CHAPTER 27
JORDAN.
MELANIE WAS IN MY STUDY PORING OVER THE BLUEPRINTS WHEN I WALKED IN.
1 stood in the doorway, watching her. Her forehead was crinkled in concentration and she kept sweeping her hair behind her ear because it kept falling over her face as she bent over the document. She shook her head and muttered some things to hersell
I cleared my throat “Does this mean you’ll take the job then?”
She looked up at me quickly, “I wasn’t aware it was a request.” She said drily.
The corner of my lip quirks up in a smile “It wasn’t, but good to know you’re on board.” I walked over to where she was behind the desk and looked down at the blueprints.
She’d marked some points with red pushpins, others with yellow and two blue.
“How up–to–date is this blueprint?” she asked.
“About as up–to–date as it can be. Problem?”
She sighed and a lock of hair fell forward. My hands itched to sweep it back so I put them in my pocket.
“It’s going to be really tricky. There are too many risks involved”
“Explain”
She took a seat and slumped down in it, tapping her pencil with every point she made.
“How far is the bank from a police station? What time in the day is it going down? What’s the traffic going to be like? How long before someone reports it? Or some ballsy employee presses a button? How many people are going to be involved?” she reeled off.
“I can answer one of those for you right now. Come on in guys” I raised my voice at the last part and the team I’d assembled walked in
Their attention was immediately on Melanie as hers was on them and I watched as she took assessing glances at them and they sized her up in return.
“Melanie, this is your team”
“Mia“. I gestured to the raven–haired woman wearing combat boots “She’s an excellent safe cracker.”
“Will Mia be able to defend herself if need be? We don’t need any liabilities” Melanie said in her matter–of–fact way and Mia shot her a hard stare.
“I can watch my own back just fine, lady” she said.
Well. This wasn’t off to a great start.
I continued with the introductions, pointing out Sebastian the excellent driver, and Dimitri who was skilled in combat, knew how to follow orders and had worked with the others before.
Lastly Iturned to Katnissa, my top field agent who was currently shooting daggers at Melanie.
“And last but not least, this is Katnissa Delgado. She has the most experience here so you’ll be working directly with her 1 concluded
“So the princess sits while the rest of us stand before her like we are less than,” Katnissa said, narrowing her eyes at Melanie. She’s always had a bit of an intimidating air around her making it difficult for her to blend in sometimes. However, I didn’t care about blending in, I cared about results, and she brought in excellent ones.
Melanie matched her cold stare and raised an eyebrow, “If you know you aren’t why don’t you take a seat too? Unless you’ve just pointed out the truth” she said.
Katnissa tensed but before she could say anything, I spoke “Guys, this is Melanie Hayes. She’s a recent addition to the company and is a master at what she does“.
I left out the parts about the contract or the capacity she worked under as that would raise questions. They didn’t need to
CHAPTER 17
know everything.
“And what does she do, exactly?” Sebastian asked, giving her a sleazy once–over. He was a shameless womanizer, but he did good work
Melame turned and smiled at me. “Yes, Jordan. What is it that I do?” she asked, daring me to tell them all that she was a con
“All you need to know is that she has a very interesting portfolio, and due to that she’ll be taking point on this mission.” [ said finally
Kanisa shot me a disbelieving look as the rest of them broke out in murmurs.
“Kat always takes point. Let her do it.”
“We don’t even know this lady,”
“Why would you give a new recruit the lead?”
“I don’t mind. She can lead me to the bedroom too. The last one came from Sebastian and everyone looked at him. He shrugged unapologetically, smirking “Tm just sayin”
Choosing to ignore this. I gave them all a cool stare.
“We must have become best of friends and I wasn’t
aware, since you’re so willing to question my orders.”
They backed down immediately except Katnissa
“We’re not questioning them, sir. We just feel that we would like to take orders from someone capable who we can trust her amber eyes flicked to Melanie when she said capable.
It seemed like they needed a little convincing. I refuse to have this mission go sideways because they couldn’t rally together and get it done.
I sighed “Melanie is taking point because she once tried to steal the jewels from me, and she succeeded“, there were more murmurs and skeptical glances thrown in her direction where she just sat and examined her nails looking extremely bored with at all.
They knew no one had ever succeeded before so even if they didn’t like her, they could at least respect her skill.
“Like I said…” I didn’t have to raise my voice before they quietened. “She’s good, and there’s no one else that even has a chance of pulling it off I don’t care if you don’t like each other, you don’t have to. But you can and will follow her instructions to a T. I do not want any slip–ups. You have two days to familiarize yourselves with each other and go over the plan before we fly to Switzerland”
I finished my mini–speech and looked at Melanie, signaling her to take over.
She sat up straight. “I will need you all to be on alert and work quickly. We should be in and out in a maximum of 10
“That’s a really short time frame Dimitri observed in his thick Russian accent.
“We have to make it work. If we had more time to plan, we’d have studied the police response time and all the other factors. involved. As it stands, we can only find out the morning rush hour on that route and aim to target it.”
“Sounds like poor planning of the sort that gets us arrested” Mia said.
(I’m sorry, I didn’t know you’ve broken into several Swiss banks and you know the system. Please feel free to share with m“. Melange shot back sarcastically.
Id never seen her in complete work mode before. It was strangely arousing.
Pushing with thouglas from my head, I focused intently on what she was saying. While I wouldn’t be part of the team I wanted to know every segment of the plan. I’d also be wired in to watch. I had a lot at stake here and I needed to be as involved as possible
“Sebastian, how fast can you get us out of there and a safe distance away!” Melanie asked and he smirked.
“Pretty fast, but I’m certain I can make you“, he caught the withering look I gave him and cleared his throat.
“Pretty fast“, he responded quickly.
CHAPTER 27
“Perfect. Gather round, people” she said, ignoring Sebastian’s unfinished comment and proceeded to lay out the rest of the Pla
CHAPTER 2N
