Midnight Heist (Outlaws Book 1)

by Katherine McIntyre

  Alanna’s janitor let out a retching sound, and she careened down with him, extricating herself before he slumped to the ground.

  The last guy standing took a look at the two of them, and his gaze darted for the door.

  No damn way.

  Alanna’s right foot edged forward. They didn’t need any verbal communication to fight in tandem. Alanna’s time in the American Ballet Theatre meant body cues were bible. After years bare-knuckle boxing in the ring, Grif operated the same way.

  The man lifted his pistol to guard himself as he backed away, one pace, then another.

  Alanna launched off from her leading foot, sailing through the air to close the distance. He squeezed the trigger, but the shot flew awry. Grif already prowled to close the distance as the spent bullet thudded into the plaster wall. The man tried to whip his pistol in Grif’s direction—too late.

  Grif ducked low and swept his leg out. His shin collided with the man’s ankles hard enough to reverberate. Alanna descended from above, her arm dropping like an executioner’s blade to chop the side of his neck. Grif’s blow sent him teetering, but Alanna’s strike did the rest of the work. The moment his head bounced against the ground, those eyes glazed over.

  Grif straightened and checked his watch. Ten minutes were up. Scarlet should’ve completed the Ezekiel Protocol by now.

  Alanna wiped her palms on her pants and stared at the five bodies littering the floor in front of them. Under the fluorescent lights, the pools of blood looked brighter than ever.

  “I thought they would’ve given more of a workout,” she commented.

  Grif snorted. “Want to wake one of them up and try again?”

  Before they could turn and walk away, three more janitors rushed through the front door. Heaven and hell.

  Dan and Tuck had already taken off when the Doncaster patrol had arrived—these guys must’ve been waiting in the wings.

  Grif cast Alanna a glance. They’d been too distracted by the squad of hit men to hear the others approach.

  Alanna vaulted forward.

  Grif let out a low curse as fingers leapt to triggers. He leapt behind one of the cubicles, and the first shots fired. One of them grazed his leg, and he winced. Grif settled behind the cubicle before tugging out his own pistol. The hollow throb of pain followed a moment later, but he’d sustained far worse than a graze to the calf. He peered out around the side.

  Alanna had tucked and rolled to the L-shaped front desk and crouched behind it. The fake janitors littered the thick cherrywood with bullets, all of them lunging like a dog to bacon at the first chance to shoot their guns.

  Grif aimed his pistol and fired.

  His bullet tunneled into the throat of the first guy. The moment blood spurted and their fellow hitman dropped, he might as well have screamed “scatter.” They bolted forward, whipping around the desk to where Alanna hid.

  No, no, no.

  Grif bolted forward even though his calf protested, vaulting the distance to the remaining two. Bullets barked before he’d reached three paces forward, and his blood flash froze.

  She couldn’t have ducked out of the way in time.

  A grunt sounded, but Alanna rolled to the far end of the desk before leaping deeper into the maze of cubicles. The breath constricted in his throat.

  Grif closed the rest of the distance.

  The butt of his gun whipped down on the back of the closest guy’s head with a heavy thump. By the time the other two pivoted toward him, he’d already wrapped his arm around one guy’s throat. He squeezed tight, restraining the fucker from lashing out as he kicked forward. His boot connected with the other janitor’s wrist, and the pistol fell from his grasp.

  Alanna ducked in from below, appearing like a wraith as she sliced her knife across his Achilles. The moment the guy let out a gasp of pain, Alanna delivered three strikes—solar plexus, under the chin, and temple.

  Grif tugged his arm tighter until the guy in his grip stopped thrashing. The second those eyes flickered shut, Grif let the guy slump to the floor. Alanna’s target had already joined the others there.

  “Where did you get shot?” Grif asked, his voice a rough scrape as he faced Alanna. She crouched to the ground, tugging out supplies from the utility belt she wore.

  “One of those fuckers grazed me, but I’m still standing,” Alanna muttered, pulling out the patch gauze they all carried in case of emergencies. She lifted her shirt and slapped the bandage on, the sticky outside adhering to her skin.

