Thor flipped through a dusty old book, pencil between his teeth, working on the Latin translation for the motto because a Latin motto was just cooler. We’d learned from the news that the man in distress would be okay.
Zeus was typing away on the laptop, already on the lookout for other banks to rob, and using Google maps to assess getaway routes. I was embroidering the sheep needlepoint kit I bought on our shopping trip. Specifically, I was adding curly fur to the sheep’s neck.
I had a feeling the Prime Royale was still in our future. My thoughts went to the Gigis—the Giraffes—who’d probably heard about the kilt heist by now. “I know the Gigis talked trash about you guys. About us. But what is the protocol? Can we ever be friends with them? Like, gang friends? Or, can people from our gang be friends with people from other gangs? And get lunch and manicures and stuff?”
Thor eyed me sadly. “You miss your sisters.”
I felt my eyes mist up. “I do.”
“I don’t think the Gs are much like your sisters,” Zeus said.
“I know,” I said. “But still.”
“We’ll have a dinner party and invite them, how about that?” Zeus said. “We can overlook their dissing us if it’s important to you.”
I nodded. “I’d love that. Do you think they’d want to hang out with me, once they understand I’ll never join them?”
“Only one way to find out,” Thor said.
“Our parties are fucking-g awesome,” Odin said.
I smiled. Fucking gawesome.
“What?” Odin said. “Something to say?”
I smiled. “What would I have to say?”
He gave me a look and went back to his sketch. I made a final stitch on the sheep’s ears and appraised my project with pride. “Not that it isn’t perfect right now, just us. Girlfriends are nice, but nothing compares to us.”
Thor flipped a page. “Damn right.”
The silence that followed was easy and perfect. I could imagine us in our seventies, doing just this. If we made it that far. Something needed to change. I needed to help them, but I didn’t know how yet.
I put down my needle. Lightning flashed on the horizon, followed by distant thunder. The sky was quite nearly black, but we stayed out there on the porch. I thought about the way Zeus had touched into my mind back in the army surplus and vintage store. I had a new sense of him, of all my guys. Like they made me more whole.
But that’s what a family is for. To influence each other, complete each other. That’s what we did. We were just a little bit in love with each other, and it was a very good day to be alive.
~ THE END ~
I hope you enjoyed The Wrong Turn! I made this book lendable wherever I could, so please feel free to share it with friends, and I love when people leave reviews. But most of all, thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed your time with the hunky bank robbers.
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Book #3 of Taken Hostage by Hunky Bank Robbers, entitled The Deeper Game, is coming out next.
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Acknowledgements
I’m so grateful to Jeffe Kennedy and Carolyn Jewel, who gave the Wrong Turn draft the tough love and smart, writerly insights it needed. And to Katie Reus, who came through later with some key catches.
About Annika
Annika Martin is a writer working a stone’s throw from the Mississippi. She loves to read and write dirty stories – the funner and hotter the better! She also writes urban fantasy, romantic suspense and more under the pen name of Carolyn Crane. She lives with her husband and two fur babies in a tiny condo full of plants, sunshine, books, and cookie crumbs.
Also by Annika Martin
The Hostage Bargain (Book #1 of Taken Hostage by Hunky Bank Robbers)
Coming up:
The Deeper Game (Book #3 of Taken Hostage by Hunky Bank Robbers)
Also by Carolyn Crane
Urban Fantasy
Mind Games (Book #1 of the Disillusionists)
Double Cross (Book #2 of the Disillusionists)
Head Rush (Book #3 of the Disillusionists)
Kitten-tiger and the Monk, a Disillusionists novella (2.5) in Wild & Steamy, an anthology
Devil’s Luck, a Disillusionists novella (3.5)
Romantic Suspense
Against the Dark (The Associates: #1)
Paranormal/cross-genre
Conjuring Max (Mr. Real prequel novella) in Fire & Frost, an anthology
Mr. Real (Code of Shadows: #1)
Pssst...
One of the books I wrote as Carolyn Crane was inspired by my crazy love for the Gigis (a.k.a. the Giraffes), the girl jewel thief gang from this book. Just in case you got as excited by the Gigis as I did, and wished you could read a whole book about them, I’m including part of the first chapter here. I changed the names, but the fun girl gang core is the same.
SHE’S AN EX-SAFECRACKER FORCED INTO ONE LAST HEIST
Angel Ramirez left the safecracking game five years ago, and she’s worked hard to make amends and build an honest life. But when a beloved aunt is kidnapped, she must reunite with her girl gang to acquire the unique ransom: Walter Borgola’s prized diamonds. It’s a simple job that turns into a nightmare, thanks to a surprisingly clever—and searingly sexy—security guard named Cole Hawkins.
