“You rusty, no good piece of shiiiit.” I hissed, violently shoving my car keys under the driver’s seat after negotiating my car to the side of the darkened road. I knew I was only a few blocks away—not because of my map, but because the section of the city I was in had streetlamps without graffiti and with working light bulbs. That was some fancy shit right there. And it was probably a good thing my car broke down where it did, because this half-rust, half-duct tape monstrosity stuck out like a sore thumb. And it wasn’t like I could park it in X’s driveway, anyway.
I left my keys in the car, half hoping some idiot would try to steal it to keep me from paying for a tow home. There was no way I could afford to fix whatever was wrong with it now, not with Ronald’s fish breath still lingering on my skin from when he’d threatened me over the money I owed him.
I grabbed the compact backpack from the trunk, repeatedly slamming the trunk until it finally latched, and secured the license plate that hung off of it from the force of slamming it down. I double-checked that I had tote bags folded up in the backpack and turned my phone on to mark my cross streets. Not that I’d be able to make it home with my car at this rate. I was banking on finding enough cash in X’s house to get a cab ride home. Which reminded me to shove the red windbreaker into my backpack—I wasn’t too sure that a cab driver would see me, decked in head to toe black and toting giant tote bags filled with shit not suspicious.
I’d darkened my eyes with enough eyeliner to merit a return trip to the makeup section at the dollar store and tucked all my hair under a black beanie before securing the backpack on my shoulders and using GPS to navigate my way to X’s house on foot.
I passed a dozen homes, each one nicer than the last, before GPS indicated I was a couple hundred feet from X’s residence. I hadn’t had time to scope the neighborhood out beforehand, so I had no clue what to expect with X’s house. Did he have a gate? Security system? Giant, snarling dog that I’d have to drug in order to break in? He didn’t really strike me as the kind of guy to own a dog and he didn’t seem to need that kind of protection—especially not with that ex-mercenary-looking driver he had.
I was relatively certain that X’s driver would stay with him at the appointment, considering the thirty minutes or so—if traffic was kind—to Doc’s office would make heading back to X’s house useless. But I still had to be cautious, so I crept along a hedge that bordered just along the edge of X’s property, and scoped it out.
The neighborhood was dark, but full of plenty of streetlamps, which meant finding cover in the neighboring yards was necessary. X’s house was dark apart from the giant porch light, illuminating the entire white-washed area. Because it was more lit up than the Griswold house on Christmas, I knew the front was out and I’d need to make my way to the back.
I secured my phone in my sports bra and zipped up my fitted jacket as I crawled down the yard, keeping my body in the shadow of the hedge line.
His back yard wasn’t fenced in, which very likely took the dog idea completely off the table. When there was a break in the hedge, I scooted in and quickly sprinted across the grass to the back patio, not stopping until I was on the other side of a too-clean looking grill, back pressed up against the brick siding as I slowed my breathing. The house was cute, and looked more like a family home than something belonging to an elusive single rich guy. But maybe that’d been the appeal for him. There was such safety in the unassuming façade.
The yard surrounding the back patio was well landscaped, with bushes and flowers tastefully arranged. I couldn’t picture him getting down in the dirt and planting all that shit, which meant he must have had a gardener. Only people with disposable income could hire someone to dig in their own damn dirt, so there was no way he wasn’t loaded—even if I hadn’t known his surname as belonging one of the more wealthy, iconic Chicago families.
I peeped a glance at my watch just as my stomach grumbled loudly enough to very likely wake the next door neighbors. I had meant to eat before coming, but in my haste getting across town, I knew my granola bar had become a bunch of crumbs held together with liquid jam.
I inspected the door, and saw the trusty little sticker proudly proclaiming the alarm system that secured this Leave It To Beaver house. It was a security system I was familiar with. I wasn’t proud of much, but I was proud of my practice in the arts of B and E., after two years of doing it on the regular.
But only to people who really, really deserved it.
The thought gave me pause as I peered into the dark home. X didn’t deserve this. I knew that. He didn’t owe me anything, and even though he was a rich m-effer, that didn’t mean he owed a debt to society. I’d have to come up with a way to pay him back for whatever I stole. But I couldn’t think about that now, not with Ron’s threats looming.
As a refresher, I pulled up the links I’d saved in my phone to walk through disabling the security system and breathed in a cleansing breath.
Using a narrow beam of light via my flashlight, I looked through the glass-encased back door, along the walls in search of the security panel. I could see all the way across the house to the front door and just a dozen feet from the front door, I saw the security box. Rookie mistake to have it so close to an entrance. I almost sighed and felt a little bit bad that he was making this so easy for me.
