It had been a week since I’d spoken to Kimberly. The text messages I’d sent had gone unanswered, and the hand-written note I’d left asking her to call hadn’t produced a response.

The thought of losing her consumed me. I ached, but I tried no to show it. The men in the MC may not have been my only love, but they were my first. It was time for me to focus on something other than my heartache.

With Reno still in recovery, and us incapable of changing the window of opportunity, we voted to raid the drug dealer’s home with the five remaining men.

Although he was only a month into his six-week recovery time, Tito refused to participate in the robbery without being able to speak. Much to the surprise of the club, and to his doctors, he chose to remove the wires that tied his mouth shut.

Left with a series of steel fittings fixed to his teeth – but with the ability to speak clearly – he looked like he had braces. He was yet another reminder of the bad decisions that caused my relationship with Kimberly to fail.

Using a glass cutter, Goose scored a section of the sliding door’s glass, affixed the suction cup handles, and nodded toward Baker. While we huddled under the pool deck’s canopy, Baker tapped the glass lightly with a plastic mallet. On the third strike, the four-foot round section pulled free.

As Baker set it aside, Tito went through the opening. After double-checking the security system’s output on his phone, he gave the nod of approval. I followed, and the remaining men trailed in one by one, after me.

Ghost sat watch in the driveway, with the SUV ready for a quick getaway.

I glanced around the gaudy mansion. Luckily, the owner had left random lights on throughout the home, making it easy for us to see our way without drawing attention to the fact we were there.

Gold-framed oil paintings of unrecognizable men – undoubtedly mentors of the home’s owner – were on every viewable wall. Ornate furniture, most of which appeared to be hand-carved, filled what portions of the travertine floor that weren’t used as a means of perusing the mansion.

The blueprints of the home that Tito obtained through the county’s records department were spot-on. Knowing what rooms were where, however, gave us no idea of where the eccentric heroin dealer kept his valuables.

Wandering aimlessly through a ten thousand square foot six-bedroom home – hoping to find the safe, strong box, or a hideaway – had my butthole cinched so tight it could have crushed a walnut.

“This place is insane,” I whispered.

“Nice artwork,” Goose joked, motioning to a painting of a man holding a gold-plated AK-47.

More nervous than a nun at a penguin shoot, I walked gingerly through the home, hoping to see something.

As per Baker’s instructions, each of us went to the bedroom we were assigned. After traveling up the stairs, Tito took the master bedroom, and I went to the bedroom described as number two.

The remote home sat on a large lot that was a little more than five acres in size, most of which was covered in trees. The portion that wasn’t tree-lined was a shielded from view by the mountain the home had been built against.

I stepped into the dimly lit room and turned on my flashlight. The room was almost as large as my entire home. A quick check of the obvious places: under the mattress, beneath the dresser and night stand drawers, and beneath the throw rug, produced nothing.

The closet had no hidden openings, and no safe.

The two pictures that hung on the walls concealed nothing, nor did the toilet’s tank. I pointed my light directly at each of the screws that affixed the heating and air vents in place, hoping to see signs of tampering, but each one appeared to be unaltered.

Frustrated, I walked to the next room. Baker was finishing his survey. He looked at me with hopeful eyes. “Anything?”

“Nothing.”

He forced a sigh. “Check on Tito.”

I went to the master bedroom just in time to find Tito leaving. “Nothing?”

“There was a safe with the door open. Empty.”

“Big one?”

He shook his head. “Small fire safe. Probably keeps his wallet in there.”

“Fuck,” I breathed.

“Anything in yours?”

“Not a fucking thing.”

After we checked with Goose and again with Baker, Tito and I searched the last remaining rooms. Ten minutes later, we had found absolutely nothing. The four of us met in the hallway.

“I fucking swear,” Baker seethed. “If we don’t find anything, I’m going to light this son-of-a-botch on fire.”

“Okay by me,” I said.