HE’S AN UNDERCOVER AGENT WITH BIG PLANS FOR HIS GORGEOUS THIEF
Cole is one of the Association’s most brilliant agents, under deep cover investigating a ruthless killer. He’s also running out of time: hundreds will die if he doesn’t stop the plan Borgola’s set into motion. Catching Angel is the break he needed—he promises not to turn her in if she poses as his lover and uses her unique talents to unlock the sociopath’s dungeon vaults.
But as pretend passions turn real, Cole regrets drawing Angel into his deadly game…and danger is closer than either of them could ever imagine.
Against the Dark: Chapter One
Angel Ramirez sipped her club soda and lime, a stand-in for a gin and tonic, and carried on a mindless conversation with her old friend Macy. It was the kind of babble that let them devote their attention to potential threats in their surroundings. They were posing as party girls—hookers paid by Borgola to have sex with the party guests. They’d been propositioned a few times, but they’d put the guys off by pretending to be waiting for somebody.
So far so good.
Nobody was paying much attention to them anyway. Unless you counted the guy in the corner, leaning against a fountain, looking perfectly at home at a party full of men who would never do the right thing.
He had sandy brown hair and a scruff of a beard, and his tux fit just a little tight across his muscular shoulders, but what she mostly noticed was his gaze—it burned intense and gem-like behind his thick-rimmed glasses. Brainy and brawny, like a fair-haired Clark Kent.
Something told her he wasn’t watching her for security reasons. And that’s not why she was watching him.
Don’t look, she told herself.
Of course it didn’t help to look away, either. His relentless gaze made her feel excited and melty inside. Even standing on the periphery, he was the center of the room, like the human equivalent of a bonfire. And he riveted her. Which told her everything she needed to know about him.
Do this job and get out, she told herself.
She kept her back to the action on the couches in the sunken living room. Beyond was the Grecian pool where couples outright fucked. Everything was gilded gold and velvet, and the walls were hung with disturbing pin-up style paintings of women being fondled by monsters. Borgola would’ve commissioned them. Angel thought she re
cognized the artist, though he’d never sign such obscene work.
But it was the massive bunches of white roses that truly offended her.
Their beauty and innocence was all wrong here. If she were designing this home, she would get rid of them, or else she’d go in the other direction and do something perverse. To match the mood of the place.
But of course, she’d never take a client like Walter Borgola, the owner of this vulgar mansion and thrower of this disturbing party.
Macy lifted a glass of champagne off a tray carried by a waiter, who disappeared into the crowd around the sunken living room. “I always did love that dress on you, Angel,” she said.
Angel smiled. “Thanks.” The vintage pink empire waist dress was one of her favorites from her former life of crime—it was sexy and also good for concealing a handgun in a thigh holster along with her old safecracking tool. The tool was disguised as an mp3 player; she hadn’t been able to bring herself to throw it away for sentimental reasons. She never thought she’d use it again.
For five years now she’d walked the straight and narrow, building a nice little business as an interior designer. She’d been proud of her honest new life, and she even felt like she was starting to repair some of the damage she’d done to the people she loved. And now here she was, buzzing with adrenaline, all geared up to hit a place.
She hated how good it still felt.
Macy wore a designer gown Angel didn’t recognize—a slinky silver affair that popped against her skin. Angel used to know all of Macy’s clothes, but of course her old gang would have moved ahead without her. At least Macy’s hair was still the same, shorn close and dyed white-blonde, all in kinky little nubs the size of thimbles. Some bejeweled.
“Should we be worrying about this guy?” Nothing escaped Macy’s notice. “He looks too brainy for Borgola security, don’t you think? But if he wants a go with you, he’d come over and request it.”
Angel tried to keep her face neutral. “Yeah, I don’t know.”
“Oh my God.” Macy smiled. “You think he’s hot.”
“Don’t,” Angel said.
“Doot doot doot,” Macy made a radar sound. “We have detected a bad boyfriend.”
“Stop it,” Angel said.
“Dangerously self-destructive man at oh-four-hundred hours. Angel, start your engines.”
“It’s not funny. At all.”
They used to joke about it back in the day—if they wanted to know if a guy was troubled and self-destructive in some way, they just needed to check if Angel thought he was hot.
Bad boyfriend radar, they called it.
Because if Angel was attracted to a guy, it meant he was probably wounded or feral, a doomed thug or a tough guy with a hurricane for a heart. It meant she could love him, but never save him. Being past the anyone-saving-him point was a central feature of her boyfriend choices.
Which was why she didn’t date men she was attracted to anymore, a policy that made for a shitty sex life, but the new and reformed Angel was all about avoiding trouble. Anyway, she rarely met her type anymore. You had to come to parties like this to meet the really bad seeds.
So yeah, this one looked all brainy and in control, but Angel knew better; no man fooled her bad boyfriend radar. Angel wondered cynically how far this guy had gotten along on his personal yellow brick road of self-destruction.
Not that she needed to care.
… Against the Dark is out now. Find links and info at my site
The Wrong Turn Page 10
