Page 111 of Savage Lover

We stare at it for about ten seconds. Then I close the lid with a snap, slipping the box directly into my pocket.

“Should we keep going?” Seb says.

“No. We’ve got as much as we can carry.”

Sebastian and I hoist our backpacks onto our backs. It’s much more difficult this time, because gold is heavy as hell. Not just gold—platinum bars, loose gemstones, and one original Babe Ruth baseball card in a lucite case, because fuck it, that’s cool and I want it.

We can’t go out the way we came in. It’s too slow to climb up the cables. If the cops are called when we’re halfway up, we’ll be trapped like a couple of bugs in a bottle.

The only problem is that engaging the elevators will trigger the alarms. So once we press that button, we have about two minutes to get out the front doors. And pray that Camille is waiting for us with the getaway car.

I touch my earpiece, saying to Jonesy, “We’re about to head out. You can pack up.”

To Mason I add, “You too, Mace.”

Mason will leave the ladder, strip off the coveralls, and exit the perimeter on foot. He doesn’t have anything incriminating on him.

Seb and I are a different story.

“You ready?” I say to him, my finger hovering over the elevator button.

I’m holding a stopwatch in my other hand. From the time I hit the button, I calculate that we have exactly three minutes to get away from the two-block radius surrounding the bank, before the cops block it all off.

Seb looks tense, but resolute.

“Ready,” he says.

I hit the stopwatch and the elevator button simultaneously.

The elevator starts to descend.

I don’t hear anything besides the jolt and hum of the elevator car coming down, but I know the moment that car started moving, it triggered a silent alarm to the firm that handles the bank’s security, and to the Chicago PD.

The elevator seems to take forever to come down. If I wasn’t watching the stopwatch, I would never believe it was only twelve seconds. As the doors part with aching slowness, Seb and I hustle inside. I press the button for the lobby.

The doors close again and we lurch upward. My heart is beating three or four times every second that passes.

As soon as the elevator stops, Seb and I push through the doors, hustling across the dark, empty space. Our footsteps echo on the polished marble. It’s still deathly silent, but I know that our presence isn’t a secret anymore.

When we get to the glass doors, I pick up the closest brass stanchion and I launch it through the window like a javelin. The glass shatters, splintering down like so many jagged icicles. It doesn’t matter how much noise we make anymore. The point is to get outside as quickly as possible.

Seb and I step through the glass, hurrying out onto the steps leading down to the street.

I look down to the curb, where Camille should be waiting for us.

There’s nobody there. No car, no, truck, nothing but an empty street.

“Where is she?” Seb says, a note of panic in his voice.

“She’ll be here,” I tell him.

The seconds tick by. The road remains empty.

“Should we just run?” Seb says.

We’re halfway down the stairs. We could just sprint off down the street.

But I told Camille to meet us right here.

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