Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
The banker must take my tears for sentimental ones because his expression softens.
“Newlyweds.” He sighs. “Enjoy it while it lasts. When the wedding is over and reality sets back in, the honeymoon wears off quickly.”
He sounds bitter, as if he’s talking from experience.
While he takes us to a standing desk in a big oval room with black marble walls and floors, Hulk tells him how it was love at first sight when we met during a business trip.
After the three of us have signed a dozen documents and the banker has taken the men’s biometrics and made copies of their ID cards, which are no doubt fake, we’re taken through a steel door into a room with rows of safe deposit boxes. A table and two chairs stand in the center.
I only have eyes for the carafe of water set out with glasses on the table, but Hulk cuts his nails so hard into my flesh that he must be breaking skin.
The banker bows. “I’ll leave you to it. Just press the call button when you’re done or if you need me.”
“Thank you,” I say, giving him another serene smile despite feeling jittery and out of sorts.
The minute he’s closed the door behind him, Hulk pushes me deeper into the room. “Delacy, huh? That was clever—using a false name.”
Cheap laughs. “No wonder we didn’t find anything. We were searching under the wrong name.”
Hulk clicks his tongue. “You’re a dark horse, Tatiana.”
I look around, already knowing there are no cameras in here.
“You have a minute,” Hulk says.
I blink, perspiring more profusely. Turning in a circle, I take in the room. The boxes can only be opened with a code. They don’t have keys. It’s more convenient for people who tend to misplace or lose keys. I’m not sure how I know that. The knowledge is simply a part of me. It’s like knowing the earth is round.
I don’t remember the safe box number, but my feet carry me to where it feels familiar.
“Is this it?” Hulk asks next to me when I stop in front of a safe box.
I don’t know how I know this either. I just do.
I nod.
He pulls out the box and carries it to the table. I eye the water again, but he wipes an arm across the tabletop and knocks down the carafe.
I stare at the puddle that grows around the broken crystal on the floor, wanting to go down on my knees and lap it up.
Hulk’s command is clipped. “Do it.”
“Wait.” Cheap catches his arm. “She may have a gun stashed in there. It’s best if you open it.”
“Good point.” Hulk curls his fingers over my shoulder and shoves me a few feet back. “Give me the code.”
I close my eyes. The four numbers flash like a stuttering tungsten light through my mind. I hesitate but only for a second. I’ll do anything not to go back into the trunk.
“Zero, six, one, two.”
Noah’s birthday, I register.
Hulk punches the numbers on the code pad. The red light turns to green.
He shoots Cheap a grin. “I told you I’d break her.”
The latter pushes closer, both of them fighting for space as Hulk opens the box.
Boom!
A deafening explosion rocks the space, sending my body flying into the metal boxes behind me. I crumple to the floor in a stupor, my ears ringing and my body shaking.
Hulk and his accomplice lie a distance from me. Most of the thinner man’s face is blown away. Something gray shows through the huge hole in Hulk’s skull, the metal lid of the box still lodged in his head.
Alarms blare in the space.
I push myself up, coughing through the thick smoke as I battle to stand.
The door opens and security guards rush through.
“What happened?”
“I—” I wipe away something wet on my temple. My hand comes away with blood. “I don’t know.”
The guard who addressed me speaks into a two-way radio. “Call an ambulance.”
Another guard approaches me. “Are you all right?”
I shake my head.
He takes my elbow and helps me outside. “Wait here. An ambulance is on the way. You need stitches.”
What he doesn’t say is that the police will want to question me, but I can see suspicion mixed with confusion and concern on his face before he hurries back into the vault.
I don’t wait. I notice a WC sign in the lobby. In the chaos that follows, I slip into the bathroom and lock the door. The face staring back at me from the reflection in the mirror is ghastly white with dark circles around its eyes. A trickle of blood runs down the side of my cheek from a gash in my temple. I must’ve knocked my head on the boxes when the blast propelled my body through the air.
I look for the handbag. Maybe there’s make-up in there I can use to disguise my face.