Page 88 of Magic or Madness

“Goodbye, Masha.”I look to the sky, my words almost as faint as a whisper when Fallon squeezes my hand, reassuring me that I’m not dreaming, and we walk back to the van without another word.

Nothing else needs to be said. I’ll always feel Masha in the wind, or smile when something reminds me of her, but after today, she will no longer haunt me.

Single handedly,I plan to erase the sadness looming over this rental house and make the most out of our last day here.

All the guys are up, heading out the door as we sneak off to make a drop before surprising the girls with a beach day.

It’s Fallon’s dream date, and there’s no chance in hell we’re leaving Jacksonville without her being swept off her feet. Aftereverything we’ve been through these last few weeks, and how hard she has worked to make me feel better, she deserves it, and much more.

This errand was Max’s idea, of course, suggesting that we top up on cash, accessories, and swap out weapons while we’re down here.

There’s a storage unit a few miles outside of town that served as Doc’s stash house, and we still pay the bills to keep up appearances. Plus, we always have a place to dock our shit when needed.

“Let’s make this quick, boys, in and out,” Max says, entering the code to access the gate.

Once inside the unit, we all spread out, following the carefully organized shelves and taking what we need.

Lex takes burner phones, a new modem, five new sets of earbuds, and a few other tech things he needs to keep us operational.

Max swaps out bills, carefully replacing the real cash and exchanging the amount from the counterfeit stack.

I grab boxes of ammo, a different pistol, and a small butterfly knife, saving it for Fallon. A little something for her to keep as protection.

Oliver grabs new IDs and passports, all wrapped in rubber bands, leaving the old ones in their place.

Journey keeps guard, monitoring the security cameras from his iPad and giving us a countdown. We all play our part, moving flawlessly within our roles, and after twenty minutes, we’re gone, as if we were never here.

“Scrub it,” Max says to Lex once we reach the highway, referring to the security and street cameras in the area.

Around here, the whispers of Doc are still strong, and covering our tracks when we’re home is the best way to stay safe, keeping wandering minds from asking questions.

I hate that I didn’t tell Fallon about this, but it feels too risky, having her know something that only the five of us do. Knowledge is power, but sometimes, knowing the darkest secrets only brings you further down into that darkness, which is a place I want her far away from.

“That should hold us over for a while, right Max?” Oliver asks, breaking the silence as we all stir in our own thoughts.

“I think so. When we get back up north we’ll slowly start distributing the fakes, and it’ll top us up substantially,” he replies, and we all nod in unison, nothing else needing to be said.

One of our more ruthless jobs came four years ago when we robbed a crew who specialized in counterfeit cash. Their bills were impeccable, rarely traced or identified as fake, and rather than joining them or competing, Doc wanted to take it all and topple their empire.

All of us shed blood that day, but we came out nearly unscathed, and with three million dollars in counterfeit currency.

Since then, we’ve washed about half of that, still sitting on roughly one and a half million left to clean. Doc was relentless, always trying to find new ways to swap the fake for real, but since his untimely departure, Max has scaled all the way back, only allowing us to clean one hundred thousand since we left Jacksonville.

Now, we’re leaving with another hundred, twenty of it for each of us to take care of. It’s medium risk, high reward, especially if the feds don’t catch on. Still, it’s something I haven’t been able to explain to Fallon, unsure of a way to make it sound less daunting than it truly is. She doesn’t scare easily, but this has always felt like blood money to me – in a way it is – and I prefer to wash my portion quickly, moving on until the next round.

There isn’t much I hide from my purple-haired beauty, though, and I’m sure I’ll confess this to her involuntarily, as I do with most things that are difficult to talk about.

“So, what’s this surprise for Fal?” Oliver questions, always being the one to chit-chat in these moments of silence that seem to bring peace to the rest of us.

He fills the role of a baby brother so well, it’s exactly on par for him.

“Just a beach day. One last day in Jacksonville, it’d be a shame if we did anything else.” I shrug, offering up nearly nothing, and keeping it light for his sake.

Nobody needs to know the ways I plan to spoil her today, and how much this one day will mean to her. Less than twenty-four hours into our love story, Fallon described her perfect date, and I remember every word she said. Even before I knew that we were meant to be and that I’d spend my life making her happy, I chose to remember that beautiful picture she painted me.

Her imagination was running wild and free, and she chose not to hide her true self from me for a single moment.

It was too cold all those nights ago in North Carolina, but today, the weather is perfect, and my girl is going to get her dream date.

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