Once the elevator door opened, Willa shot out, walking as loudly as possible. “Come on, Steph,” she said loud enough so anyone in this apartment and even the one below it would hear.

She hung her purse up on the hooks in the entryway before she went to the living area. No James, which was good and concerning at the same time. Was it so hard to send an “I’m okay” text?

Maybe that was something girlfriends got. She definitely wasn’t girlfriend material. Still. Next time she saw him, she was going to inform him that sex buddies deserved text messages.

“What happened to the liquor shelf?” called Stephanie from the far side of the living room.

“The shelves gave out a few weeks ago. I haven’t gotten a chance to get it fixed.” She’d been out of the room when they’d broken. Jules had made it sound like a freak accident, but that accident led them right to her father’s apartment. Willa now knew it was more than likely that Jules had broken the shelves on purpose.

The perfect excuse to go to her father’s. Possibly the biggest mistake Jules had ever made.

“I have some vodka in here.” Willa pulled down two small glasses. Then she took out the bottle of raspberry-flavored vodka and poured them both a drink. Stephanie immediately downed the contents, but Willa just moved the glass from hand to hand.

“So what’s your mom going to do?” She poured Stephanie another drink.

Stephanie climbed up onto a stool and took a drink of her vodka, this time only a sip, which was probably safer. “Who knows. She and Jesus,” this time she pronounced it correctly, with the J sounding like an H, “are still together, but I don’t think either of them like it. Jesus thought he would bag a rich lady and become a kept man. He didn’t realize that some money just isn’t worth it.” Stephanie started to take another drink and seemed to think better of it and set her glass down. “You want to know the worst part?”

“What?”

“My mom is having more sex than me.”

Willa snorted. “It’s not like you don’t have options.”

“Shitty options.” Her eyes suddenly widened. “That’s what we need to do. We need to find our own Jesus.”

Willa really wished Stephanie was drunker so she could blame this talk on the alcohol. But before Willa could respond, the elevator opened. Willa and Stephanie both stiffened but before Willa could run to see who it was, James strode in, his anger practically vibrating off him. He stopped when he saw Stephanie, and Willa tried to transmit her apology for the inconvenience with her eyes.

“Who the hell are you?” asked Stephanie.

James let out a low noise in the back of his throat that was hopefully too low for Stephanie to hear.

“This is my security detail,” said Willa. “I hope you don’t mind him hanging around. My father insisted. James, this is Stephanie.”

He nodded a hello but didn’t say anything. His bad mood was practically terrifying.

“So your meeting didn’t go well?” she asked, willing him to tell her exactly what she wanted to know without giving too much away to Stephanie.

“Nothing got done,” he said through clipped words. “But it could’ve gone worse.”

She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. No one had been hurt. “You can go relax in the back bedroom if you want. We’re just going to be out here.”

“Oh. My. God.” Stephanie hopped off her stool and approached James.

“Why don’t we have another drink?” said Willa, trying to distract her friend.

But Stephanie wasn’t to be distracted. She pointed an accusatory finger at James. “You’re a Jesus!”

James’s cold expression was replaced by absolute confusion. “What?”

“Ignore her,” said Willa. “She’s drunk.”

“You know it takes more than that to get me drunk.” Stephanie moved to stand between Willa and James. “I can’t believe you’re screwing your bodyguard and didn’t tell me.” She eyed James. “I mean, I get it. The sex part, but you still should’ve told me!”

“What happens between us is between us,” said James.

Stephanie stared at him for a few seconds. “My God. Even when you’re being a dick, you’re hot. Where are you from? Are there more like you? Do you have brothers?”

Okay, this was getting out of hand. “James, can you give me a few minutes alone with her?”

He seemed relieved when he retreated off to a bedroom, and Willa couldn’t blame him. “Steph, what the hell?”

“What?” She made her way back to her drink.

