Authors: Carly White
Chapter 1
“Kristy?”
The petite woman looked over at her coworker with a questioning look. “What?”
Maggie pointed behind her and when she looked, she saw one last customer. She groaned inwardly. The bank closed in two minutes and there was always that last person that made sure she wasn’t going to get out of there in time. Today it was a scruffy looking man in a leather jacket. He was covered in tattoos and though he was old enough to be her father, he was looking her up and down like she was a piece of meat being offered.
“Can I help you Sir?”
“I am looking to set up an account.”
Kristy shot a look to the blonde that was backing away towards the door. She wasn’t supposed to leave her alone, but there was no reason for both of them to miss the beginning of the concert. They were set to see their favorite band at the arena later on, but now Kristy was going to have to go through a process that never took less than twenty minutes.
“See you later. Call me when you are home.”
The abandoned bank teller wanted to stop her, but she couldn’t say what she really wanted to in front of a customer. Kristy had been warned before about her smart mouth and occasional bad words. “So let’s get you started Sir. I will need your identification and social security card.”
The older man handed her the cards after taking ten minutes to fish them out. Kristy was distracted with the clock ticking away. She was going to be late for the concert at that rate, but the man didn’t seem to know or care about the signals she was sending. Even the occasional sigh didn’t seem to do the trick.
Kristy was late getting back to her house and when she called Maggie, she was already there at the concert. Kristy was peeved that she hadn’t waited for her, though she couldn’t really blame her. The man had stayed for over a half an hour and had asked question after question about everything. His eyes had darted around the room the whole time they were talking. He even got up and used the bathroom, taking his time. But she didn’t realize any of it. All she was worried about was getting to see her band live.
She got to the concert as the preshow was coming to an end. While Kristy had wanted to see the new band, it was not who she was there to see. The smoke in the air was heavy as she moved to her seat and Kristy handed her a plastic cup of beer. She was almost forgiven and by the first song she couldn’t even remember what she was mad about to begin with.
The next morning she woke up with a bit of a hangover. She had a good night, but seven came too early and her head was pounding when she made it downstairs to start the coffee pot. Waiting next to it for the smell and the small bit of heat, Kristy didn’t move from the spot till the whole 8-cup had brewed and she had a hot cup to warm her hands on as she went back upstairs to start the shower.
She was always the first in to unlock the bank and that morning, the extra dollar an hour to do it didn’t seem worth it. Kristy was always the first in and the last out and that morning, she was really resenting the fact. Taking a couple of aspirins and cursing under her breath, she made it out into the crisp northern air. It was not the first time that she wondered why she lived in a place where the very air hurt her face.
***
“I didn’t see much of a security system. There are those little white panic buttons under the teller’s stand, so you are going to have to get her as she is coming in the building. The redhead is the one that opens in the morning and she is nice, so she will cooperate. Just keep her away from any of the desks. She has the code for the vault and it opens right forty five after eight like clockwork every day to fill the teller’s drawers.”
Zed just nodded his head and listened. The older man had drawn him a diagram of what was going on in the inside. Leroy had gone in there with his beard wild and the hopes were that he wouldn’t be recognized when the tapes were looked at later. Instead, he had gone into case the place and by the details, he was glad he had sent him in. Zed couldn’t think of anyone else that would be so aware of everything going on.
“Thanks Lee.”
“I will come with if you need anyone else.’
Zed shook his head. “You have done enough. Thank you.” While the man was always willing to do for the gang, there were times when it was better to let him take a rest. He was in his late fifties and with a hard life behind him he wasn’t as spry on his feet as he had been once before. They couldn’t risk getting caught because the man’s hip came out of place again.
Leroy took it with grace, as he did everything else. He knew that he was getting to the point where Satan’s Angels wouldn’t need him anymore and he wasn’t quite ready to go out to pasture. He took the extra cash for the favor and decided that he was going to take it as a win and celebrate with a drink. He offered one to Zed but he declined. He needed to make sure that he was clear headed the next day. It was his plan and if it all went wrong, it would be his ass back in county lockup.
