The Nine: An Urban Fantasy Reverse Harem Romance (Foxfire Burning Book 1)
Page 27
Pausing at the entrance to the room, I fished my phone out of the pocket in my black jeans and ran an application labeled “You Never Know,” which Lucy had designed to scan areas for hidden security features we might have missed in our mission planning. It took a minute to fully probe the room, and while waiting, I snaked a finger under the short, black wig I wore and scratched at my scalp. Using a disguise was just sensible thieving, but seriously, wigs itched something awful! Maybe next time I would try a hat. The image of myself pulling a job while wearing a top hat or a Stetson made me chuckle.
Seconds later, my screen flashed red with an alert and surprised the hell out of me. It was the first time the app had actually caught something.
“Are you seeing this?” It was a pointless question. She had a mirror image on her computer screen.
“Huh. That definitely wasn’t there a week ago when I did a walk through,” she muttered, and her furious tapping at her keyboard echoed over the comms. “Okay, it’s a laser beam grid linked to a silent alarm that will trigger the security shutters on all external access points. I don’t have time to hack into it and shut it down, so...”
I could picture her shrug and sighed. “So, don’t trip the lasers, yes? Got it. Send me the map.” An intricate web of red lines appeared on my phone, overlaying the camera’s view of the room. If I watched the screen and not my feet, it would be possible to avoid the beams.
Conscious of the ticking clock, I carefully started stepping across the floor. All seemed to go well until I got within ten feet of my intended loot. Suddenly my nose started twitching with a sneeze. “Dammit,” I hissed, then fought to hold my breath.
“What’s going on in there, Kit?” Lucy asked, worry tight in her tone.
I wriggled my nose a few times to shake off the itch before replying, “You know how I often get pretty awesome hay fever in Autumn...?”
Lucy groaned like I was doing this to deliberately test her nerves, but I wasn’t trying to tease her. I might actually sneeze.
“I think it’s gone,” I said, relaxing minutely, and raised my foot for the next step. Of course, Murphy’s Law prevailed, and the second I shifted my weight, the urge to sneeze returned full force. I clamped my mouth and nose shut, but I lost my balance even as I tried to swallow my sneeze. My leg rocked into one of the laser beams.
“Shit!”
“Fucking hell, Kit! You have thirty seconds until you are trapped. Get the hell out, now!” Lucy yelled in my earpiece.
Already screwed, I lunged the remaining distance to the display case. The current tenant was a ring with an obnoxiously large, canary yellow diamond surrounded by smaller chartreuse colored diamonds, all inset in a band with pink sapphires. The overall effect was a bit sickening, but who was I to tell the wealthy how bad their tastes were? I often wondered how many of them deliberately wasted their money on tasteless items with obscene price tags simply because they could.
Aware of the ticking clock, I whipped my arm back and smashed my gloved fist straight through the toughened glass. It shattered under the force I exerted. After snatching up the ugly bauble, I dropped a little plastic fox—my signature calling card—in its place.
“Kit, quit dicking around and get out!” Lucy screeched over the line at me. “Twenty-two seconds remaining, don’t you dare get caught, or I swear to God I won’t let you live this down!”
Satisfied at having grabbed my target, I raced out of the room and down the corridor, not hesitating before crashing straight through a tall picture window and plummeting thirty-odd feet onto the rooftop of the next building. I tried to break my fall by rolling as I hit. Instead, landed awkwardly on my left shoulder. It popped out of its socket. Hissing with pain, I glanced up at the gallery just in time to see the steel shutters slam closed on all the windows simultaneously.
“Kit,” Lucy snapped, barely masking the tension in her voice. “Give me an update; are you clear?”
The evil little devil on my shoulder wanted me to mess with her, but my conscience prevailed. “All clear,” I said, then added with a laugh. “Plenty of time to spare; not sure why you were so worried!”
“Any injuries?” A growl underscored her words.
“Nope, I’m totally fine. I mean, if you don’t include my shoulder, which is for sure dislocated, then all I have are a few scratches from the glass and a tiny bit of swelling in my knuckles. I got the God-awful ring, though!” I was rather proud of completing the job we had come there for.
“That was too close this time, Kit,” Lucy admonished me. “You’re bloody lucky you heal so fast, but it’s still going to hurt like a bitch getting that shoulder back into place. Get sorted then drop the ring to the courier, and call me if anything goes wrong. Otherwise, I’ll see you when you get back. Stay out of trouble.”
My best friend occasionally cursed like an Australian ever since she developed a Heath Ledger movie crush. “You know, most people would say ‘good luck.’ You say, ‘stay out of trouble.’ Should I be offended?” Teasing her was fun, even if my track record wasn’t the cleanest. In my defense, I always got myself out of trouble without too much hassle. Lucy didn’t dignify me with a verbal response and left the dial tone as she hung up to serve as her answer.
Tucking my earpiece into a zippered pocket of my leather jacket, I headed over to the A/C unit on the far side of the roof. Using it to leverage my shoulder back into place, I kept my cursing to a minimum. It slid back in with a sickening pop, and the relief had me wavering on my feet. After catching my breath, I brushed some glass out of my wig then swung over the fire escape and descended to the street below. Stripping off my gloves, I blended into the crowd. Even though it was autumn, it was still nowhere near cold enough to be wearing gloves unless committing a crime. I nervously checked the time on my watch. I had a very long drive ahead of me to get back to school and still needed to drop the stolen ring off with our middleman.
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C.M. Stunich
C.M. Stunich is a self-admitted bibliophile with a love for exotic teas and a whole host of characters who live full time inside the strange, swirling vortex of her thoughts. Some folks might call this crazy, but Caitlin Morgan doesn't mind - especially considering she has to write biographies in the third person. Oh, and half the host of characters in her head are searing hot bad boys with dirty mouths and skillful hands (among other things). If being crazy means hanging out with them everyday, C.M. has decided to have herself committed.
She hates tapioca pudding, loves to binge on cheesy horror movies, and is a slave to many cats. When she's not vacuuming fur off of her couch, C.M. can be found with her nose buried in a book or her eyes glued to a computer screen. She's the author of over seventy-five novels - romance, new adult, fantasy, and young adult included. Please, come and join her inside her crazy. There's a heck of a lot to do there.
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Tate James
Tate James was born and raised in the Land of the Long White Cloud (New Zealand) but now lives in Australia with her husband, baby and furbaby. She is a lover of books, red wine, cats and coffee and is not a morning person. She is a bit too sarcastic and swears too much for polite society and definitely tells too many dirty jokes.
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Tate x
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Front Matter Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Signup for our Newsletters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Back Matter Foxfire Burning Book #2
Dark Glitter Cover
Spirited Cover
Spirited Chapter One
The Vixen's Lead Cover
The Vixen's Lead Chapter One
Stalking Links
More Books By C.M. Stunich
About the Authors