  “Technically, you’re crouching,” Grif retorted, taking in his first full breath since the guns went off.

  “Ha, you’re hilarious, assface,” Alanna muttered, glancing to the door before she rose again. “Let’s get back to Scar.”

  Alanna pivoted toward the corridor. Grif strode past her, his long legs carrying him further faster. He reached out and grabbed the edge of the doorframe, swinging into Brennerman’s office. Scarlet didn’t bother looking up, deep in the process of pulling off this Hail Mary pass.

  “Did you have fun with your friends?” she asked, her fingers flying across the keyboard. The neon light reflected on her features, illuminating the seriousness in her eyes and the line in her brow as she concentrated. “Just need one more minute, and then we’re aces.”

  “Bushels of fun,” Grif responded. “Alanna, you guard the hallway. Since we’re down our external patrol, I’m going to check out the front of the building.” He knew where the best view in Torres Industries was, because he’d spent time sitting in the waiting room memorizing the details. He loped past Alanna and down the corridor. The moonlight spilled out of the broad window at the end of the hall, and the familiar chairs lined the far wall.

  The lack of response on the other end of the comm unnerved him. He shouldn’t have let Dan run around with Tuck below, even if the guy wanted to help. Now he’d be dodging gunfire with zero field experience to help apart from an assist from Tuck, who’d been slowed by his injury. They’d been patrolling as a precaution—Grif had hoped Doncaster and Kirklees would take a night off—but of course, their luck was fouler than Stickney Wastewater Plant.

  Truth be told, he wished he and Dan had more time in the first place, separate from the heist. The man left a mark on his psyche like a tire iron, and the idea they’d go their separate ways after this twisted in his stomach. After a taste of the criminal life, it was guaranteed the guy would be scared away for good.

  Grif reached the waiting room he’d been in almost a week ago, wearing his suit and a liar’s smile. He strode to the window along the wall and tilted his night vision goggles up on his forehead. By the time he reached the large panes of glass, he’d extracted his foldable binoculars and brought them front and forward.

  A dark van sat along the street side, but a few sedans parked behind it, their hazards blinking. The uniform look of the cars preached mafia elegance, but the people pouring out of them made for a more obvious cue. At least five from each car. They’d infest this place and surround them in mere minutes. That’s if they hadn’t already started infiltrating the building.

  Brennerman’s alarm had worked.

  Nevarra wasn’t just sending a hit team to protect his interests, but an army.

  Grif bolted from the window. He couldn’t feel his feet as he raced down the corridor at top speed. Not like he moved fast enough. They needed to be out of this building five minutes ago. He whipped into Brennerman’s office, Alanna jogging to meet up with him once she caught sight from the end of the hall. The computer screen darkened, and Scarlet stepped out past the desk the moment he appeared in the doorway.

  “Time to head out,” Scarlet said. “We’ve got enough to nail Brennerman for good.”

  “Nevarra’s squads are on their way up,” he said, gripping tight to the doorway.

  Alanna skidded to a halt midstride. “What’s our escape plan?”

  Grif’s mind whirred, but in times like this, where the world turned into a blur and the situation spiraled out of contr
ol, he followed his base instincts, the ones that had gotten him through fights he should’ve died in, the ones that kept him from drowning after his parents died.

  “Follow me.”

  Twenty-Six

  Dan worked out. He went for a daily run and put time in at the gym lifting weights. However, a mere five minutes into this chase, he began to realize how out of shape he was.

  Even with the slight drag to Tuck’s left heel, the man hurtled through these streets like the stray bullets zipping after them. His gaze didn’t falter from the streets and alleys spread out like a maze before them, and barely a sheen of sweat glazed his forehead, his curls whipping around with the breeze. Dan already sweated like the survivor at the end of a horror movie, his shirt glued to his chest as they raced away from the Aon Center and further into the network of thin streets and winding alleys ahead of them.

