Page 67 of Cosmo

Goldie answered, “The only house between the one we’re hitting and where they’re getting through the fence. The guy’s paranoid, big time, has motion lights and a pack of Dobermans. He keeps them close to him, though, so if we go wide around his place to the alley between his house and ours, we should be fine.”

“And if we’re not?”

“Bear mace,” Mims groaned miserably. “We’ve never had to use it, but we all have it.”

Hippy chided, “Mims, it does no permanent damage. We’ve been through this.”

“I don’t like the thought of you guys hurting animals, even for a second.”

Liam chimed in quickly. “Mims, I get it. I just saved Daiq from being hurt, but I’ve also gotten bit by a dog before and it’s no fun.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, I was a kid. This foster dad had these German Shepards he was all proud of, and one bit me. He spanked me for it, thinking I did something to the dog.”

“What a creep,” Haze said.

“Fine, okay, but only if you need to,” Mims finally relented.

Hippy’s eyes met Liam’s, and he finally saw a bit of camaraderie from him.

“Now, can we move along?” Murphy asked, exasperated.

“Fine, Paps, go,” Mims told him.

“Thank you so kindly,” he said sarcastically. “Now, with Mims busting the password, we don’t need Abs until we get past the two doors in. There is an outer door and inner door. Called a breezeway or some fucking thing, and that is just the backdoor. We get through those, we get past the maid’s room, which is to the right in that little hall there,” he said, pointing to one of the pictures. “There is a camera outside her room. Mims will deactivate it before we get through there.”

“This van you have. Why don’t you use it for a getaway?”

Murphy looked over at Liam and said, “If that van was caught, we’d lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment. With your stolen cars, we lose nothing.”

“Except me.”

“Not if you’re as good as we think you are.”

Liam patted himself on the back for his reputation. “I am.”

“Then, we’re set. I’ll be in the van with Mims and Goldie. You’ll find a nice spot close to the getaway car and wait for our signal.When the painting has been replaced, you’ll take the tag off the car, start it and go get them. It sounds simple, but…”

“Nothing is ever that simple. What are the backup plans?”

“They head into another home, one that is currently unoccupied. There’s one three doors down from the house we’re hitting. We go in by way of Goldie’s contacts to check another furnace andvoila, we pick up our boys and bring them home.”

Liam was impressed they had thought of that. “And…and the feds?”

Murphy exhaled loudly as he looked around the room. “That is the other thing I wanted to tell you all. Agent Campbell and I met again. Today. The reasons they want the BBC are simple. They’re on a task force for human trafficking.”

Goldie seemed to be the only one that knew what Murphy was saying, though Taran had mentioned it, and they all knew some.

Goldie added, “We knew they were going after them and others that compete with us, sure, but Campbell is one of the top dogs of this Taskforce. Murphy figured it out. The reason they didn’t tell us the extent of it is because they don’t trust us anymore than we trust them.”

Murphy continued, “This is…big. It’s not only law enforcement officers, but others further up the food chain. Denver is a hub, like Houston, Detroit, and a few others, for these rings. Denver is the perfect midway point between Canada and Mexico.”

Abs was almost in tears. “They don’t think we…do that, right?”

“No, Abs,” Goldie soothed. “They know we don’t. They wanted to appeal to us, being we’re not only like a family, but Murphy has little kids, and it worked. We’re fine doing what we do. The American government is known for letting other crimes slide to get to those they want the most. This will not be easy, and it could be bad for us. The piddly money we make is nothing compared to the money these rings bring in.”

“If you all ever want to know why I’d ever consider working with cops, you go up and look in the faces of those two little babies upstairs.”

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