I slid a screwdriver out of my bag and tucked it in the front of my pants before I started to work on the lock. It was a newer lock—so he had that going for him—but for someone like me, who had worked as a locksmith once, it was still a piece of cake to break into. Once I heard the click indicating it was unlocked, I slid off my shoes and left them by the back door.
Once the door was open, I knew I had about thirty seconds. The security box was laughably close to the front door, but if the screws were stripped or rusty, it might take me a handful of seconds to get them undone.
I didn’t even bother closing the door behind me once it was opened, sliding across the warm wooden floors to the security panel. Cool as a cucumber, I removed the front panel that the homeowner used to type in their security code and used my tiny screwdriver to unscrew the phone line and power line connections. The alarm never even sounded.
“Yes!” I whispered, quietly congratulating myself for not having lost my touch while behind bars. I quietly closed the back door and tucked the screwdriver back into my backpack before setting it down on the counter in the kitchen.
If I could use one word to describe X’s decorating aesthetic, it’d be sterile. Good lord. Not that it was necessarily unpleasant—especially not if you subscribed to fifty shades of gray in your own decorating palette. The only color in his kitchen was from the dark wood floors, otherwise it was gray paint, white cabinets, white and gray marble counters, and white backsplash.
So while it wasn’t sterile like a doctor’s office, it was sterile for a kitchen in someone’s home.
I dragged my gloved hand across the cool marble, tracing the stripe of gray in the stone, and tried to imagine X in here, chopping vegetables and rolling out dough. The thought made me laugh, because there was no way this guy cooked for himself.
Out of curiosity, I opened his fridge and was greeted by the most organized and clean view I’d ever been witness to. I touched three different kinds of deli meats, a Tupperware with “butter lettuce” written in neat letters across it, and another with “pickled onions” written on it.
My stomach growled. I chewed on my lip as I took in the fancy bread—the kind that had to be refrigerated because it was so fresh that it’d spoil on the counter. Not like my dollar-per-loaf paper thin, preservative-loaded bread that tasted like eating stale air.
I debated with myself for an embarrassingly short time before I found my arms full of bread, sandwich meat, cheese, mayo and some fancy drizzle that looked homemade, all of which I poured onto the island before I began assembling a sandwich of epic proportions.
I mean, in the grand scheme of breaking and entering, eating someone’s food was less egregious than stealing their five-figure watch, right?
Once the sandwich was assembled, the hunger pains in my stomach had grown stronger, more powerful, and I couldn’t help but shove the largest bite possible into my mouth.
“Hot damn,” I said around a mouthful of capicola, soppressata, and provolone. The drizzle sauce dribbled out the side and I swiped at it with my thumb before bringing it to my lips. It was amazing how damn good a sandwich could taste when you used ingredients that cost more than a couple bucks.
After I’d eaten half the sandwich, I decided I’d save the rest for my arduous journey home and put the ingredients back in the fridge so I could actually start the burglaring that I’d come to his house to do.
I moved into the living room, which was damned gorgeous. Below the chair rail that wrapped around the room was very clean, very white molding. And across the ceiling there were white beams making a pattern of squares across the whole thing, with—no surprise—gray painted ceilings. The wall that bordered the backyard had two large glass doors on either side of a fireplace encased in that same white marble that was in the kitchen. Above the fireplace was a perfectly mounted flat screen and a sound bar that I knew to be top of the line.
Because I was curious, but also because I had an inattentive type of ADHD, I just had to test it out. To see how powerful it was.
The remote was in a wire basket on the heavy wood coffee table, and I picked it up, turning on Bluetooth and syncing it to my phone. I pulled up my Spotify app, momentarily dismayed for not having a playlist for nefarious acts such as this one. The last song I played was Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” and, with a shrug, I started it.
I’d expected the speakers to be loud, but was totally disappointed. You didn’t have a sound system like this if you weren’t serious about playing music. I hit the volume up to an acceptable level and couldn’t help but tap my feet along to the beat. There were speakers mounted all over the room, and a subwoofer behind the couch. I could feel the bass on my sock-clad feet and danced in place, forgetting for a moment the very thing I’d come here to do.
After turning the sound bar off, I got to work, grabbing various little things around the room that looked valuable. Truth be told, everything in the house looked valuable. But I couldn’t fit the Italian leather sofa in my bags, so I had to find the smallest pieces that seemed to be worth the most. For a guy as wealthy as he clearly was, he didn’t have a ton of shit on display. Not downstairs, at least.
