Austin wiped off his face with one of the starchy-feeling towels as he walked out of the shower. The towels were shit, but at least the water pressure had been decent and the hot water hadn't run out. He knew he shouldn't be enjoying this, but the break had been nice. He'd been on the move since bright and early that morning and who knew whether they'd have any downtime once all the players were in place.
Once he was dry, he wrapped the towel around his waist and left the bathroom. He was quiet when he came out because Jennifer was still sleeping on the queen-sized bed closest to the window. After he checked his phone, he crawled into the bed next to her.
She shifted as he pulled her close and nestled her head into the crook of his arm. "Do we need to be moving?" she asked drowsily.
"In a few minutes. Get all the rest you can. I'll wake you up."
She started to sit up and he wrapped a hand around her waist and pulled her close. "Don't trust me?" he asked.
"Trust is one thing. My mother walking in on us like this is another."
"And I won't let her. We have about five minutes. Just relax."
She twisted in his arms until she faced him. "Relax? Austin, I'm naked."
"I noticed."
"And you're naked too."
"Also something I've noticed."
"I don't know about you, but it's hard for me to relax when I'm in bed with a naked man."
"Babe, I'm more than ready for round two," he rubbed his hard cock against her, "but I respect you way too much for five minutes."
She let out a little snort as she ducked her forehead into his chest. "What are we even doing? We don't have time for...this."
"You are about to rush in and save your sister. You're going to be a hero." He leaned back far enough so he could tilt her head back and kiss her forehead. "And even heroes need a break."
She looked at him skeptically. "No one's ever called me a hero before."
"Then apparently, no one knows you as well as I do."
"You just met me."
"Doesn't mean I don't know you." For a few long seconds, she stared into his eyes. Austin didn't know what else to say but he didn't feel as if he needed to say anything. Just lying here with her was all he wanted at the moment.
But soon enough it was go time. They had to disentangle from each other and get dressed. He had to get back into the cheap jeans and gray t-shirt and Jennifer was back in her baggy clothes that didn't seem to fit her—body or personality—at all.
The first person there was Weston. He hauled two duffel bags, and Austin bet that they were loaded down with a whole shopping list of things that were illegal in California.
A few minutes later, Hart, Isobel, and Jennifer's other sister, Toni, came in. Toni gave Jennifer an awkward hello, noticeably no hug. Weston stood in the back of the room, guarding his bags, and Toni immediately went to the desk, where she set up her laptop and plugged it in while Hart looked as if he was in need of a good nap himself.
Jennifer and Isobel sat together on one of the beds, noticeably not the one he and she had fucked in. He winced at the thought. Why did that seem so wrong? He'd fucked plenty of women without a second thought.
But none of them had been Jennifer. She was definitely deserving of a second thought.
"You were contacted about the drop?" asked Jennifer, breaking the ice after introductions.
"It's going down at Spencer Tower tomorrow night at nine p.m. We drop the necklace in the lobby, more specific instructions to be provided once we're on site and visible confirmation of the necklace is there."
"Okay, that's what they want us to do," said Austin. "What are we really going to do?"
"It's a full playing field. Greg Stranger thinks he has us right where he wants us because they have Melody. In valuation terms, she's priceless, so we have nothing to lose. But he doesn't realize that makes us stronger."
Isobel nodded. "Because he still has plenty to lose."
"And that's where we're going to hit him. Toni, can you get into his accounts?"
"Of course, but not by tomorrow. He's a finance guy. His funds are going to be so spread out across the world that it might take months for me to track all of them down. Chances are he's less secure with some of his clients' money, but then we're talking days to get into those. Especially since we don't know most of his clients by name. He's a skeeseball, but he's a skeeseball who is good at his job. If we wanted to get into those accounts, we'd need dozens of hackers working all night."
Hart's brows drew together, but for some reason he didn't look as upset about that as Austin expected. "That will be a solid Plan B then. What do we know about Spencer Tower?"
"Spencer Tower is where Gregory's offices are," said Isobel. "He only leases one floor, though. There is a fundraiser there tomorrow night. Something for cancer research, I believe. We were invited but because of the wedding, we had to decline, though we still made a donation, of course."
Austin liked how she used the word "we" even though they never got married. He had to respect a con woman with conviction.
"Offices?" asked Hart. "There has to be something good there. Does he have a hidden safe or computer that you know of?"
"There's a safe behind the painting in his main office. The man was a walking cliché."
Weston looked at Isobel skeptically. "You cased your fiancé's office?"
Isobel rolled her eyes. "He was my mark first and my fiancé second. I know everything about that man."