  He hadn’t been lying when he told Tuck all he could focus on was one step in front of the other.

  This time of night, most of the stores they raced by were closed, vacant, with darkened glass glaring at them. Streetlamps cast their feeble hues onto the asphalt, and the traffic lights flickered through their perpetual cycles as they vaulted by. Dan chanced a glance behind him. Three of Kirklees’s guys raced after them at top speed, and he didn’t miss the moonlight gliding over the pieces they ran with.

  “Front and forward, Torres,” Tuck called from ahead of him. The man’s time in the circus must’ve made him omniscient.

  Dan snapped his attention to the roads ahead of him as they passed a Starbucks and a Nordstrom, the big-ticket places all shut for the night. Tuck’s shoulder twitched, the most instruction he’d get from the guy, and the Outlaw veered to the left into an alley between buildings. The darkness grew stifling here, the stench of garbage spilling out of dumpsters stagnant in the air. His shoulders scraped against the building walls, the tight space causing the breath to catch in his throat, but he didn’t stop running.

  His calves ached, and sweat stung his eyes as they vaulted through the alleyway. With his focus on Tuck alone, his other senses crept to the fore. Beyond the honks and screeches of traffic they’d left behind them, he heard the steady thump of pursuit. Doncaster’s crew hadn’t given up yet.

  “Duck,” Tuck barked.

  Dan’s mind whirled too much to do anything but listen. He hunched down as he continued to hurtle down the alley, which opened into the loading area where the reeking dumpsters lay.

  The whine of a loosed bullet filled the air. The projectile zoomed mere inches above him, close enough to make his bones hum.

  He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t terrified. The sight of the bullet driving into the far wall dosed him with fear he hadn’t felt since he broke his arm at six after falling out of a tree he’d been determined to climb. Yet, an unexpected euphoria followed in the wake, the victory chant of survive, survive, survive.

  Tuck whipped around the corner, and Dan followed. Instead of continuing to the left where the alley dumped into another main street, Tuck bolted for the adjoining alley with a speed reserved for someone who could navigate the city in his sleep.

  Dan’s breaths grew shallower, each inhale scraping against his too-dry throat. Yet the march of those footsteps pounded behind them, and with the way they were outnumbered, he and Tuck couldn’t afford to stop or try and make a stand. He veered down the alley after Tuck, hoping these whiplash turns would help them lose the crew following. The massive buildings glared down on him, the darkness impenetrable here.

  “How far are you from here?” Grif’s voice came over the comm. It had sharpened in the interim. Not for the first time, Dan wished he fought side by side with Grif on this one, rather than running through the alleys and feeling like he was a lifetime away.

  “Near Garrett,” Tuck announced over the comms as he took another hard left. The scent of the popcorn lingered in the air around here, melding with the trash gumming the cracks in the pavement they leapt past. “We’re still hot.”

  Those steps pounded behind them, unceasing, relentless. Any second, they could unload their bullets and Dan would be a goner. The breath caught in his throat as he whipped around another corner at Tuck’s heels.

  “Nevarra’s sent an army in response.” Grif’s words echoed stark in the air.

  Tuck, the man who’d been running like a machine, stumbled.

  Ice trickled through Dan’s veins until he grew colder than a Chicago winter.

  “The getaway car’s parked on Stetson a block away,” Tuck responded, resuming his fast pace as he continued to lead them deeper into the city. “Can you reach it?”

  “They’re infiltrating the building now,” Grif responded, a reaper’s grimness in his tone. The calm emanating from him even now held the finality of a graveyard, the stillness that came with the permanence of death.

  “Blood and bones,” Tuck swore off comm. He flexed his hands out once, twice, but never stopped running.

  Dan was going to be sick. If they didn’t get out, this entire endeavor was for nothing. Brennerman, the mafia—they won. If they didn’t escape now, Dan held no delusions about the six-feet-under state they’d end up in.

  “Is there any way to flush them out?” Leo asked over the comm. “If they interfere with the program we set up, this is all for nothing.”