He sighed heavily. “You and Tito take the kitchen. Check that motherfucker with a fine-toothed comb. Goose and I will take every picture off the walls and check behind them.”

“Got it,” I said.

We did what we did for various reasons. Baker perceived himself as a modern-day Robin Hood, giving a good portion – if not all – of his proceeds to charity. Ghost did it for the thrill, looking at the financial gain as an added bonus. Tito did it because he enjoyed computer hacking, and he used the successes of each job as a means of measuring his abilities.

Goose did it because it was what the rest of us did. He lived in a modest home, spent a little of his earnings on landscaping and upgrades to his yard, and invested the rest.

Reno did it because he loved seeing things explode. Knowing what I now knew, I couldn’t help but wonder if his affinity for setting off bombs had something to do with his parents, and the childhood that he was forced to live.

Being angry with one’s parents was a common thread with people who enjoyed explosives.

Me?

I did it with the hope that one day I could buy a home big enough to enjoy living life beyond the MC. I dreamt of a home overlooking the beach but knew it would never come to fruition. It didn’t hurt to dream, and it was dreaming that fueled me to be the best I could be through the course of our ‘jobs’.

Tito and I spent an hour in the kitchen, which was fifty minutes longer than most thieves spent robbing an entire house. After finding nothing more than some fine dinnerware and a collection of expensive tequila, we looked at each other in wonder.

“How big was that safe upstairs?”

“It was one of those cheap Wal-Mart fire safes that you bolt to the floor.” He shrugged. “Maybe two feet square. It was in the closet, why?”

“Probably kept his jewelry, pocket money, and watches in there,” I said.

“Probably.”

“Drug dealer like this ought to have a big safe. If he’s peddling big dope, he’s got to have big money. Big money requires a big safe. You know he doesn’t keep that shit in the bank.”

“Only place left is the garage,” he said.

“We ought to take that fuckin’ Ferrari.”

“We’d be caught before we got on the freeway,” he said. “That thing’s so rare, the cops would know it’s his. My guess is it’s the only one in this part of the country.”

“You haven’t seen anything weird or out of place?” I asked.

“Other than his bedroom smelled like ass? No.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Smelled like he just decontaminated it. Probably mopped blood off the floor and cleaned it with bleach and Pine-Sol.”

“I can’t stand the smell of cleaning products,” I said. “Surprised you could smell shit, with that broken nose.”

“I can smell, it’s just, I don’t know, different.”

Because the smelly bedroom was the only thing that stood out as being suspicious about the entire home, I decided I wanted to smell it for myself.

“Let’s go up there,” I said. “I want to smell it.”

He turned toward the stairs. “Let’s go.”

I followed him up the stairs and into the room. As soon as we stepped inside, it was clear to me what the smell was. The room was freshly painted.

“It’s paint,” I said. “He just painted it.”

A quick check of the room’s trim revealed he’d painted only one wall – the one directly behind the bed’s headboard – and that he’d painted it the same color.

“Why the fuck would he paint only one wall,” I asked, not necessarily expecting an answer.

I touched the wall with the tip of my finger. The paint was dry. The room had only a faint hint of the paint’s smell, but the lack of air movement – from the air conditioner being set to an away setting – caused the smell to be more prominent.

I stared blankly at the wall.

Then, it came to me.

“All the tools are in the SUV?” I asked.

“That’s where Baker wanted them, why?”

“I need a stud finder. Is that on the list?”

He nodded. “There’s one in there. A digital DeWalt. Why?”

“I’ll be right back,” I said.

I ran to the SUV, got the stud finder out of the tool kit, and ran back to the room. When I got there, Baker, Goose, and Tito were bitching about the home being bare of anything valuable.

I looked at the men and grinned. “If I’m right on this, we’ll need a few sledgehammers and a couple of keyhole saws.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Baker asked.

“Gimme a minute,” I said. “Hopefully I’m right.”

I pressed the stud finder to the wall at the bed’s side. A standard sheet of sheetrock registered on the digital screen.

