They wound down one floor, then another.
That’s when he caught the rat-a-tat-tat of footsteps to concrete steps below them, reverberating like gunfire.
Of course. Nevarra’s men were storming the emergency exits too. Unlike his Outlaws, Nevarra had his “janitors” familiarity with the building to tap into.
“We need to chance the elevator,” Grif called out, a bit breathless. He hated the idea of being enclosed in those murder boxes even for a couple of floors, but they needed to get down, fast. He glanced to his watch. Nine minutes left. They’d already reached the fortieth floor. Time to take the risk.
Grif skidded to a halt and grabbed for the door at the landing, his slick fingers almost gliding right off. He snagged his magnet to deactivate this one as well. The footsteps from below grew louder by the second. He plunged through the doorway, the scent of bleach and orange polish intensified on this level. The fortieth floor remained as dark as the rest of them, the silver moonlight reflected on the polished floors like a portal to another realm.
They couldn’t waste time creeping around, not when their window of escape was creaking shut.
The clip of footsteps echoed from both stairwells, a steady whup-whup-whup like an oscillating fan. He prayed the ascending crews weren’t doing sweeps through the floors. He crept toward the opposite side of the atrium where the elevators parked right next to the door for the regular stairwell. Everything about the lack of control involving elevators made his throat dry, but they’d run out of options.
He strode across the polished marble floors, passing the void entrance to another business. At this point, any remaining security guards would be heading for Torres Industries and hopefully leaving them the fuck alone, or they’d be incapacitated by Nevarra’s men. The elevators beckoned at the end of the atrium, neon numbers ticking by in the overhead screens. Doubtless, Nevarra had already sent swarms of his men up to Torres Industries. The footsteps grew louder and louder from the stairwell, as if an army of thousands prepared to descend.
“Your boy toy apparently likes to flirt with danger as much as you do,” Alanna muttered under her breath. A smile ghosted Grif’s lips. The move had been ballsy, that was for sure.
The next eight minutes would tell if they’d survive to rob the reaper another day.
He lunged for the elevator button, the down arrow blinking to life. Grif rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, needing to move, move, move. His gaze flickered to the door mere feet from them. The window in the center would give anyone inside a view that they needed to stay out of. And the footsteps grew louder.
The numbers ticked away on the screen above the elevator to the right, zooming their way. Not fast enough. Nevarra’s men could be waiting to ambush them on the ground floor, which was why they needed to get off earlier.
Alanna planted herself in front of the elevator and jabbed at the line between the doors. Scarlet leaned against the wall, her gaze focused on those lights as her chest rose and fell with serrated breaths. Grif’s eyes kept flicking to the stairwell door on the off-chance it creaked open.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Those footsteps were so loud.
A man dodged past the stairwell door, and the breath caught in Grif’s throat. The elevator was a few floors away.
Another guy flashed past the window, but this one stopped.
A pair of eyes stared at them from the opposite side of the glass.
The shout of alarm came next.
Ding. Ding. Ding. One floor away. Grif’s muscles rioted, his nerves roared, and his entire being begged to hurl himself headfirst at the elevator. The door to the stairwell swung open, and one of Nevarra’s men burst through.
The elevator dinged beside them, and the doors opened.
Alanna darted inside, and Grif shoved Scarlet in first. By the time he dove in after, the muzzle swung to greet him, and the man fired the pistol. The bullet sailed through the air. The shock of pain descended a second later. His right leg throbbed—the bullet must’ve gotten him.
He clapped his hand on the pistol in his holster, bringing it up to aim at any threats.
Alanna jammed at the button to close the doors. The guy who’d shot him surged in front of them as if he’d try to wedge himself in the center. The elevator slammed shut, and off they went.
They zipped down, the floors flashing neon on the overhead black space. Grif stood in the center with his pistol aimed, trying to ignore the throb of his thigh and the ensuing trickle of blood that gummed his pants to his skin. He spared a glance to his watch. Seven minutes.
