Page 2 of Little Bird
“Yeah, one guard with a gun and a walkie for backup,” Arden grouses. “I still say this is a bad idea. We’re bound to get caught.”
Stella’s glare turns to our friend, the least outgoing of our little trio, and I almost laugh. Because Arden’s right, too. We’re here because Stella’s been bored for the last week—the first of our Christmas break from NYU—and decided earlier today that we needed to do something to break up the monotony.
Something exciting, she said.
Something dangerous, she meant.
Not that I should expect anything different. Stella Fontenot, heir apparent to the section of the Poffo family controlled by her father, grew up rich and spoiled and has never met an adventure she didn’t like. She meets every challenge head on and picks every fight she can. I don’t think the girl knows the meaning of the words ‘you might fail.’
The problem is, she always succeeds. If she gets into a scrape, she finds a way out of it, by hook or by crook. Her brain works faster than anyone else’s, and if she can’t plan her way out of something, she uses her intellect to talk the other person down.
She also hates her father with a passion so hot it rivals the sun. And though I’ve never asked her about it, I suspect that her pranks tend toward things that will get under his skin and bite him.
I don’t know what he ever did to her.
And even if I asked, I doubt she’d tell me.
But all that is how we come to be here, sitting in our favorite diner at midnight, surrounded by the biting chill of New York City in the winter and planning our first jewelry heist. The target: L’angerie, the jewelry store on the next block. Our mission: Steal the most expensive tiara in the entire place. The problem: the security guard, alarm system, and cameras the store inevitably has waiting for us.
It’s a bad idea, and we’re bound to get caught. Arden’s right about that part.
But I think that’s part of Stella’s plan, too. Because the owner of that little store?
Her very own father.
And I don’t think she’d like anything better than to show him that she doesn’t give a single fuck about breaking his things.
And me? What part do I play in this little trio?
I’m the heart and soul. The one that loves Stella and Arden so much that I’d sell my soul for either of them. And if it comes down to it, I’m the one who will throw my body in between them and any bullets flying our way.
I mean it’s not usually anything that dramatic. But ask either of them and they’ll tell you that I’m the glue that holds us all together. I spend my days selling myself to keep these two from cutting each other to shreds. And I’m happy to do it, because since we moved to this city when I was sixteen and my mom took up with Johnny Massimo, these two girls—dark, sassy Stella Fontenot and tiny, mousy Arden Rossi—are the only ones who’ve ever made me feel like I matter.
My mother certainly never has.
And I’m not sure Johnny Massimo—my stepfather—even knows my middle name.
It’s Elizabeth, by the way. After my real father’s mother.
“How are we supposed to get by the guy with the guns, Stella?” I ask, sliding right through the vague memory of my father and his parents and leaning toward my friend. “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t bring a gun. If he starts shooting at us?—”
She scoffs, tossing her black curls over her shoulder. “He won’t. I’ve already made arrangements with him.”
Wait, what?
“Arrangements?” Arden hisses. “What the fuck does that mean?”
I glance at her, surprised at the cuss—Arden almost never cusses—but can’t ask anything before Stella is giving us a low, sultry chuckle.
“I mean I made arrangements,” she says, her tone telling me exactly what she means. “He’s not going to bother us.”
“You slept with him?” I gasp. “In return for letting us into the store? So this whole plan, this whole scheme, is just to walk down there so he can open the door for us?”
Stella’s lips curve into a smile so dangerous that I almost have to admire her.
“Is that a problem?”
Of course it isn’t. Because she’s done what she always does, finding the easiest way through a situation and making sure we take that path. Regardless of how much she had to cheat to find it.
