Page 36 of Breakdown
“The two of you steal a lot of cars from homicidal sociopaths back in the day?” asked Cynthia.
“Close. We used to steal themforone.” Peter sighed as he loaded his tools into an unfamiliar Jetta, slamming the trunk. “Let’s go. Dragging our feet isn’t going to make them less homicidal.”
He was right. One way or another, this would all be over soon. Jordan could only hope that it broke in the Bauer’s favor for once.
Chapter Seven
PETER GLIDED THROUGHthe dark, familiar streets, unease gnawing at his insides like a swarm of rats. It wasn’t just because he was about to conduct the stupidest heist in the history of his seedy, storied career, or even that he was about to break in to a property owned by the most feared man in LA. It was that the more he thought about it, the more everything about this job felt completely wrong.
Peter had gone soft in his retirement. He’d gotten too comfortable with legitimacy, and he actually gave a shit about coming home at the end of the night. Not caring used to make everything a whole lot easier.
It was one of those thoughts he sometimes discussed with Dr. Kavazanjian. She called them ‘normal, but new,’ which was a nice change of pace from his other types of thoughts, ‘normal but completely distorted’, and ‘no, sorry Peter, absolutely not normal.’ Some of his shit just got halted at eleven years old, and having to play two decades of emotional catch-up felt like snaking a clogged drain at times: messy and repulsive.
Not that Peter ever really had a death wish. At first the drugs had been about feeling good and then they’d been about not feeling awful. Actually trying to kill himself would have required some forethought and a level of dedication he had never been able to summon.
“Everything okay, Chief?” Jordan asked from the backseat.
Peter shook his head to clear it of the fatalistic thoughts. “It’s fine,” he replied, easing the car into a poorly-lit alley a block from Volkov’s garage. Somewhere in the distance a car backfired, and Peter’s heart damn near ceased to function. A nervous peal of laughter bubbled up out of him against his will. Christ, he really wasn’t cut out for this anymore.
“Sure,” Jordan said, sounding anything but.
Peter killed the engine, trying to keep his hands from shaking as he handed Cynthia back the keys to her rental Jetta. Peter didn’t want any cops running his plates, but it wasn’t exactly his first choice of getaway car, especially loaded down with two other people.
Ideally, this was designed to be a solo job, in-and-out in five minutes. But nerves were making him edgy and Peter was—well, if not glad, at least thankful to have his mother along. Through mysterious sources, Cynthia had managed to find the schematics for the alarm system, a scrapped prototype originally designed by the FSB, successor to the KGB. It didn’t inspire a lot of confidence in Peter. The thing was overly complicated on purpose.
If two was company though, three was definitely a crowd. He appreciated the sentiment, more than the kid probably knew, but in spite of Jordan’s reassurances, Peter wasn’t sure he personally had the bandwidth required to keep track of another member of the team if things went south. This job was exceedingly dangerous, he’d been out of the game for too long, and more people always complicated things. That said, he couldn’t keep a part of him from wishing for Nik’s steadying presence right now. But Nik had his own part to play in Liv’s scheme if Peter actually managed to get the car back to the shop
He dried the sweat from his palms on his pants. The thought of leaving Nik with another empty bed and another partner who never made it back home to him was almost enough to make Peter call the whole thing off. But they’d made their decision together and the time for self-recrimination would be after the fucking job was done.
Cynthia gave his arm a quick, perfunctory squeeze that he assumed was supposed to be encouraging before undoing her seatbelt and heading out into the cool LA evening. Peter shouldered his duffle bag of tools from the trunk and followed her, Jordan taking up the rear. He was texting something on his burner phone, probably giving Liv an update. Peter’s own phone was back at home. Like most of the other heads of crime families in the city, Volkov had friends on the force, and the last thing Peter needed was a positive location ping placing him at the scene.
Peter strode forward to lead, the confidence in his steps at odds with the sick pit in his stomach. Avoiding the main entrance of the building, he executed a preliminary perimeter scan, something he would have done weeks before if this had been a properly organized job. As he suspected from the photographs, the gates had been secured with a heavy, hardened-steel padlock and chain. He couldn’t pick it or snip it with his regular tools, and drilling the lock would take far more time than he wanted to spend with three people in plain view of the street and any potential guards Volkov had left stationed to do rotations.
With his mother and Jordan trailing behind him like a line of particularly conspicuous baby ducks, he circled around to the back of the lot out of the sightline of the main entrance. He slid the bolt cutters into the neat diamonds of the fence, snipping links until he’d cleared a gap roughly chest height, and dipped through.
“Nice,” Jordan said, his voice barely above a whisper. He grinned at Peter, following, and then held the gap open for Cynthia.
