Bitter Bite
Page 74

Owen put me on speaker so he and Silvio could both listen to me. They agreed to my plan, although Silvio insisted that we all synchronize our watches so that we would be in perfect time. I rolled my eyes, but he had a point, and I set my watch to match his. So did Bria.
Once that was done, I put my phone away, grabbed the walkie-talkie I’d taken from the roof guard, and turned it on. But the thieves were all busy, and nothing but static sounded, so I clicked off the walkie and left it on the sink.
Bria and I slipped out of the bathroom and back into the hallway. The thieves were still in the same positions as before, with one man by the stairs and the other five working on the cash cages.
I checked my watch. “In five, four, three, two, one . . .”
An emphatic knock sounded, hard enough to rattle the glass in the front doors. “Hey! You in there! I need to make a deposit! Immediately!”
Silvio’s voice boomed through the lobby, and the vampire himself was cupping a hand around his eyes and peering in through the glass. A briefcase dangled from his other hand.
The giant guard who was stationed outside the bank stepped up beside him. “Sir, I already told you that you need to leave—now. The bank isn’t open.”
“Not open? Not open? I can see exactly how open you are! Look at all those guys inside!” Silvio pointed in through the glass, then whipped around to the outside guard. “Surely one of them can take my deposit. I demand to be let in right this very second. Do you know who I am? I am a very important person who works for an even more important person.”
His voice got louder and higher with every word, drawing the attention of all the robbers inside the bank. Even the guys with the power saw and the welding torch cranked down their tools to lower settings, raised their masks, and stared at him.
“My boss knows your boss. So I suggest that you let me inside, buddy. Right now.” Silvio stabbed his finger into the other man’s chest. “Or the only thing you’ll be guarding is a school crosswalk. And that’s if you’re lucky.”
I glanced at Bria, who was grinning as widely as I was. Who knew that Silvio could do self-important pain-in-the-ass so well? I’d have to tease him about it later.
“Well?” Silvio sniped again, his voice booming even louder than before. “Do I need to call my boss and have her call your boss?”
That was the last thing the thieves wanted, especially when it would be far easier to lure Silvio into the bank and kill him. So the outside guard unlocked the front doors, while the one stationed by the fire stairs hurried that way, with all the men at the cash cages staring in that direction. A perfect distraction, just like I’d wanted.
“Go,” I whispered to Bria.
Keeping low, she left the hallway and darted out into the lobby, ducking behind a desk that was sitting between the front doors and the tellers’ counter. The second she was in position, I hurried over to and crouched down behind another desk, this one right at the end of the tellers’ counter.
I peered around the corner of the desk, but the five guys in front of the cash cages were still focused on Silvio and the commotion he was making, and none of them had noticed Bria and me move. I flashed my sister a thumbs-up, which she returned.
Silvio stormed into the lobby, walking fast and putting some distance between himself and the two giants coming up behind him. The vampire looked around, his gaze locking onto the guys holding the power saw and the welder’s torch. Both tools were still churning and burning at a low, steady level.
“What is this?” Silvio asked, throwing one hand up into the air. “No one told me that you were doing construction today. Ugh. I’ll come back later.”
He turned to leave, but the two giants blocked his path.
“Sorry, pal,” one of the giants said with a sneer, his hand dropping to the gun holstered to his belt. “You wanted inside, so you’re going to stay inside—permanently.”
Silvio shook his head. “You really don’t want to threaten me. You see, my boss takes threats to her employees very seriously. Some might even say deadly seriously.”
I rolled my eyes. Now he was just hamming it up.
“Oh, I think we’ll risk your boss’s wrath,” the other guard chimed in, also reaching for his gun.
Silvio looked back and forth between the two men, then shrugged. “Okay, if that’s the way you want it.”
He raised his briefcase and slammed it into the face of the closest giant. That man staggered back, howling at all the blood gushing out of his broken nose. Silvio dropped the briefcase, surged forward, and tackled the second man, driving him to the ground, then snapped his head down and buried his fangs in the giant’s throat.
The guard with the busted nose cursed and pulled out his gun, but Owen stepped in through the now-unlocked front doors and shot him three times in the back.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!
Owen’s silenced gun barely made a sound as he fired, and the giant dropped to the floor like a stone. That left Bria and me to deal with the five men in front of the cash cages.
Bria rose from behind the desk and started shooting, focusing on the three men who’d been transferring the cash from the first cage into the duffel bags.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!
Her gun had a silencer too, and Bria put two of the men down with head shots. The third man grabbed a couple of duffel bags full of money, ducked down behind the tellers’ counter with them, and yanked a gun from the holster on his belt. He was so focused on Bria that he never even saw me creep up behind him. I punched my knife into his back, driving the blade through his ribs and into his lungs. I yanked the blade right back out, and he died with a wheezing whimper.