Each time the elevator passed another floor, Grif tensed, and his finger skated the trigger. Any moment, those assholes could open the door and try to flood the car. The numbers ticked down fast, already to the twenties.
Lower. They’d hit the teens, yet no one had tried to stop them. Grif’s stomach twisted with a knowing that loomed like thunderheads.
The lights flashed above him.
They blinked once, twice, and then flickered out. Black days and bleaker times. Those assholes had cut the power. The elevator car switched to the low emergency lighting.
“Oh, fuck me,” Alanna cursed.
Scarlet popped her flashlight on and swung the beam toward the panel. With the power out, he wasn’t sure what floor they were on. Not like it mattered. They needed to get out, even if Nevarra’s men waited on the other side. If they stayed inside, those bastards could pick them off in here like ducks in a puddle. Grif loped to the elevator doors and knelt to the ground. Scarlet swung the paltry beam his way, and Grif thrust his knife into the bottom, trying to wedge his fingers on the opposite side to get a grip.
“Not my type, sweetheart,” Grif responded to Alanna as he gritted his teeth, trying to wedge the doors open. She leaned in overtop him and assisted in prying the doors apart.
“Sorry I don’t have a dick,” Alanna grunted as she helped him push at the doors. The crack widened, gliding open. They had begun descending from a floor and halted midway, so the entrance was big enough to climb through.
“I’m sorry too,” Grif said, flashing a grin before he reached forward to pull himself up and over. He crawled onto the cool tile of the floor they’d been exiting and glanced in both directions. Those footsteps echoed through the place on either side, like a never-ending drum circle determined to drive him insane.
Both stairwells. They were fucked, but they were still too high up.
“Emergency exit.” Grif made the call, setting off in that direction. His thigh ached hard enough he could feel it in his teeth, but he ran faster, rushing across the tiled floor in the direction of the dim exit sign. Out of the two, it could fit fewer people per step, and the strides pounded louder from the main stairs.
His heartbeat slammed in his throat hard enough he could spit it out. A drop of sweat tickled down his forehead, the salt stinging his eyes. The glow of the neon above the emergency exit was his sole focal point as he raced forward, his grip steady on his pistol. The neon numbers of his watch glowed at his wrist. Six minutes.
He grabbed the door handle and flung it open. The alarms would sound, but the time for caution had ended. Grif didn’t just enter—he vaulted inside.
Shouts sounded from floors above, followed by the rattle of the railing.
He couldn’t spare the glance up. Not if they wanted to escape. Alanna darted past him, nimble as ever, and Scarlet’s harsh puffs of breath sounded right behind. They descended one floor, then another, then another. This time, they didn’t bother to mask their movements. Their footsteps thundered to the rafters, echoing far, far in the distance. Grif’s breaths cycled sharper and more tattered, but his sole focus remained on placing one step in front of the other. Survive. Survive. Survive.
A bark erupted through the air, followed by the whiz of a bullet. It sailed about a foot away from them to thud into the concrete. And now they were getting shot at. Joy.
The numbers of the landings flickered by until they’d
passed ten, nine, and then eight.
Three more shots flew through the center to clatter uselessly on the first floor.
Past the seventh floor. Fuck it. They needed to get out twenty minutes ago.
Grif skidded to a halt and grabbed the door for the sixth floor. He bolted inside, the ringing shouts from above echoing down to them. Nevarra’s men jumped to their comms to give away his location. Any moment now, men would be rushing this floor to riddle them with bullets.
The hallway stretched out before them all the way to the elevators at the other side, but smaller offices bisected this one.
“Grab your lockpick,” Grif called to Alanna as they raced for the nearest office, J. Rutgers Financial Holdings. On this side of the building lay the entrance they’d arrived through—they wanted the opposite. He tugged the AP hook from his belt, as well as the length of cord he kept wrapped around his belt. “Make sure your gloves are secure, crew.”
Scarlet tugged at hers, and Alanna ignored him, bending over in front of the darkened door leading into one of the small offices. She slipped out her lockpick. Within a second, the knob was turning, and she bolted.
