by Scott, D. D.
That more than anything is what had convinced Connor to accept this undercover assignment. Robbery was one thing; murder was another. Thank God, Lily was just a teller. Besides, she was safe in Schaumburg.
The security guard lying on the floor to his left slowly inched his hand toward the gun holster on his hip. Connor stepped forward, pointing his weapon at the man’s head. “Don’t even think about it,” he growled. He admired the man’s courage, but it would only get him and maybe a few other innocents killed.
Pale faced, the guard returned his hand to its former position above his head. Connor took the man’s gun, shoving it into the back of his jeans. He swept his gaze around the room. “That goes for the rest of you. No heroics.”
A commotion coming from the offices interrupted the whimpering of the women lying near the counter. Connor’s heart sank. Rourke must have found the loan manager. Seconds later, Rourke appeared in the lobby, shoving a woman in front of him. The strawberry-blonde hair hiding her face reminded him of Lily. Christ, he missed her. Not seeing her everyday had been the single most difficult part of this assignment.
“Let me go, you Neanderthal,” the loan manager shouted as she struggled to wrest her arm from Rourke’s hold. The woman’s voice turned every drop of blood in Connor’s body to ice. He stood frozen, unable to move, unable to believe.
It can’t be.
She raised her head, and all the oxygen was sucked out of his chest, as if he’d plunged into Lake Michigan, the cold water closing in over his head, cutting off light, cutting of sound, cutting off escape.
Lily wasn’t supposed to be here. Lily was supposed to be in Schaumburg. Lily was supposed to be safe.
• • •
Lily lunged forward, trying to wrench her arm from the man’s iron grip. He yanked her to a halt, and jabbed his weapon into her temple. If the stocking on his head and his manhandling hadn’t convinced her of the seriousness of the situation, having the business end of the man’s machine gun pointed at her did.
“Do I have your attention now?”
When she nodded, he lowered the gun. She scanned the room. The restricted area was empty. Where were all the front staff? Muffled cries reached her from the lobby, but from where she stood, she couldn’t see anyone. The man pushed her forward.
A few steps later, she froze, her feet refusing to move, her heart refusing to beat. The tellers, Joe…, were lying… For a second, she thought they were dead, but she’d heard no shots, saw no blood. Then Joe moved, and she could finally take a breath. It was a hold-up, not a massacre.
At least not yet.
Lifting her gaze from the floor, Lily counted five men, all masked and holding identical weapons, pointed at her fellow employees. Her customers. Oh God. These guys weren’t just bank robbers; they were the Bank Bandits.
Hearing a rough inhale, she jerked her head toward the sound. She narrowed her eyes at a Bandit standing a few yards away from her; he was staring and breathing hard. No way, buddy. She might die today, but none of these monsters would rape her.
In drills, the cops had always arrived within three to four minutes of the alarm sounding. If they’d remembered their training, at least one of the tellers would have tripped the silent alarm. She just needed to keep the Bandits talking, delay them until help arrived.
“Hey, Conman. Stop fucking gawking and do your job,” said the man holding her arm.
The other man cleared his throat. “Yeah. I got it, Rourke.”
She couldn’t see his face clearly, but that voice… And what had the boss called him? Conman? Hadn’t Connor mentioned that nickname when he’d told her a story about growing up on the South Side? Could Connor really have sunk so low?
She ripped out of Rourke’s grasp, her gaze never leaving Conman’s face. “You!” she shouted, closing the gap between them. Conman took a step back, shifting the barrel of his gun away from her. When he turned his head sideways, depriving her of the good look she needed, she poked his chest with her finger. “I know you.”
That got his attention. Conman’s head whipped back to her, his eyes wide, ping-ponging between her and the other Bandits. This close up, she could see Connor’s strong jaw and sky-blue eyes through the nylon shielding his face. Her chest squeezed painfully, betrayal piercing her heart, cleaving it in two. She wanted to cry, scream, pound some sense into him. How could he do this? How could he join a gang of ruthless killers?
