. Yet when Greg had entered the room, Dan’s sense and reason didn’t just saunter out the door—it bolted. Hell, if last week someone had told him he’d lock lips with anyone in the boardroom, he’d call them insane.

  Yet he had. Greg Locksley hadn’t just been a dropped bomb of lust and pheromones. He had been the first guy to cause the broken tinder in his chest to spark after too many lonely nights and failed dates.

  Dan might make bad decisions. He might bend when he should stand tall, like he had done too, too many times. But he’d always been able to read people, a little too well. The first night together at their date, he’d seen something real in those eyes, a conviction that gave him hope.

  Leo straightened. “What I’m trying to tell you is that Neo-National doesn’t exist. A pro hacker fabricated the company, and the average corporation would get hoodwinked and never know the difference. But they dug into some top-secret company stuff. They also happened to be in the same rabbit hole we’ve been diving down, all revolving around our favorite CFO.”

  Dan’s mind roared.

  The ground abandoned him—he may as well not even be sitting with the way he tipped down, down, down. Fuck, he’d been chasing after Brennerman for bringing shady people into the company, and he’d been no better. Dan prided himself on integrity, yet he’d welcomed con men in with open arms.

  Leo leaned against the side of the desk and crossed his arms, looking like an Ent from Lord of the Rings with his long, lean limbs. The man’s blue eyes filled with clouds as he stared into the wall behind them, his lips pursed like he ran through equations.

  Meanwhile, Dan attempted to gasp for breath, a burnt-plastic scent gripping the back of his throat and the loathing threatening to drag him under.

  Leo cast him a glance. “So, what do you want to do, boss?”

  The question hung in the air between them. Dan forced himself to take another breath. Even as his mind screamed, as his soul rioted, as his hopes crashed and burned into wreckage, he forced himself to process the facts. Pretend. Pretend these were equations he dealt with in his engineering days, not the purgatory of corporate dealings he’d gotten thrust into.

  Neo-National didn’t exist, and if they were hacking into their databases, they probably searched for a way to sabotage Torres Industries. Whether a rival company hired these guys or they were independent operators, they were more dangerous than a blown engine. Problem was, even if he increased security, Greg and John had already gotten files from them. Who knew what information they had access to?

  Dan scrolled through his phone, the mere sight of Greg’s flirty texts driving a stake right through his heart.

  The texts.

  “Leo.” Dan looked up. “How difficult is it to trace a text?”

  “Whose?” Leo asked, snagging the phone.

  “Greg Locksley,” Dan responded, even as he cringed at the idea of Leo skimming over the X-rated texts they’d sent. How stupid had he been, to believe the guy might be interested in him?

  Leo took on that hyper focused look as he pulled his personal laptop from the briefcase he always lugged around with him. Once the screen booted on, Leo punched a couple of things into his keyboard before switching to Dan’s phone.

  “What you’re asking is child’s play. The cops can trace regular phones in thirty damn seconds, and even if this guy is using a burner, the GPS can’t be so readily disabled. You want location, right? Are you thinking of tracking this guy down?” The edge in his voice was warranted—if these guys were a big enough setup to pull this level of subterfuge, chances were, the shit they were involved in was darker than a citywide power outage.

  Dan didn’t know what he wanted though. Whether he would track them down and bring them to justice or look Greg in the eyes and ask why.

  “If we can narrow down a location, it might be leverage enough for a meetup. I’ll make the situation right, somehow.” The words tumbled from his lips even though he strode forward in the dark, fumbling for any path to follow.

  Leo brought his laptop onto Dan’s desk, and Dan pushed himself up from the chair to give the guy full access. Even though his legs wobbled and he still couldn’t feel the floor beneath him, Dan somehow managed to stay upright. Leo slid into the spot and began typing away.

  He started to pace, even though the numbness had filtered through his limbs like morphine without the relief. Back and forth, back and forth across the floor while Leo zoned in on his hacker work. The screen gleamed against his glasses as that intense look overtook him that meant he was fully immersed. Dan almost didn’t want to look on the off chance that this pitch went wild. That Leo wasn’t able to find what he said he could.

  He wasn’t sure if minutes passed or hours before Leo looked up from his laptop and gestured him over. “I’m closing in on the location of the texts.”

  Dan leaned over his shoulder, trying to ignore the way his mind screamed. Leo pulled up a map, and multiple coordinates cropped up at once. Most were scattered throughout town, all public areas, but many clustered in another spot, a private residence.

  “On the P
ark is a building of luxury penthouses,” Leo mused. “Good security, private place.”

  “Meaning he may have texted me from his home base,” Dan responded, the words not sinking in past his skin. He’d grown so numb, someone could throw him through a woodchipper and he wouldn’t feel the blades.

  “Fool move on his part,” Leo responded. “What do you want to do with the information, Danny?” His friend had been focusing hard on the computer screen, so when he whipped toward him, those cerulean eyes landing on him, Dan took a step back. Leo’s gaze softened, and he reached out to squeeze Dan’s hand.

  He could barely feel the touch. Everything swirled around louder and louder until the temptation to crash through the window and embrace oblivion beckoned with too strong a lure. Dan tried to swallow, but his mouth had grown dry.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Leo said, casting an awkward glance to the table. “I know it’s been awhile since you trusted anyone… like that.”

  Dan offered a shrug, as if that could communicate the depth of how he hadn’t just tripped today, he’d plummeted. “What can we do? All I’ve got is this information, potentially blood on this company’s hands, and zero people I can trust.”

  Leo met his eyes and nodded, the understanding a current there. He was the exception—their friendship had become “hide a body” solid over the years. “Whatever you choose, I’ll stick by you.”

  Dan sucked in a shaky breath, as if he might stand a chance at clearing his head.

  He could let go. Let Brennerman win, let Neo-National do whatever nightmare they attempted, and go along for the miserable ride. Fuck, he hated caring. He hated the fact that at the end of the day, he gave a damn about the corruption his name got tied to. He hated that even though he was pissed at his father and Vanessa right now, he didn’t want to ruin them either.