Zed had been planning the heist for several months and he thought he had the right bank, right people, right circumstances. But if he had learned anything before, Murphy’s Law was a real thing and if it could go wrong, it probably would. He also knew that the bigger the risk, the better the gain. Considering how much risk was involved, he was sure that there was going to have to be gains that were just as high. He just had to pull it off. Just one more time and the man told the gang they were going where it was warm permanently. He didn’t want to sell dime bags to junkies anymore. Zed wanted to do something bigger and there wasn’t much bigger than a bank.
He slept a little light that night, but Zed had a feeling that everything was going to work out. After a couple of hours of tossing and turning, there was a temptation to go find him a girl to make it through, but he couldn’t be bothered. Zed didn’t really care for any girls that he had been dating lately, so in the end it was all physical. While it would help him sleep better, getting them out of bed and quiet was more trouble than it was worth half of the time.
By morning he was not near as refreshed as he had hoped for. His stomach was in a knot, but he couldn’t show his true feelings to the small band of men that he had come to lead. The Satan’s Angels were started years before and now it was something else. Now they were bank robbers, but that day they had to look like just normal people. Zed felt strange without his vest on and even stranger with his tattoos covered with long sleeves. Everyone had shaved the night before. He was clean cut and didn’t look too bad as he admired the new look in the mirror.
His dark hair was slicked back and there was only a few spots were the ink on his skin could be seen. His neck was one of those spots and Zed ended up changing his shirt to a button up. It was the shirt he had worn under his jacket at a funeral. It didn’t fit quite right, he had swollen up some, but it would have to do. Zed didn’t even recognize himself, so he didn’t know how anyone else would be able to.
Sammy made a comment when he came out that he looked like a church boy.
Zed kind of shook it off, but he had felt the same thing when he had seen himself in the mirror. He had to look the part though. He was going to be the one getting the teller in the building and making sure that they got what they came in there for. They were there for the money. There was no way that an upstanding woman would just stand there as he walked up to them, not a woman like Kristy anyways. The man knew more about her than he did about most of his ex-girlfriends and it was going to be strange because he felt like he already knew her. He had read the report he was given, as well as heard Leroy talk about her ass for at least five minutes.
“Are you guys ready?”
Everyone nodded and they went out front to a couple of cars. They were not used to piling up in the backseat of sedans and it was clear as the big men tried to fit. By the end of it, everyone was almost on top of each other and they were racing off towards Hamilton Bank. It was the biggest in the city, but it had the least amount of security. It didn’t matter though, because in the end they had found the one weak link and that was their teller named Kristy.
Chapter 2
When he first saw her, it wasn’t what he was expecting. He had expected her to be pretty, that was a given by the way his friend had talked about her, but he had thought he was just exaggerating. There was none of that though. The man found it hard to breathe suddenly. It was not something that happened to him often, ever really, but it seemed as though his lungs wouldn’t take in anymore oxygen.
“She is almost to the door boss. Do you want me to go ahead?” Sammy was looking at him with a bit of concern. If she got in the door, then there was a higher chance of them failing and failure was not an option. They needed this win, not just for the money, but for the morale of the gang.
Something was holding him back though. He didn’t want her to recognize him later. The man didn’t know her, but he knew then that there would be a next time for them and he would never have a chance if she knew what he had done. “Yeah, you go ahead. I don’t want her to see my face.”
Sammy didn’t need to be told twice. Sammy knew that he was supposed to sweet talk her into the building. Something the man was very good at. He got out of the tinted car and walked quickly towards the woman. He didn’t want to alarm her. He was still a rather large guy and no matter how Sammy was dressed, he looked dangerous.
“Excuse me Miss?”
Kristy was surprised and jumped when she heard the man behind her. She took in the hulk of a man, but he had a disarming smile on his face that was hard to not smile back to. “Yes?”
“Are you guys about to open?”
She nodded. “Yeah the branch will open in another half an hour.”
His face dropped. “I was really needing to get some money out of my account before work. I got a big client meeting at lunch and I can’t find my card. It would be embarrassing to have to ask one of them to pay for it.”
She tried to look sympathetic, but there was no way that Kristy was going to be able to let him in. When she tried to explain it to him, the smiling man was not smiling anymore and he had a look to him that made her even more nervous.
