Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Her face pales slightly. “Are you joking?”
“Not at all. I don’t think Mantis is going to start shooting, but that won’t last forever. I need you to stay away from the windows.”
She chews her lip, looks over my shoulder for a second, then down to my hand. “What’s that?” she asks.
I hold up the folder. “This is nothing.”
“Is that why they’re following you now?”
“No.” I tuck it under my arm. “Just be careful.” I brush past her and into the hall.
“Next time, try communicating before you start dragging me around,” she calls out.
I don’t bother responding. I put the folder down in my office and log into my computer system just to make sure everything’s okay. As far as I can tell, nobody has tried to penetrate my network.
I lean back and stare at the Mantis watch.
What the fuck am I going to do with that thing? And what in the hell am I going to do with my wife?
Chapter 20
Riley
I wait until his breathing gets nice and steady before I slip out of bed.
I’m pretty quiet when I want to be. He barely even stirs, but I still stand like a statue near the door for almost ten minutes before I slip out into the hall. I wait again, listening carefully, making sure he’s completely out.
All's quiet in the Sarkissian household.
I march grimly over to his office door. Once again, I’m being dumb and careless, but I can’t help myself.
That folder was important, and I want to read it.
Once I get something in my head, I can’t get it back out again, at least until I indulge whatever overwhelming impulse has grabbed hold of me.
Right now, it’s whatever he’s trying to hide.
The lock on his office door is a Schlage Primus. That poses a challenge. The thing is, standard locks on normal houses are basically worthless to anyone who knows how to use a tension bar. I can open the average suburban house in like ten seconds if I really want to.
But the Schlage Primus is on another level. It has a dual-locking mechanism with traditional pins plus a sidebar with finger pins, meaning I need to be very careful. Once I slip my tension bar in the top, I use my favorite pick to slowly move in and out, wiggling up and down, getting a feel for the pins as they click into place. It’s painstaking and very delicate work, and after a minute, I get completely absorbed.
This is why I love thieving. It’s not the stealing—although that part is fun too—but the challenge. I feel alive pulling off a difficult job like this, and it reminds me that I’m not some pathetic, helpless loser. I’m smart and clever, and I can pull this off.
After raking the lock for nearly ten minutes, I feel the tumblers snap into place. I turn with the tension bar, and the lock opens with a satisfying click.
“Fuck yeah,” I whisper, sweating slightly and grinning like a maniac. Alexan’s office door swings open. My heart’s pounding with excitement, and everything sharpens into focus. The darkness is thinner, and I move with more confidence as I slip forward toward his desk.
The folder was left out right beside his keyboard. I sink down into his comfortable office chair and flip it open. I turn on my phone’s flashlight and scan the front page, excitement slowly turning to dread.
It’s Jeremy Fong. Approximate age thirty-nine. Born to Taiwanese parents. Raised in London. Undergrad at Oxford, MBA at Wharton. A long list of known associates, many with names like Starscream, Lionnessa, Screwn, Reggis. Hacker pseudonyms, if I had to guess. Otherwise, there’s not much personal info on my good friend.
But it’s the pages after that are more interesting. Whoever compiled this dossier was really thorough. Fong’s cyber company owns an office park out in the suburbs, and they went all out on security. I obsess over the details, memorizing floor plans, whispering the names of alarm systems, mostly because this is what my brother trained me for.
This is everything a competent heistman would need to pull off a job.
There’s a noise in the hallway. My feet go cold as I turn off my phone’s flashlight. I sit in the darkness, not moving, not breathing. But I hear the sound again.
Definitely footsteps.
“Shit,” I whisper, putting the folder back. I look around desperately for a place to hide and end up scurrying over to the closet. Lucky me, it’s decently big and mostly empty.
The office door creaks open.
I risk peeking through the slit in the folding doors. It’s definitely Alexan. He shuffles over to where I was just sitting and frowns down at his desk. My chest is hammering, and my guts are filled with fluttering nerves, but he only stares and stares until he turns like he’s going to head back to bed.