“This isn’t about a dry spell or you needing a fuck buddy. You have guys falling all over you. If you want to work out your anger, that’s fine, but don’t be rude to my....” She realized she didn’t have the right word to say. Bodyguard was a lie and she didn’t want to lie to Stephanie any more than she already was. Boyfriend and friend weren’t right. James was still label-less.

“Oh,” said Stephanie. “I didn’t realize he wasn’t a Jesus. He’s the real deal.”

“He’s not—”

“I know I could find a guy to get in the sack with,” said Stephanie. “That’s not the problem. But everyone here in the city is so... city. I don’t want a guy in a suit and polo shirt. I want someone like your bodyguard.”

“The strong and silent type?”

“No. I want a guy who looks like he could be on the back of a horse.”

“A cowboy?”

“Yes! I want a cowboy. Flannel shirt, hat, boots—everything. And not someone who dresses like a cowboy but would squeal if they got mud on them, but like a real man’s man. Someone who gets shit done and at the end of the day wants to crawl into bed with a warm woman to work off the stress.”

Apparently there was a lot about Stephanie’s fantasy life that Willa didn’t know about. “I don’t want to state the obvious here, but if you want a cowboy, you might have to leave the city.”

“Leave the city,” said Stephanie, as though she tasted each of the words to see how they felt. “I can’t go anywhere. AJ needs me right now. Dad has been riding him hard. Taking out the stress of the divorce on him.”

“Steph, I know you and AJ are close, but he’s a grown man. He can take care of himself for a little bit while you work things out. And I don’t mean going off to find a cowboy to screw. I mean take a trip. Get away from family stuff. Breathe some fresh air. You’re obviously not in a healthy space right now.”

“What if I drive around the entire country and don’t feel any better?” asked Stephanie.

“Then you’ll be in the same headspace you are right now. No harm, no foul, right?”

Stephanie took a drink of her vodka. “You might think you’re being a good friend, but I know what you’re really up to.”

Willa froze as she waited to hear what Steph was going to say.

“You want me to leave so you and the bodyguard can be alone.”

“That’s not—”

“Nope. I understand and totally support you getting laid.” She took one more tiny drink of the vodka and set it down, still leaving a bit at the bottom. “I will leave you to it.”

“I’m still here if you want to talk,” said Willa.

“Yeah. Yeah. Just do me a favor and get freaky a few times for me tonight, will you?”

––––––––

––––––––

“What the hell happened?” bit out Austin as he paced back and forth across the apartment.

Willa wrapped her arms around her body and shifted her weight. The entire room was permeated with an uneasy energy that was being projected off everyone. Even Toni, who was normally so together, sat, pissed off, in the corner.

The only ones there with a semblance of calm was James, who Willa happened to know was furious about what had happened—he was just good at hiding it—and Scott Hart.

Scott was looking through a stack of papers, as though it were any other day. “This was just a setback,” he said. “Nothing’s changed.”

“Nothing’s changed?” Austin’s voice rose to a mid-shout. Jennifer reached out to set a hand on his arm and that seemed to calm him down. “We had bad intel. We’re lucky Jen didn’t die.”

“It’s not that easy to kill me,” she said.

“I don’t care how good you are, babe. If you go in thinking all the bases are covered only to find out that there’s a completely different sport being played, it’s dangerous. What happened, Toni?”

Before Toni could answer, James said, “It’s not her fault. They brought in extra help. She had no way of knowing security measures had been bumped up. I don’t even think Jadon knew.”

“No,” said Toni. “I should’ve known. I should’ve looked at more emails or found a way to listen to more calls. There would’ve been an electronic trail for this somewhere and I just... I missed it.”

“Fighting about it or passing blame isn’t going to help anyone. We need to move forward.” Willa hated being the voice of reason considering that she was the least experienced person here, but she wanted to get this back on track. So they hadn’t gotten their documents right then. There was still time. There was no other option. They needed to get dirt on Jadon. “You said that the documents might not be stored in the office, right? So the fact that we didn’t find anything isn’t game changing.”

