Royal raised a hand to Knight. “Lay off her. She didn’t know.”
“Well, that’s not a good enough excuse for us to get caught, now is it?”
Royal sneered perfect, white teeth. “I said lay off her—”
“Yo.”
Both men panned to me, my hands on my hips. I reserved a frown for each of them before shooting a finger at Knight. “You, don’t be an asshole. I didn’t know, and you do need to lay off.”
Knight’s dark eyebrows jumped the height of his face. He obviously hadn’t expected me to bite back the way I had.
I faced Royal next. “And you. I don’t need you to defend my honor. That’s very nice, but I’m good.”
That shot Royal’s luminous green eyes wide and got a chuckle from Jax. LJ actually had to choke back his own laughter from sounding in the room, and I think we all waited to see what would happen next. I didn’t tend to do much standing up when it came to Knight or Royal, so needless to say, I’d been surprised as fuck when Knight came over and grinned at me. Like legit he grinned, a full mouth of his own perfect teeth directed at none other than me.
He slapped a hand on Royal’s shoulder. “I guess I approve of her.”
My lips parted, actual shock stunning me silent. Knight took the opportunity to press the button to the elevator, and while we all waited, Royal nudged my shoulder. He grinned himself. “I guess that means you’re in.”
Apparently, it did. Who knew that’s all it’d take? Knight had never been my biggest fan and maybe he had lumped me in with the girls these boys had frequented in the past. He’d found me weak-minded potentially.
I guess no more.
The rest of the journey required Royal, his own set of keys, and later, his DNA. He had to use a personal keycard to get us to the right floor, something he said he’d had since birth. He’d just never had to use it. That got us to the right place, and once there, he pulled out another key he had.
I felt like I’d seen it before, a golden key. Seemingly random, he put that key into a box, and after he opened that box put his thumbprint to the plate inside.
The vault box instantly popped open.
I think we all waited with bated breath as, pushing up his sleeve, my boyfriend reached inside the box he’d chosen. He moved his hand around for a while, but in the end, he came up empty when he pulled his hand out.
“That’s my dad’s personal box,” he said, a sigh on his lips. “I thought it might be in there. He’s kept valuable things there before.”
“So what do we do now?” I asked, waiting. We were in a vault with no cell phone in the place we believed it’d be.
Royal wet his lips, and without another thought, he put that golden key into another box. He turned it, then did the same process with the thumb plate. That box opened too, and when he stepped away, he nodded at the boys. They immediately came over, searching the little box, then the next when Royal opened another.
Royal took off his jacket. “We search them all.”
And that’s exactly what we did. Royal had us search them all, each and every one as he went from box to box with what appeared to be a master key and his thumbprint. The bunch of us created an assembly line behind him, checking each box after he opened it.
Though I was told I didn’t need to help, I covered the most boxes. We stacked our coats, not an ounce of fatigue as we moved, but as time ticked down and more and more boxes came up with nothing but jewelry and other valuables, reality started to settle around us. How ironic we could be surrounded by so many jewels and wealth and not find value in any of it? At least, I hadn’t. The one thing we needed probably wasn’t worth even an iota of the cash and valuables in this room, but that didn’t matter. My sister’s cell phone far outweighed any value that could ever be in this place. That we knew and was why we kept searching despite coming up empty every time. Every box, every reveal got us closer, so we charged on. We remained hopeful…
It wasn’t until all those boxes were open, all those boxes were searched that we looked at each other. That we stopped. We stopped breathing. We stopped trying. We just stopped and even in the shock of that, no one moved. We just stood there.
Knight had been the one to break formation.
He’d checked his watch, coming over to Royal. My boyfriend was on his knees, rummaging through boxes we’d already checked and jewelry we’d already pushed around. My sister’s cell phone wasn’t there.
Try telling Royal that.
Royal pushed on, searching, and gathering. He had probably a couple million dollars in his hands in fine diamonds, pushing them to the side like they were coal.
Knight folded a hand over his shoulder. “I can’t adjust the loop again, bro. If I do, it could set off a red flag.”
We’d been here longer than the two hours. We’d been here many hours, and Knight had adjusted the loop and security a few times. He said he could get away with it once or twice. But a third? He said that’d be pushing it. The store’s security system had learning science. Too many times would alert the security company and he’d told Royal that many times.
Even still, Royal searched the store vault box, Knight’s words as if gone