The stairwell door creaked open, and three of Nevarra’s men burst through. They caught sight of him, and their shouts echoed to the vaulted ceilings.
These guys didn’t hesitate. Their pistols barked, and bullets flew.
Grif barely ducked in time as one zoomed an inch overhead. His heart lodged in his throat as the other two burrowed into the wall beside him. He slammed the door shut and twisted the lock.
Grif whipped around, spotting the secretary desk to the right. In a few strides, he grabbed the chair and wedged it beneath the knob. The temporary block wouldn’t hold Nevarra’s men back forever—or even five minutes.
Grif raced deeper into the offices, following the patter of Scarlet’s and Alanna’s footsteps. He wound around one corner, then another, his stomach offering an over-easy flip at the idea they’d walled themselves into a dead end. Not like he’d researched this floor or if this office contained a window.
This was all down to gut instinct and luck. With the way things had been rolling—fifty-fifty odds.
The rattle of the doorknob echoed from behind, followed by a whump, whump, whump. Any moment, Nevarra’s men would break through, and they’d be screwed.
“Grif, over here,” Alanna’s voice sounded. To the right. A door lay open.
Grif plunged through to find Alanna and Scarlet standing in front of one of those big bay windows like the ones in Dan’s office.
“This should take us around the back of the building,” Scarlet said, shooting him a nervous look. Grif strode to the conference table and tried to tip it over. The thing didn’t budge. It had been bolted to the ground. Perfect. He leaned down and wound the cord around to create a noose, threading it through the AP hook as he pulled tight.
Alanna dragged one of those big-ass chairs over to the door and wedged it beneath the knob.
“We’re going to drop and then jump,” Grif gave the warning as he tugged the length dangling from the AP hook. He glanced out the window. The cars lit the streets like fireflies, and they stood high enough that a straight drop would be fatal. The door at the far end of the hall began to rattle. Any moment now, Nevarra’s men would break it down.
Alanna tugged out her pro-level Lifeaxe hammer and struck. The glass shuddered, and a crack formed. She seized upon it, slamming hard enough the surface shattered.
“Time for some rousing heroics,” she said with a smirk.
“Except, you know, we’re the thieves here,” Scarlet drawled, doing her best at bravado.
Grif checked his watch again. Five minutes left. “You haven’t lived until you’ve dangled off the edge of a skyscraper in Chicago. All it took was a little mishap with the mob, a should’ve-been-simple heist, and a massive fuck-up to get this extravagance.”
The pound of footsteps came from the corridor. Nevarra’s men had already broken through. In no time, they’d be busting into this room.
Either they scaled the building in the next five minutes, or they faced one of two fates. Dead at Nevarra’s hands or locked up by the cops.
Grif wasn’t sure which outcome was worse.
Twenty-Eight
Dan was pretty sure his lungs were going to explode. Pack of C-4, fuse-lit sort of burst.
The cab driver kept looking back, with the way he wheezed and sweat dripped in buckets off him, but the old, gap-toothed guy didn’t say anything. That was fine, because Dan kept glancing through the back window to see if any cars tailed them or if he spotted anyone suspicious along the sidewalk. Once they’d lost sight of Kirklees and the others for at least five minutes, Tuck had made the call to head back. Dan went into the first cab, and Tuck had waited behind to snag one a couple of blocks up.
Either Kirklees and the others had tried to reroute to the swarms of cops about to descend on Aon Center, or they’d sulked on home. Both outcomes meant he and Tuck had accomplished their task.
When he wasn’t staring out the back window, he glanced to his watch, counting down the minutes Grif and the others had left. He’d already cursed himself a thousand times over for the move he pulled as images of Grif hauled away in cuffs paraded through his mind.
His breaths came out ragged around the edges, and his shirt made a valiant attempt to glue itself to his skin. The sweat that had been dripping while he ran now pasted to his skin in a sticky film.
“Marathon training?” the cab driver asked, breaking the quiet.
A soft laugh escaped Dan, and he offered a thumbs-up. “Yeah, that’s it.”
