Camila saw the additional pair of duffel bags, still empty, at his feet. The survival center in her brain told her feet to move and her hands to comply. The sooner these criminals got what they’d come for, the faster this would be over, with everyone safe and sound. But Rosalie was half-conscious at best, which had clearly messed with their plan to have her help pack the extra bag after she’d opened the vault. She let out a weak cough, dry as sand, followed by a series of rapid wheezes, and realization clicked into place in Camila’s mind.
“I think Rosalie is having an asthma attack,” she said, her stomach dipping when Rosalie nodded. Well, that explained why the poor woman couldn’t breathe.
The robber snorted, his hands not slowing. “I don’t give a fuck. Pack.”
The smaller robber sprang to action, opening one of the empty bags and starting to stuff it with the stacks of cash lining the shelf in front of them.
But Camila saw the stark terror in Rosalie’s eyes, and she didn’t think. Just said, “You’ll give a fuck if she dies, right?”
The larger man stepped toward her, sending her heart crashing against her rib cage. “I’ll help you,” Camila blurted, holding her hands up in a show of good faith. “But this whole thing will be less messy for you without a body. Let me help her first.”
The man’s body language screamed “no”, but the smaller robber huffed in frustration, making the big guy say, “You have twenty seconds, and I am counting. Fuck around and I’ll kill you both.”
He nodded to the smaller robber, who turned to keep his eyes on Camila. She knelt down next to Rosalie, squeezing her hand in what she hoped was reassurance.
“It’s going to be okay. Do you have an inhaler?”
Rosalie nodded weakly, her eyes dropping to the pocket of her suit jacket. Thank God. “Okay, that’s great. I’m just going to—”
Camila’s hand was halfway to Rosalie’s pocket before the smaller robber had grabbed her wrist to still her. He thrust a finger in the air, a nonverbal stop, reaching into Rosalie’s pocket himself. He rummaged for only a second before coming up with the inhaler and shoving it into Camila’s palm. Their gazes locked for a fraction of a second, and Camila recognized something not-quite-right about the man’s eyes. She stared—what was that?—but then the larger man’s voice yelling at her to hurry up made her heart smash against her rib cage.
“Okay,” she said, her voice shaking as badly as her hands. But Rosalie needed her help. As a guidance counselor, her office was next to the nurse’s, and she’d done extensive first aid training just in case it was ever needed. Camila had seen enough kids use inhalers to know the basics, so she uncapped the inhaler and lifted it to Rosalie’s mouth, giving her two successive puffs. Rosalie’s breaths slowed a little, a tiny bit of the panic leaving her face, and it would have to be good enough for now.
Camila tucked the inhaler into the woman’s bound hands and turned toward the robbers, ready to make good on her word, if only to get them all out of there alive. She loaded the money in front of her into the bag at her feet, and having a task to focus on, albeit an utterly illegal one, strengthened her resolve.
“I’m done,” she said once the bag was full. The smaller robber hefted the bag from the floor with a soft grunt, nodding at the larger man. Camila’s heart raced. They were so close to getting out of here now that all the bags were full.
But before she could check on Rosalie, before she could so much as say a single word, the muscle-bound robber lunged. Something cold and hard smashed against Camila’s skull, pain exploding in a starburst from her temple outward, and her vision shrank until the only thing left was darkness.
5
Roman used all of his strength just to breathe. He’d been on high alert, memorizing everything he could ever since the three assailants had entered the bank and made their intentions clear. This crew was fucking good, though—military-grade gear, precision timing. Not your run-of-the-mill smash and dash, this whole job was clearly well-planned, which meant there was no way these guys were virgins. The point man was scissor-sharp, having moved just far enough behind Roman after sending Camila to the back that Roman couldn’t see him, even though he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the man saw him. Roman had no way of looking around to gather even the smallest scrap of intel about the man without being noticed. He sure as hell couldn’t gauge where the second man had taken Camila, or guess why they might have needed her.
Fuck. He had to get to Camila. Had to keep her safe.
He couldn’t let her die.
Control the situation, his inner voice commanded, yanking him fully back into the moment. Emotions made people stupid. Made them panic. Got them killed. He needed to come up with a strategy, something rational that would ensure everyone’s safety now. He wasn’t armed—he didn’t make a habit of carrying his weapon unless he was in the field—but it didn’t matter. Getting into a shootout with three heavily armed robbers with a bunch of civilians in the mix would be the highest order of stupid. Once everyone in the bank was safe, he’d be able to lead a team of FBI agents to take these assholes down.
The time would come for these three criminals to end up in jail for the rest of their lives. Right now, Roman was outmanned and outgunned. Acting like a cowboy would only get him—and the innocent people around him—killed.
Not fucking happening. Not today. Not ever.
Roman scraped for an inhale, using the opportunity to mentally review as many facts as he could. There was damn little to go on, which pissed him off. With the point man out of his line of sight, Roman couldn’t gauge anything other than the seconds dropping off the clock, and yeah, he’d been counting. He knew the guy was still there even though he didn’t have eyes on him—there had been no footsteps toward the doorway leading to the back of the bank, and anyway, he was too smart for that. He’d never be so careless as to leave them all unattended. Despite the fact that all three assailants were packing some serious hardware, Roman didn’t get a sense that the point man planned to harm anyone unless he felt he had to. This job was too well-strategized to be a one-off, and a body trail would attract far more attention than they’d want. The best plan was to lay low and let this crew steal the money they’d come for.
At least, for now. After they’d gone?
Roman wasn’t going to rest until all three of them were behind bars.
The preteen girl beside him let out a shaky exhale. She’d calmed a little bit, her cries having turned into hiccupy breaths as her mother had whispered, “it’s okay” over and over in her ear. There was damn little that made Roman’s composure hitch, even for a nanosecond. His fellow agents hadn’t nicknamed him The Iceman for nothing. So the speed with which the girl’s terror had sliced through Roman in that instant when he’d first seen her? Yeah, he’d have to figure out how he’d let that slip past his defenses later, so he could make sure it never happened again.
He’d recovered quickly, at least, strategically soothing the girl’s panic so the assailants wouldn’t do anything stupid to keep her quiet. And they hadn’t.
Not yet, anyway. The point man might not lean toward violence, but the big guy with him? Yeah, he was a bar fight waiting to happen.