I jumped onto the bed and pressed the tool to the wall behind the headboard. The screen registered that there was three inches of wood behind the wall. I moved it over three feet. The same thing registered.

My heart raced.

I moved over five feet and checked again.

According to the readout, three inches of wood was concealed behind the freshly painted sheetrock. The scanner couldn’t discern three inches of tightly-packed money from three inches of wood.

My hope was that he’d hidden everything behind the wall.

“Grab some hammers and as many saws as you can carry,” I said excitedly. “Everything’s behind this sheetrock.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Baker asked.

I tossed the stud finder to Baker.

“Watch this.” I thrust my fist into the sheetrock. Instead of plowing through it completely, it penetrated the sheetrock and stopped. Again, and again, I punched, until I could grasp the loosened piece.

I pulled it away from the wall, leaving a six-inch irregular shaped opening in the wall. Immediately behind it was a sheet of cellophane.

I glanced over my shoulder and grinned.

“What is it?” Baker asked.

“It’s my new house on the beach,” I said with a smile.

I pulled my knife from my pocket and excitedly slit the cellophane. After pulling it open and peering inside, I pumped my fist in the air.

“Hundred-dollar bills, mothafuckas!” I shouted. “The wall’s full of ‘em.”

Baker hopped onto the bed and began frantically pulling sheetrock off the wall. Behind each section, cellophane-wrapped money looked back at him.

“Fuck,” he said. “This is going to be huge.”

He looked at me. “Good thinking, Cash.”

“I had to make up for a bad month,” I said.

Baker chuckled and slapped his hand against my shoulder. “This ought to do it.”

Like men possessed, two of us swung sledgehammers while the other two ripped sheetrock from the walls. An hour later, we had so much money removed from the walls that I questioned how much of it could fit in Ghost’s SUV.

The room looked like a demolition crew of a home makeover show had gone nuts in it. Bare wall studs stood where the bed’s headboard once was, and the floor was littered with chunks of sheetrock. The entire room was covered in a film of white dust.

I kicked the stack of money. “How much do you think this is?”

“Four point five cubic feet per million,” Tito said. “For hundred-dollar bills.”

I waved my hands over the mound of money. “How many cubic feet is this?”

He shrugged. “Sixty. Maybe eighty.”

Baker looked at Tito. “Twenty million?”

Tito nodded and then studied the massive pile of money. “Back of the SUV will hold thirty-five cubic feet. We’re either going to have to leave some of it or steal one of his vehicles.”

“We’re not stealing a car,” Baker said. “That’s a guarantee of getting caught.”

“I’ll steal one of ‘em,” I said.

“No, you won’t,” Baker said. “We’ll either load it up, or we’ll make two trips.”

“It’s six hours round trip,” I reminded him. “It’ll be morning before we can get back here.”

Baker looked at the money, and then shook his head. “Fuck.”

“Wrap it in a blanket, and put it on top,” Tito said. “Like one of those Thule cargo boxes.”

“Good idea,” Baker said.

“We’ll look like we’re haulin’ coke,” I said with a laugh. “Cop sees a blanket-wrapped package on top, sealed up nice with duct tape, and we’re getting got for sure.”

Baker sighed. “Good point.”

“The back of the SUV holds thirty-five cubic feet,” Goose said. “That leaves twenty-five. At five a piece, we can carry that on our laps. It’s less than a sack of groceries.”

“Fill the back of the SUV,” Baker said. “Whatever’s left, we’ll wrap in bedsheets and carry out. Every man gets a load.”

In fifteen minutes, we had four hundred pounds of hundred-dollar bills in the SUV, and each of us had a lap full of money.

As Ghost drove the three-hour trip back to San Diego, the men laughed, joked, and talked of how they were going to spend their cut after Baker split it up.

Oddly, I wasn’t as thrilled as the rest of the men. I knew, regardless of what my cut was, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it fully even if I got the house on the beach.

Because I’d be living in it alone.