The blood seemed to drain from his face as he clasped his fingers around hers, pulling her hand away from his chest. “You don’t know nothing.”
The message was pretty clear. Connor was hiding information from the others. Were they even aware he’d been a cop? Then again, if they did know, why would they trust him? She certainly didn’t. He’d been no better than a smarmy used-car salesman, feeding her all the lines he’d known she’d wanted to hear, igniting her dreams about a future with him, a family. She felt a flutter in her belly and pressed a hand there to feel their baby move.
After he’d been kicked off the police force and thrown in jail, she’d tried to visit him, to tell him about his impending fatherhood, but he’d refused to see her. Without giving her any explanation, he’d completely shut her out.
Connor could have his secrets and she’d have hers; he was never going to know about this child. Still, that wouldn’t stop her from giving him a piece of her mind. “I know exactly who you are. It was all over the news last Christmas. You’re that scum-sucking no-good traitor who turned your back on your badge. I wish they’d shot you instead of putting you in jail.” She jerked her head toward Rourke. The man was obviously the leader of this merry band. “Did he pay for the slimeball who got you off on a technicality? You should be feeding worms for what you did.” Whoa. Maybe she’d bottled up a little more anger toward her ex-fiancé than she’d thought.
Rourke laughed, but his eyes were sharp as knives. “The lady seems to have you pegged, Conman. Maybe knows a little more than she should?”
Oh crap. What had she done?
Connor met Rourke’s gaze and sneered. “Lady? All’s I see is a foul-mouthed whore dressed up in fancy clothes.”
“How dare you—” She gasped, shock swallowing her words. Connor swore, but he never disparaged anyone, especially women. Even considered it a point of pride. He’d never call her such a nasty word. Unless… Foul-mouthed. That was it!
Connor looked down at her, his hard eyes drilling into her skull. His full lips curled into a sneer that turned her stomach. “Bitches who talk too much get killed. My suggestion? Shut the fuck up.”
• • •
Connor studied Lily’s face. A flash of something passed through her eyes before she blinked and turned away. He hoped to God she remembered the discussion they’d had about trash talk. Shifting his gaze to Rourke, he cocked a brow. “Is this job still on or what?”
“Frank, go with him,” Rourke said before turning to Lily, his eyes traveling the length of her body. “In the meantime, I’m gonna have me a little fun.”
Lily’s chin rose in defiance, and she crossed her arms as if to ward Rourke off. Bile rose in Connor’s throat at the thought of Rourke touching her, but the only outward reaction he allowed himself was to tighten his hands around the gun’s stock. Anything to keep from smashing his fists in Rourke’s lecherous face.
Unable to help and unable to watch, he spun away. The faster he cracked the safe, the sooner he’d be back to distract Rourke from Lily. He’d barely taken two steps when a phone rang. He squeezed his eyes shut and said a quick prayer to St. Patrick. Don’t let it be Rourke’s informant. He just needed a few more minutes.
But St. Patrick was too busy with the parade to listen to his prayers. “Hold it right there, Conman.”
Connor stopped where he was, but turned to gauge Rourke’s reaction as he listened. After a curt, “Got it,” Rourke hung up, his murderous gray eyes stabbing into Connor. “My guy says ‘employees’ are leaving the CitiBank in droves.”
All eyes tu
rned to him.
Make it good, Kavanagh. Looking at the clock on the wall, Connor shrugged. “Must be quitting time.”
“You fucking set us up.”
Time to put Plan B in motion. He cut a glance toward Neil. Maybe he could make this work. The man was huge, but he wasn’t the smartest bear in the woods. “The cops hauled Neil in last week. How do you know he didn’t spill?” They’d been planning this heist for almost a month, so his question wasn’t unreasonable.
Neil turned beet red. “Fuck you, Conman. I ain’t no snitch.”
“Prove it.”
Eyes round and wild, Neil rushed at Connor, his gun held like a baseball bat. “I don’t got to prove nothing.”
Lily screamed and Owen yanked her behind him, cutting her off. Thank God, because Connor suspected she’d been about to scream his name. His real name.