“I really need to get in there Kristy.”
The hairs went up in the back of her neck and she took a step back. There was nowhere for her to go though. He was right in front of her and he had this smile on his face. “Why don’t you just let me in and I will help myself?”
It was then that she realized what was really going on and she couldn’t believe it. “You are trying to rob the bank?”
He nodded to her. “Not just me and I am not trying Kristy, I am succeeding.”
He made a motion towards the car and three more men got out in black ski masks. Kristy’s body wanted to flee. It was the first thing that she could think of, but there was quickly a steely hand on her wrist letting her know that it wasn’t an option. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you lady.”
A larger man than the one holding her came up and knocked the man on the shoulder. “Get your hands off of her. We don’t need any of that kind of violence.” Zed didn’t like the look of fear on the woman’s face. It was not an emotion he was used to receiving from a woman and he really wanted Kristy to react with lust like the rest of them did.
“Sorry.” Sammy gave him a dirty look, but moved back to give the woman some space.
“Now this doesn’t have to be unpleasant. My friend here would like to make a withdrawal.”
She nodded her head, her hands shaking as she tried to fit the key in the door. There was no stopping the trembling in her hands though and his larger one covered hers to calm her done. His touch was soothing somehow in the crazy situation, but there was nothing else that he could do. It wasn’t the man she was afraid of, but the situation unfolding around her that she had no say in.
Zed finally took the keys from her and had her show him which one it was. “Don’t be afraid, Kristy. I wouldn’t let anything happen to a proper woman like you.”
Kristy believed him for some reason. She had no reason to. No basis for the trust, but she did. Above all though, she didn’t have a choice. The man’s voice was deep and not threatening, but firm. He was a man that was used to people listening to what he said and she didn’t think it would be wise not to.
She followed the men in and they seemed to know exactly where they were going. “Let me just get my code book from the desk.”
Zed shook his head. “I don’t think we are going to be hitting that panic button Kristy, now come on and we can make this quick.”
With no other ideas in her head, but running, she made her way towards the large safe in the back. She was not going with protocol and even as she thought about it, there was no way that she would have been able to. The men were ready to do what was needed and they seemed to have a plan. They knew her by name, so there didn’t seem to be anything that she could do. It was silly of her to be worrying about her job at such a time. She should have been worrying about her life.
The men were in and the main guy gave her a chair to sit in. She was thankful for it. Her knees were a bit wobbly with everything that was going on. “Thank you.”
He kind of laughed at her. “Did you just thank your robber?”
Kristy was still hungover and she was actually more annoyed as the time went on. His comment grated on her nerves and she refused to talk to him for several minutes. When his hand went to her shoulder, she shrugged him off.
“Stop, that really isn’t proper.”
“I don’t have time now, but I would love to bang the propriety right out of you. Do you really think I care about being proper?”
“No, but I do and there are cameras. I am already going to have to explain why the hell I let robbers into the bank. I am going to lose my job over this and all you can worry about is getting your thing wet?”
She was incredulous and even more so when he looked at her and started to laugh loud. It was so loud that Sammy came back up from the safe to see if everything was okay. “Get the money so we can go. I am watching her.”
Sammy didn’t argue and moved back down the few steps to walk into the safe. They had their bags almost too full to carry and he walked back up with the rest of them. Zed was standing close to the girl and he cleared his throat to get their attention. Zed moved back and then leaned in for a kiss on her lips.
“Until we meet again Kristy.”
He walked out as one man threw him a bag. Kristy was left breathing hard. It had all happened so quickly and the man himself had some nerve to act the way he did. It was bad enough that he was robbing a bank, but to kiss her and say the things he said was too much.
She sat there in the chair that he had brought her for several minutes after they had left. Kristy was in a daze and it was more from the conflicting feelings inside of her, then the fact that she had just been in a robbery. Her hands were no longer shaking as she reached for the panic button under the desk next to her. It didn’t seem to be all that effective when there was a guy in front of her that knew it was there. Nothing had went like the book had suggested and she went outside to smoke a cigarette waiting for the police to get there.