"That's our in," said Hart. "He wants the necklace to get Sterling off his back. If he's keeping something locked up in an office safe, it's going to be more personal. If we can't get his accounts hacked by tomorrow night, we can get information to make it easier."
"You think we can exchange that information to get Mel back?" asked Jennifer, skepticism obvious in her voice.
Toni didn't look any more convinced. "And I told you we'd need a workforce of hackers. They're all paranoid, antisocial, and greedy. Not exactly team players."
"No," said Scott. "We shouldn't need an army of hackers. We have a professional extraction expert here. While we're distracting Stranger, he's going to be getting Melody to safety."
"What if we just give him the necklace back?" said Jennifer. "The Dragon Heart is the score of a lifetime, but if I can get Melody back, I don't care who has it."
"I do," said Hart simply. "And I don't know about Stranger, but Sterling doesn't forgive and forget. Melody is his main bargaining chip. The second he has that necklace, she's going to be dead. That's why we need more than the Dragon Heart."
Jennifer and Isobel were silent as they listened to facts they'd probably already thought of multiple times. It was still sobering to hear out loud.
"If there's a fundraiser tomorrow, that's good. We can get in that way. Isobel, I want you to give Jennifer and Austin the security they're going to have to get through to make it to Stranger's office. Toni, I want full blueprints of that building. It's a skyscraper. Is there any way to determine where in the building she is, based off the GPS?"
"Not with the tracker she has on. If we can get Stranger to give us proof of life at the drop via cell phone, I can use the signal strength to get a good idea of where she is."
"We can work with that."
Isobel stood and looked Hart in the eye. "Do you think you can get my girl back?"
"I think Stranger is prideful and we can use that against him."
"You didn't answer," she said.
"Why hasn't anyone asked the biggest question?" said Toni, breaking up the awkward tension.
"What's the biggest question?" asked Austin.
She raised her brows and looked over at Hart. "The fact that we're letting a cop plan this entire thing."
Weston pushed away from the wall. "You're a cop?"
Austin moved to stand between the two. "Former cop," he clarified.
"How did you know that?" snapped Hart at Toni.
"I asked my good friend the Internet. She had a lot of things to say about you."
Weston shook his head. "I'm out. You never said anything about working with the cops."
Austin cursed under his breath. "Former cop. Very former. He's broken the law dozens of times since I've met him."
"I looked at his record," said Toni. "He's practically a Boy Scout. Mom, I want to get Mel back as much as you do, but we don't need him."
"If you don't want me here, I'm gone."
"We want you!" shouted Isobel.
Toni scoffed. "Please, Mom. We've taken down guys like this before. All we have to do is—"
"I lost Melody!" she shouted. "If I had this under control, Melody would've gotten away. This is my mistake. Scott is an outsider. He sees things we don't. Normally I would never trust him either, but this is different. This is for Melody." She turned to Weston. "And your money spends the same no matter who is involved in the job. Considering I already sent you your deposit, I expect you to hold up your end of the deal."
Jennifer stood. "He's helped us more than enough already. I trust him."
"I don't trust him," said Austin. When everyone glared at him, he added, "But I think he has held us together so far."
Weston narrowed his eyes. "I don't trust cops."
"I don't trust hired guns," said Hart, not backing down. "But this is your one and only chance to doubt me. You walk out that door right now or from now on, you're going to follow my lead. I know none of you are used to taking orders from anyone, but you can't work in a team if there isn't a sense of direction. From here on out, I'm your direction." He looked around the room, making eye contact with each and every one of them. "So this offer goes for all of you. If you go off on your own, we can all end up dead. If you ignore an order I give, we can all end up dead. If you pick a fight with me when we're mid-operation, we could all end up dead. So please, for the sake of everyone here, walk out that door right now if you don't think you can take orders from a cop."
Everyone was silent and most of the attention was on Weston. Austin was more than ready to trust Hart, but if Weston walked, he didn't know whether they had much of a team. Toni and Scott would be the only faces Stranger didn't know.
"You might be a cop, but you're crazy," said Weston finally. "I can respect crazy."
"That makes no sense, but I guess that means we're good."
"I have one question, Boy Scout." Toni narrowed her eyes at Hart. "In this plan, you haven't mentioned Sterling once. Isn't he your true target?"
A flash of...something came over him, but Hart cleared it just as fast. "Sterling will get his eventually. But I know from experience, Sterling is a hard target to get to. If we want our plan to succeed, we have to have one goal and one goal only: get Melody safe from Greg Stranger."
And in that moment, he realized something he probably should've picked up on much earlier in this operation. Scott Hart might be a son of a bitch, but he was probably the most selfless person Austin had ever met.
Somehow that made him more annoying.
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