Jennifer pursed her lips. “The fact that the payload wasn’t there isn’t the bothersome part. It’s these new security guys. I’ve gone over what happened a hundred times. Because Weston was there, I know when I set off the alarm, but I’ve been trying to figure out what alarm I tripped. It had to be something that could be added quickly but subtle enough that it slipped by Toni.”

“And?” said Willa.

“I think it was a motion sensor inserted under the carpeting. It would’ve been imperceptible to the eye and if it was hooked up to the building Wi-Fi, it could be connected to any cell phone. Quick, easy, and effective.”

“And is that going to keep you from getting into my father’s apartment?” asked Willa. Scott looked at her questioningly. “I’m not a master thief, but I listen. I know that you said your plan B was getting into his place.”

“It doesn’t keep us from going there, but we have to assume that if security at his office has been beefed up, the same thing happened at the home.”

“I thought you were supposed to be some of the best in the world at stuff like this.”

“Yeah,” said Austin. “And what makes us the best is that we don’t go into situations blind.”

No. Willa couldn’t accept that. “So you’re telling me that you know everything about every place you’ve ever robbed?”

“If we don’t know everything, then we get in other ways. We convince the owner to let us in.”

“You run a con,” said Austin. “Which is impossible for us because Jadon already knows all of our faces. Jennifer and I from what we did to Stranger. Toni because of her connection to Jen. Scott Hart has been on camera around us too many times. Weston is already in play. We can’t do any of the basics, like a gas leak or inspector. Maybe we can work it out to get the owner of the building to let us in when Belli isn’t around, but that’s still risky....” Austin trailed out and his eyes met Willa’s, telling her what he didn’t want to say out loud.

“Fine,” she said to his unsaid question. “I’ll do it.”

“No,” said James immediately.

“I’m his daughter. I have a key and the doorman knows me. If anyone is going to get in, it’s going to be me.”

“The last time someone searched your father’s apartment, they ended up dead,” said James. “There’s a room full of us who can get in somehow. The civilian doesn’t need to get shot in the head.”

Civilian.... Somehow, the word sounded like an insult coming out of James’s mouth. “I’m not useless,” she said. “And I’m more invested in this than anyone. I got stabbed!”

“Barely,” he said, a contradiction to how protective he was being of her at the moment.

“Maybe we don’t have to get into the apartment,” said Scott. “If Sterling sent guys over, he’s actively monitoring the situation. So we can skip over Jadon Belli and work on drawing Sterling out.”

“What? No. I agreed to help you and in return you were going to help me. That means getting my father arrested.”

“Do you really think that’s how this is going to go?” asked Hart.

“How else would it go?”

“Your father has connections in every corner of the government. We can’t get him arrested. Or he’ll get right out. If this all went out and we could prove to a higher-up that Jadon was a traitor, he was never going to be taken away with handcuffs. He’d be taken with a bag over his head. Are you willing to do this to your own father?”

Willa took a step back as she looked around the room. Everyone’s eyes were on her. “I’m not stupid,” said Willa. “I knew this wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.”

“Sometimes knowing something and knowing something are different,” said James gently.

“That’s not it. Things with Jadon are too hard. You want to pull back on your end of the bargain now that you don’t need Jadon to help you.”

“Hard isn’t the problem,” said Toni. “We do hard all the time. Hard is our specialty. Hard is one thing. Dead is another. We’ve already lost people. We’re not going to risk your life if we don’t have to.”

“You’re not risking my life! Jules did this. She’s the one who brought me into this and she’s dead. Because I know it’s easy to forget, but I lost someone too, okay? She might not have been an immediate family member or even a really good friend, but she was someone I cared about. She was a good person who was trying to make the world a better place and I saw my father, someone I trusted and loved, put a gun to her head and kill her. So don’t act like I don’t know the consequences. Don’t act like I don’t know that I could end up splattered on the new rug in that room. I know exactly what I’m getting into.”

“What about after?” said Scott.

“After what?”