The stairs were near the front door, so I took them two at a time, appreciating the way they stayed silent upon my ascent. That was a thing only those with money really paid attention to—the way a staircase creaked as you walked up it. This was completely silent, indicating it was new—despite the house appearing to be a few decades old—or it was well maintained.
Upstairs I counted five bedrooms—with the first four appointed very plainly—just a bed and a dresser in two of them, a lone treadmill in another, and a large desk and bookshelves in the fourth. Fancy furniture, no doubt, but there wasn’t more care than what you’d find in a hotel room.
The master bedroom, however, was definitely a master. Decked in a dark wood four-poster, with a black painted accent wall directly across from it—it didn’t have the sterile feel of the rest of the house. It was just as neat, just as clean, but this had a darker edge to it. The bedding was dark as well, and in the dark I couldn’t quite make out the color, but the comforter was terribly inviting, so I rubbed my hand across it, and then gripped it in my hand. This was hardly superstore quality fabric. I felt like mother fucking Goldilocks, discovering the just right that was this place.
My whole body ached to climb into the bed, but I’d been distracted by enough already. Moving around the bed, I used my flashlight to view what was on his nightstand. Only one watch, but not a brand I could discern. In fact, this watch was older, like something passed down—kept not for monetary value but nostalgia. I wouldn’t take something like that.
Thieves had few standards—like not eating their customer’s mashed potatoes. But one of my other standards was not stealing shit that looked like an heirloom. As someone with no family, I didn’t feel good stealing things that were obviously from family. I’d never be able to hock something like that without raising eyebrows, and I’d forever feel dirty for stealing something family-related when I didn’t have one of my own. I didn’t have heirlooms. I didn’t have anything that was my mother’s, my father’s or their parents’. My apartment was littered with things that I’d purchased at thrift stores or dug through dumpsters for—things that looked antique, like some well-meaning grandmother had passed down her tea cup collection to me. But no one knew I collected each of those damn tea cups myself, to give the appearance that I had someone who loved me enough to give me something they loved. To tell a story as fake as the one about my appendectomy scar.
So, that was my line. I’d never steal anything that reeked family.
I walked into the bathroom and started going through the drawers after seeing the counter completely free of clutter. I was tempted to go through the cabinets, but not tempted enough to be willing to risk going back to prison. I’d bet my left arm X had some kind of anxiety, which would mean he’d have the best drugs money could literally buy.
But I was trying to be good. Well, relatively good. Clearly, breaking and entering wasn’t exactly a noble profession. To clarify, I was trying to steer clear from dealing again—especially since, you know, I was on parole and if my PO had even a whiff of drugs on me, he’d toss my ass back into prison so fast, I wouldn’t have even a breath’s worth of time to defend myself. Not that there’d be any reasonable defense against having someone else’s prescription meds on my person anyway.
I sighed, kept the drawer closed, feeling small relief that I hadn’t been too terribly tempted in my first time since being released. And just as I turned around, I heard another door closing somewhere else in the house, causing my entire body to freeze.
There was a distinct sound of keys jangling and then something muffled, but definitely annoyed. I closed my eyes a minute, imagining X’s reaction in seeing the panel of his very expensive security system just hanging from the wall.
My head twisted toward the windows across the room and after unlatching them, I tried to lift them, but they wouldn’t budge even a millimeter. Looking up, I saw the bar that kept them from being able to open and tried to open that before remembering my fucking backpack on his kitchen counter. I was stuck, even if I could find a way out of the house—because my ID and debit card were in the front pocket of that damn backpack.
Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror over his dresser, I realized just how suspicious I looked, decked head to toe in black. My eyes darted to the bed, and I came up with the stupidest plan ever, but the only one I had and began stripping down to my underwear. At least I was wearing the good stuff, I realized idly, and tossed my clothes into the armchair across the room before sliding under the comforter and into the cool sheets. Shit, the bed was like laying in a cloud.
“Be cool, be cool,” I whispered to myself as my heart thundered and sweat prickled along my brow.
Shoes made soft thuds on the stairs and my breaths sawed in and out as my own panic set in for a second when I had the errant thought that he could have a gun. I threw the comforter over my head as the steps moved down the hallway and said, “Don’t shoot!” in the most pathetic voice possible.
The steps paused and I knew he was now at the threshold of his bedroom, and I pulled the comforter down to my chin, giving him a smile that I hoped was sexy and not panic. He held a bat in his hands, but it was the look in his eyes that made my smile falter for just a second.
He raised the bat for a moment before blinking as recognition overcame his face.
“What the hell are you doing in my bed?”