CHAPTER 23
RYAN

There was no way I could go through with this heist. Way too much was at stake at this point. It had been two days since I’d seen Grace the night she told me she was pregnant, and the only thing on my mind since then was how to provide for her and Harper. How to become the man she needed me to be so we could raise our child together. I was in love with Grace. In some ways, I always had been. She had been the perfect girl for me back in high school, and she was the perfect woman for me now. I was in love with Grace and we were going to have a baby together, which meant I had to keep my nose clean.

There was no way I could risk going to prison and becoming what my father had become to Jason.

I had to cut ties with Kenneth and Jesse. I wasn’t sure what it was going to take, but it had to happen. Whatever they wanted, I would provide. Whatever they needed, I would try to make it happen. I didn’t fucking care.

But I had to get out.

I sat in the kitchen, pulling up all of my financials. I had done well for myself and done even better for Jason. Setting aside his college fund, I had enough money to get me through the next couple of years before I would have to find a job. And if I threw that money at a two-year education of some sort, I could still find a part-time job to work somewhere and contribute financially. I could get a two-year degree in something I could be proud of. Mechanics or HVAC or even medical transcription. Some shit that would help me to provide for my family. I ran down the numbers and looked up how much a two-year education would cost, and it wasn’t as much as I thought.

I could easily get it done in a year and a half if I took summer courses and still be able to contribute financially to the household.

With a financial plan in place, I sent a message out to Kenneth and Jesse. I knew the plan was to keep from coming together before the robbery, so we had to make sure we got together on neutral ground. We needed to avoid traffic cameras and main roads, sidewalks that had cameras out front of certain stores and shit like that. But we needed to meet and Kenneth seemed more than ready to touch base before the job.

I really hoped this didn’t backfire in my fucking face.

Getting in my car, I kept to the back roads. I avoided as many cameras as I could and found my way to the very first place we had met up at. I parked beside the open container and found Jesse and Kenneth inside, waiting for me to start the impromptu meeting that went against all our plans.

“I’m glad you wanted to meet. We gotta talk,” Kenneth said.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“A new security guard was hired at the bank.”

“Wait, how do you know that?” I asked. “We weren’t supposed to go anywhere near that place for the next couple of weeks.”

“We weren’t supposed to meet up, either. Yet here we are,” Jesse said.

“Can it, Jess. This is serious. Yeah, they have another security guard. Still not at the back entrance, but now there’s two at the front,” Kenneth said.

“And again, I ask how you know this.”

“I was passing by to go to the grocery store a few days ago and saw it. I wasn’t intentionally looking for it or anything. Damn. But when I saw two guys standing out there I thought I was seeing shit. Until I went by to get some more shit from the store. And they were still standing out there. Both of them.”

“Fuck,” I said.

“It makes things more difficult,” Jesse said.

“It does.”

“Why the hell did you call this meeting then? I figured you probably knew that,” Kenneth said.

“I gotta change t the plan. Some shit’s come up and I gotta take a more supportive role.”

“The fuck does that mean?” Kenneth asked.

“It means you get to take the damn reins,” I said. “That’s what it means. You get what you want.”

“Why? What happened?” Jesse said.

“You mean to tell me you’re switching up all of our shit three fucking days before this thing?” Kenneth asked.

“Look, I know I gave you a lot of shit about trying to take the reins, but what’s the big damn deal?” I asked.

“The big damn deal is the fact that it sounds like you’re trying to pull out of this thing altogether. Get some money without having to do any of the fucking dirty work,” Kenneth said.

“Is that what you’re trying to do? Get out?” Jesse asked.

“This is my last job, but that doesn’t mean I’m trying to pull out completely,” I said.

“What? You mean you’re getting out of the game? What the fuck, Ryan? You’re the best mastermind out there right now,” Kenneth said.

“And life’s fucking changing on me. You know I’ve got a brother. A family I gotta take care of.”

“No fucking way. Theplans aren’t changing,” Kenneth said.

“They have to,” I said.

“Why?” Jesse asked. “What happened between the last time we saw each other and now?”

“Oh, this is rich. It’s the gril isn’t it? A couple of fucks and you’ve suddenly grown a conscience.”

I slowly panned my gaze towards Kenneth as a disgusting grin spread across his face.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“Oh, did you think I didn’t know? Between your brother and the girl, you’ve got quite the motivation to back out and leave us high and dry,” Kenneth said.

“Listen, you asshole –” I started.“No, you listen. This is how this is going to go down. I don’t give a shit what the fuck happened,” Kenneth said. “You were so hell-bent on running this thing, so now you get to run it.You want to back out, I’ll make sure I give you the proper motivation.”.”

“If you lay a finger on my brother—”

“You don’t get to make the demands anymore,” Kenneth said. “This is your plan and you’re going to run it because we don’t have time to change it, but I’m calling the shots behind the scenes now. You do as I say, or shits gonna get real real fast for you man.”

My vision dripped with red and I pounced. I wrapped my hands up in Kenneth’s shirt and shoved him into the metal wall. Jesse was trying to pull me off him and Kenneth was laughing. I raised my fist back and slammed it into the man’s jaw, trying to wipe that fucking smirk off his face.

Jesse tried to pull me off of Kenneth but it was no use. I was in a blind rage that seemed to make me twice as strong as I already was.

I stumbled backwards and watched Kenneth slowly get to his feet. He was bleeding from his mouth as he spit a tooth out into his hand. He took a look at it before tossing it to the back of the abandoned container, then he came at me. His eyes were fiery and his hands were strong. He wrapped them around my throat and slammed me into the wall. I could feel him choking off my air supply as my leg came up, nailing him in the crotch.

The two of us fell to the ground, panting for breath and trying to get up.

“I will kill you if you touch my brother,” I said.

“Then stick to the fucking plans you made, pussy boy. Otherwise your brother is mine,” Kenneth said.

“This is it,” I said. “When I’m done with this robbery, I’m out. I don’t give a damn what you say about me after this, but if you fuck this up for me, I will come for you. You and Jesse both. I will ruin you and drain you of every penny you have chasing you around this country until I have you cornered. Do you hear me?”

“Just finish what you started. At least your father knew that rule,” Kenneth said. “That’s the mark of a real man. Finishing the plans you fucking set forth.”

I stumbled out of the container and out to my car. My vision was blurry and my head was swimming. He was threatening to hurt Jason, and he knew about Grace. It made me sick. I hopped into my car and tore out of the abandoned warehouse district, my stomach heaving bile up my throat. It was happening. I was about to rob the bank of the woman I loved. The woman who was carrying my baby.

The woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

The only thing I could hope was that it went off without a hitch.

Because if she knew the kind of man I really was, she would hate me.

But not any more than I hated myself.