“After your father is gone. After your trust fund is raided by the IRS. You don’t have an education. You don’t have any skills. What are you going to do with yourself once we’re gone and you’re all alone?”

“I....” She didn’t know what to say. The IRS would take her trust fund? But she supposed that if all his money came from illegal things, of course Uncle Sam would want their cut. It was only fair. “I don’t want the money,” she said weakly. It was true. She didn’t want it. But she also didn’t know what she’d do without it. Her trust fund was who she was. She’d quit every single thing she’d started, and now she had nothing left except for dirty money. “I can’t let people keep getting hurt so I can have a river view.”

“Let us handle it,” said Toni. “We’ll take care of Sterling. Once we get him, the house of cards will tumble and Jadon will get caught in the rubble.”

“If not, we’ll come back,” said Hart. “You have my word.”

“Your word,” she repeated, but it didn’t sound any better coming out of her mouth. After all the stress, all the fear, all the worry and they were going to leave? Willa fell back, shaking her head. “I need to get some air.” She kept walking backward until she cleared the living room and turned, headed for the elevator.

She reached the elevator and hit the down arrow when she heard her name. “Willa....”

“Not now, James.” She didn’t want to talk to him. She already knew what he was going to say. He was going to speak to her in that calm, cool, and collected way that she had grown to depend on. He was going to tell her how he didn’t want to put her at risk and then make the same promises that Scott had. And she didn’t want logic right now. She wanted to be angry. She wanted her father to pay for what he’d done. And she really wished she hadn’t hesitated to say all that when the possibility of her going broke had been brought up.

The elevator opened and she stepped inside. “I’ll talk to you later, James.”

But he walked into the elevator with her. She put her hands on his chest and tried to push him out, but it was like pushing a brick wall as he kept on coming in until the doors had plenty of clearance to close, locking the two of them in the elevator. “You’re pushing me out?”

She wasn’t sure whether he meant literally or metaphorically, but it didn’t matter. She started to tell him what she thought and then she remembered that Toni hadn’t done anything with any bugs in the elevator. So Jadon could be watching her right now. Considering she might have to play the dutiful daughter for months now, she couldn’t risk him thinking that she and James were doing anything, so she had to bite the inside of her cheek to avoid saying anything. She felt the tears well up behind her eyes and tried to blink them away. Of course she’d cry. Wasn’t that just icing on the cake?

She bet Toni didn’t cry whenever things didn’t go right. Jennifer was too cool to ever break down like this. But Willa, the poor little rich girl, couldn’t hold it together for even a few minutes.

The elevator hit the lobby and Willa bolted. She didn’t hear James following, but she knew he was close by. That knowledge was comforting on one hand and so frustrating on the other. Once she was outside, she couldn’t hold back the frustration. “If you’re going to leave, just leave. Go after Sterling. He’s the one you want, right?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” said James.

“Yes you are. I know you’re just like the rest of them. You’re there because of their mother, Isobel. Which is good. It’s noble. If you were doing this for money or guns or anything stupid, it would be so easy to hate you. But now you’re just being the noble white knight.”

“No. I’m not like the rest of them. When I say I’m not leaving you, I mean it. Willa, I’m with you until you’re done with me. I’m all in.”

He looked at her with a barely tamed intensity and Willa had to suck in a breath. He wasn’t talking about her revenge plot with her father. He was talking to her as if— “People are coming.” Willa averted her gaze to the ground and bit her lip. Holy shit, had James really said that? Had he really meant it? Her heart beat faster in her chest and for a moment she felt lighter. Much lighter than she should feel considering the heavy stuff going on around her.

“Is everything okay?” asked Jennifer as she approached. She wore a blonde wig and oversized pair of sunglasses that she hadn’t been wearing inside. They must be really worried about being monitored if she was that serious about her disguise.

Austin and Scott hung back a little bit.

“I think everything is going to be okay.” Willa brought her eyes back up to James and gave him a little smile. James was all in. Everything really was going to be okay.

And that was when the explosion hit.