Fear trickled through me. Firmly, I reminded myself of my purpose here: to save the orphanage—my living family—and get revenge for my deceased parents.
I squared my shoulders.
There was no backing out now. I could do this. No, I needed to do this. And I would.
Sherwood is going down.
We’d made our way down a couple more hallways, when the commotion began. Although we couldn’t hear the scene that Alan, our balladeer, was putting on, it had to be stupendous for so many wolf-shifters guards to rush past.
“The pyrotechnics should start any time now,” Will whispered.
My eyes widened. I’d known that our friends would create a distraction. Butpyrotechnics?!I must have missed that detail.
I veered closer to Munchie. “That’s risky. How are they going to pull that off?”
Munchie grinned. “Tinker’s idea, so you know it’s legit. She engineered special fireworks for us that can be lit remotely. And hopefully, she’s already disabled the cameras that would point straight at the gang.”
“Done and done.” Tinker’s voice came in through the comm, and I jumped yet again.
I needed to chill, but it was difficult. I was about to commit my first crime and having this thing in my ear always caught me off guard. I was not cut out for this criminal life.
“I’m working on the cameras and lights by the safe right now,” Tink added.
“So, when will they—” My mouth snapped shut as an onslaught of guards rushed past us toward the front of the house, snarls on their lips.
“Just set off the fireworks,” Tinker said. The sound of popping gum filled the comm. I imagined her sitting in a hotel room somewhere above us, blowing bright pink bubbles with her gum. “No one is around the vaults. Which is perfect, because I’ve nearly hacked the main door open. Hurry your asses up. We won’t have much time before someone notices that the cameras are on a loop.”
Less than a minute later, we stood before the massive metal doors that reminded me of a submarine portal. My gaze swept the ceiling, and right away, I caught the cameras.
“Those are looped too. Only I can see you guys,” Tinker commented. “No one in the security room has noticed yet, but that’s because the show on the floor is so spectacular. Theywillnotice eventually.”
“How close are you to breaking open the door?” Robin asked when Tinker fell silent.
“Almost . . . there!”
A click of metal met my ears, and we rushed forward. We entered a long gray hallway. Vaults lined the walls on both sides of us, and the scent of cold metal infiltrated my nose.
“Most of what you’re looking at are decoy safes,” Tinker said. “Judging by the digital activity that logs the opening and closing the doors, they only use a few on the right to store their money. Then they do a mass extraction and transport a lot of it to a bank. But not all. Some safes are rarely opened.”
That sounded reasonable, and it tracked with what I knew about the vampires liking to keep a small fortune on hand.
“Go right until you come across a blinking red light. That’s the safe I’m trying to crack. But that’s just the outer shell. They’re also protected by old-fashioned locks inside. That shit is all you, Munchie.”
We moved right, searching for the red blinking light, and found it halfway down the hall. After we were in position, it took Tinker less than a minute to crack the safe she had zeroed in on.
“I’ll get to work on the next one,” she said with obvious pride. “If you guys have time, you can loot them both.”
Munchie opened the door. Because the hallway was tight, and everyone wanted to see the safe, we were squished close together. Robin brushed against me, and my body lit up in a way that made it impossible to repress a shiver.
“You all right, Mar?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.
“Fine . . . it’s nerves,” I replied, trying not to dwell too much on how he affected me.
“Quiet, you two,” Munchie hissed. He had his ear pressed close to the manual locking mechanism. A faint series of clicks filled the vault as he turned the dial. Sherwood and Jehanne insisted on installing two locks per safe—one electronic, one manual. That they put more trust in the manual ones as the last line of defense didn’t surprise me. Most vampires didn’t completely trust technology, particularly old vamps.
Munchie was still working to crack the final lock, when down the hall, another safe clicked open. Tinker was on a roll.
“Will, go crack the second lock,” Robin whispered, trying not to distract Munchie.