The buildings flashed by, past the part of the city he’d grown familiar with and into the territory he’d just gotten to know. His heart squeezed tight. Even here, he could almost smell the amber, leather, and sweat.
His heart sped at the sight of the familiar towers of On the Park penthouses where he’d first met the rest of the Outlaws, and where he’d gotten to know the real Grif Blackmore.
“Right here,” Dan said. The cab screeched to a halt, and he passed over a couple of crumpled bills. Dan stepped out, his legs screaming at the movement after the brief respite they’d gotten. He glanced behind him, expecting Kirklees and her cronies to come whipping around the corner. Nothing like running for your life to ramp up your paranoid tendencies.
Another cab pulled in front of him, and Dan froze midstride, his palm creeping toward the gun he probably couldn’t fire. Enemy or ally—it was a coin flip who would emerge.
Tuck hopped out, a spring in his step, as if his ankle hadn’t gotten grazed a few days ago and he hadn’t spent the last hour running through the alleys of Chicago. The Outlaw lifted his hand in greeting, and Dan strolled over to walk in line with him. Together, they made their way to the On the Park penthouse, relief gripping his chest and waiting for release.
Dan’s watch beeped, the sound echoing through the air like a gunshot. The ten minutes were up. Tuck glanced at him, worry gleaming in those chocolate eyes.
Tuck pressed the comm at his ear while they continued toward the entrance of On the Park. “Locksley, are you out?”
Dan sucked in a breath and glanced to the bruised sky, the slate clouds threatening to snuff out the stars. He didn’t know what he searched for—answers, a sign, some glimmer of hope—yet only silence and stillness greeted him. The comm remained quiet, and that filled Dan with the worst sort of foreboding.
He only had himself to blame.
“I’m sorry,” he said, the apology slipping out before he could help himself. They reached the back entrance, and Tuck slipped out his key card to unlock the door.
Tuck grabbed the handle, but he looked to him, meeting his gaze. “No apologies. You made the call none of us could. Grif and the others have slipped out of worse situations than this. Now come on, let’s head back up to HQ.”
Dan nodded, unable to voice his thanks—for the forgiveness, the reassurance. Every member of the Outlaws he’d met
so far wasn’t sleazy, cruel, or twisted like he’d expected criminals to be. Like Brennerman was. No, everyone here had a moral code of their own, one that mirrored Grif’s. And as much as he knew they were breaking the law, he couldn’t bring himself to condemn them. After all, the Outlaws dealt with the scum who blackmailed him. The one who tried to kill his sister.
They headed inside and made a beeline for the elevators.
With each step forward, the silence from the comms echoed louder and louder, until it grew deafening. They slipped into the elevator, and with a ding, the car surged up. Dan leaned against the wall, almost slumping to the floor. His legs had begun to tremble, reminding him how out of shape he was.
“So, what’s the protocol while we wait? Knitting tea cozies?” Dan asked, needing to break the silence and get out of the horror show on constant rotation in his head. All he could see was the splashy headline on the news: Grif Blackmore, Caught! Or the lurch in his stomach when they found out the police hadn’t nabbed him, because Nevarra’s men had placed a bullet through his head. Somehow in the short time they’d known each other, the man had made a significant mark on him, and he wasn’t ready to let him go.
“That’s what J-man does,” Tuck said, tapping his fingertips along the wall as he stared at the ceiling. “Except he crochets.”
“And what do you do?” Dan asked. His one plan revolved around burying his head in his hands and trying to scour his mind clean.
“Usually pop on a video game. If you’re down, we can play a couple of rounds.” Tuck cast him a knowing glance.
“Yes, fucking please,” Dan responded, the words whooshing out of him. The elevator binged as it settled onto the top floor, and the doors opened. “I don’t know how the lot of you deal with this tension on a regular basis.”
Tuck shrugged and took the lead off the elevator. They headed down the hallway to the door he’d approached last week with his palms sweating and half-sure he was going to get shot. In such a short time, everything had flipped.
Midnight Heist (Outlaws Book 1) Page 22