Owen’s help made Connor feel like even more of a shit. His friend wasn’t like the rest of the crew. He had a soft side, was dedicated to helping his family, and loved his girlfriend. Falling in with the Bandits must have felt like a natural progression of what they’d done as teens. Ironically, Connor had always suspected he’d be the one to end up in prison, not Owen. And he would have if Captain Morris hadn’t talked sense into him the last time he’d been arrested. So instead of becoming the gangster he was pretending to be, Connor had become a cop.
He ducked and deflected Neil’s blow, grabbing the weapon at the same time and disarming the man.
Rourke raised his gun, pointing it at Connor’s chest. “Drop the weapons. Both of them.”
“Rourke? What the fuck?” Connor asked.
“The guns.” The man’s flat voice and dead eyes made the skin on the back of Connor’s neck crawl. Plan B had better be damn convincing or he’d be a corpse before the hour was up. Slowly, he lowered Neil’s gun to the tiled floor, then his own MP5 and raised his empty hands.
“Stop dicking around, Conman. I want the other one too.”
Connor reached into his shoulder holster and dropped his pistol on top of the MP5s. At least he still had the security guard’s gun, and his own Glock 27 tucked into his ankle holster. Sweat beaded on his forehead as Rourke ordered Frank to collect the weapons. If Rourke figured out Connor was still armed, it would be game over.
Rourke’s aim never wavered. “Neil wouldn’t rat me out. You on the other hand…” He let the comment trail off.
“Listen, man. I’ve got no reason to turn on you.” The most believable lies were those that contained some truth. Connor infused his words with as much conviction as he could. “I live in a shithole apartment. My fiancée dumped me. I’ve got no money and no reputation. Thanks to the media plastering my face all over the news, I can’t even get a job as a security guard at Wal-Mart.”
“Fuck you,” Neil spat. “You turn us in, the cops will take you back.”
Despite his gaze being glued on Rourke, Connor noticed the attentive expressions of the hostages upon hearing the word “cop.” Shit.
Lily jumped forward from behind Owen. “So I was right. You are that cop who took bribes in exchange for overlooking mob activity.” She turned to Rourke. “The Chicago PD won’t touch him with a fifty-foot pole. He’s the perfect scapegoat. Now the superintendent can claim he’s cleaned up the department.”
What the hell was she up to? It actually looked like she was defending him. He glanced at Rourke. Crap. The dude was watching Lily through narrowed eyes. Time for damage control. Like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, Connor strutted closer until he towered over her in that way she hated and ran a hand up her arm. “Sounds like you know the superintendent pretty well. I’m not surprised.” He wound his hand into her hair—Christ, he’d missed the feel of it sliding through his fingers—and gripped it at the base of her neck, forcing her back to arch. “I hear he has a thing for… how should I put this?” He paused and thrust his hips at her. “Women with big mouths. You look like you might fit the bill.”
Rolling her eyes, she looked at Rourke. “Why don’t you shoot them both? The world could do with a few less bastards in it.”
Bastards. She had gotten his message. The knot around Connor’s chest loosened and he barely resisted the urge to wrap his arms around her. Of course, that would ruin everything. Instead, he laughed and stepped back, a smirk curving his lips.
Rourke raised a brow. “The lady asks a good question.”
Conner raised his arms and spun around in a lazy circle. “Go ahead. But you’ll never get into the safe without me.”
Lily tapped her watch. “I’d get a move on if I were you. The police should be here in a couple minutes.”
“Sorry to disappoint you again, honey,” Rourke said, a confident smile brightening his normally dark expression. “Roads are all closed because of the parade. Cops won’t get here for at least ten more minutes.” He jerked his head toward the rear of the bank where the safe would be located. “Frank, go with him. I’ll stay here and take care of our guest.”
Ice slid down Connor’s spine. Was Rourke planning to kill her while he was cracking the safe? “Uh… Rourke?”
“What!”
“The bitch has quite a mouth. I was counting on being the one to shut her up.”