  Grif’s breaths came in harsh as his comm turned on. Based on the thump-thump-thump, they were running too. “Not that I can see. We’re too hot to attempt a climb this high, and they’ll be swarming the stairs and the elevator.”

  “Head for the emergency exits,” Dan responded, not even questioning if Grif’s crew could disable them. “The one on our floor is the opposite side of the regular stairwell.”

  “Thanks for the reminder, Torres,” Grif responded, his rough, deep tone offering the reassurance he craved right now. The man oozed competence even in the midst of a full-blown siege.

  The alley ahead emptied into a broad street lined by parked cars on either side. Headlights flickered by as the night traffic raced along. Tuck swerved to the right, directing them onto the street. Dan couldn’t do anything at this point but follow. His body moved automatically, his mind sailing so far away he couldn’t connect.

  Leo’s warning stuck with him, slamming around in his head like church bells in full swing.

  They needed a way to flush the mafia out of the Aon Center, to force everyone out before their work was disturbed. Before Nevarra’s men wiped Brennerman’s system and the man continued poisoning his father’s company with his underworld connections. No fucking way. Dan was done. Done with hiding, done with bowing to bad circumstance, and he was done following anyone’s orders.

  Grif and the Outlaws wouldn’t be happy, but this might be the one chance they got.

  Dan whipped out his phone, trying to glance to the glowing screen even as he continued to hurtle after Tuck. They burst onto the street and began a game of dodge-the-pedestrian as they soared over the sidewalk.

  He managed to thumb across the screen and open the app on his phone. He couldn’t focus while he ran like this. Dan glanced to Tuck, a couple of feet ahead of him at his slowed pace. His legs begged him to stop at this point, but he’d already come so far. Even though the pounding of Kirklees and company’s footsteps were drowned out by street noise, he knew without looking they were back there. That they were coming.

  Dan brought his phone up, the screen bouncing so much he couldn’t read a damn word. Not like he needed to. The big red button on the side of the screen begged to be pressed.

  He’d face Grif’s wrath later. He just needed him alive.

  Dan’s thumb wavered as it hovered over the screen. He swallowed hard. Dan pressed the button. The older guy walking toward him bolted out of the way right before he mowed him down. Dan teetered to the side before he slammed his phone back in his pocket and pressured his calves into pushing forward faster.

  Dan tapped the comm in his ear. “I set off the security alert for Torres Industries. Cop
s will be en route, which means you’ve got ten minutes.”

  The second he turned the comm off, he picked up his phone again, his hands shaking with the pounding of his footsteps as he didn’t dare break his stride.

  “Nilo?” Vanessa’s voice came over the other end.

  “I need you to do me a favor, no questions asked.”

  Twenty-Seven

  They’d flirted with screwed, passed fucked beyond measure, and vaulted straight into dead-on-arrival territory.

  Grif raced through the emergency exit door after his quick work with a magnet to disable the electromagnetic sensor. Already, the steady pounding of footsteps echoed from the opposite side of the building, and the ding-ding-ding of the rising elevator hitting floor after floor reverberated through the place. He, Scarlet, and Alanna raced neck and neck down these steps, more like a concrete cattle chute than a staircase, even though they’d be as much of a nightmare as the other steps.

  Ten minutes.

  Ten minutes and the cops would be descending upon this building. The Aon Center would have top-of-the-line alarm systems installed—that sort of shit went off, and the police squads wouldn’t be idling.

  Grif wasn’t sure whether he wanted to curse Dan or kiss him, but the action gave them a definite deadline. Given the fact they’d been slower on the steps and Alanna already nursed a slug to the gut, they couldn’t drop the whole way down from here. They’d have to chance the elevator if they hoped to make it in time.

  Grif raced down the staircase, Alanna following so close she’d almost slammed into him twice now. Scarlet trailed behind, lagging after their strenuous climb. His calves flexed, just beginning to protest. Their footsteps barely made a shummp shummp, but with the way Grif’s senses grew violin-string tense, the reverberations echoed like they stomped the whole way.