“Tell you what, Conman. Get the job done in three minutes or less, and she’s yours. Otherwise”—he licked his lips and trailed the barrel of his gun between Lily’s breasts—”she’s all mine.”
Lily shuddered, and Connor knew exactly how she felt. Turning, he loped down the hall. Three minutes to crack a fucking bank vault and immobilize a thug. St. Patrick had better be listening to his prayers now.
Two
“Wait!” Lily shouted. The bank had just installed a virtually impenetrable state of the art vault. Connor would never be able to open it. But she could help him delay Rourke until it was too late.
Connor slowed his charge to the safe room but didn’t stop. Rourke gripped her elbow, his fingers digging into her flesh. “Stop interfering, or I won’t wait three minutes to have at you.”
She forced down a deep breath. “Our safe is new. It’s the latest technology. No one can crack it. But…” She hesitated.
“But what?” Rourke barked, impatience hardening his tone.
“But I… I can help.”
“You? If our expert safecracker can’t do it, what makes you so sure you can?”
God, she hated everything about this man. “Because it’s a dual-dial mechanism. It takes two codes to open the vault, and I know one of them.” A lie. While the vault was a dual-dial system, it had been configured to open with only one dial and only one code. A code Joe knew and she didn’t.
Connor spun around and stared at her, his eyes narrowing when Rourke shook her and demanded, “Who has the other?”
She looked at Joe lying on the ground. Would he ever forgive her? His angry eyes said no. Steeling her spine, she indicated him with a nod. “Joe does.”
“Lily, for God’s sake, don’t help them,” Joe snarled.
Sally, one of the tellers, hissed at him. “Do whatever they say, Joe. These guys are the Bank Bandits. You know their reputation.” Her eyes jogged between him and Lily as though willing him to understand.
They’d been told that should there ever be a robbery, they were to cooperate. Money could be replaced, people couldn’t. But Joe didn’t believe in placating criminals; he believed in fighting back. Something she agreed with in principal… though now that she was caught in an actual hold-up, she understood why Connor had always told her not to resist. That would just get everyone killed.
Clearing his throat, Connor said, “I can’t crack a dual-dial fast enough. Either they open it, or we leave now empty-handed. Your choice.”
Rourke tightened his grip on her arm, making her wince. “If you’re lying, bitch, I’ll kill you.”
She ran a protective hand over her stomach and lowered her voice so Connor wouldn’t hear. “Trust me. I want my child to survive this. But we need to hurry.” If the c
ops showed up when the Bandits were still in the bank, they’d have a full-blown hostage situation on their hands, which would likely end in a bloodbath. And she’d be the first victim.
At Rourke’s signal, Owen rushed forward and pulled Joe up by his arm. “Let’s go. Hands up where I can see them.” After shooting a glare at Lily, Joe got to his feet and started for the vault room.
Rourke shoved Lily in front of him. “Move it.”
Lily hurried ahead to catch up with Connor. Maybe she could signal her plan to him somehow. As soon as she came up beside him, he spoke under his breath. “I won’t let him hurt you.”
“I know. I just—” She clamped her mouth shut and looked ahead.
“What?”
“How could you do this, Connor? How could you be involved with these guys? You’re better than this.” Even after everything he’d done, she knew he wasn’t a bad person. Something was seriously off.
“Pretend to trip.” She was about to ask why, when he growled, “Now.”
She stumbled and Connor’s hand shot out, grabbing her arm to steady her. He shook her a little and glared at her. “Hurry up, we don’t have all day.”
What was his problem? Had she hit a nerve? When he pulled her closer, she understood. From behind, Rourke would think Connor was forcing her to walk faster.
“You know their MO, so if you want to stay alive, do what I say, and for the love of God, don’t blow my cover.”
Her gaze flew to his face. “Your cover?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re still a—”
He cut her off. “Yeah.”
Oh, thank heaven! She tightened her lips together to suppress the giant grin that threatened to spread across her face.
He showed no reaction other than a brief twinkle in his eyes before growing serious again. “No matter what it might look like, just know, I never stopped loving you.”
