Page 74 of Deception and New Direction

“Why is your boyfriend here?”Ronaldgrowled at me then turned toJason. “Thiscould be a problem.”

“Where is the man with the papers?Heshould have been back by now,”Jasonsaid.

“Something isn’t right,”Ronaldmuttered.

“New plan,”Jasonsaid then reached for his gun and pulled it out.

OhGod.Ihope you know what you’re doing,Jack.

28

JACK

I had been standing outside the bank whenWadehad messaged that he had seen and made contact withRuthie.Shewas in a small office turning over her money to her brother.Ididn’t have all the details, but this was clearly set up by her family.Wadehad confirmed that the men in the room wereRonaldand her brotherJason.

Ellie saidRuthiehad relayed some info aboutHank.Diego,Axel, andDanehad arrived atHank’shouse, parking down the street from his house so as to not be noticed and were working their way up to the house.

Ellie is at the front desk letting them know an armed man is forcingRuthieto sign those papers in the private room,Wadetexted us.Hopefullythey alert the police, butArcheryou should probably call and let them know too.

My brain was stuck on the armed part.Didyou say armed?

Wade responded to my text by confirming he had seen the bump on the guy’s chest, meaning he was clearly wearing a holster.

That was it for me.Icould be patient, but not if that man was armed.Iwas not waiting outside anymore.Iwent into the bank, butIwas smart enough to knowIneeded to stay out of sight.Isubtly made my way to an empty chair outside of the office next to the oneRuthiewas in.

My thought was that if they left, they would walk right by me to exit, andIcould grabRuthieand protect her ifIneeded to.

WhenIwalked in,InoticedWade’seyes finding mine and shaking his head, as though he thoughtIwas impatient.Iwas.ButIalso knew he would do the exact same thing if the situation was reversed and that wasElliein that room.

AsIwalked over to the chair,InoticedRonaldlooked over at me and made eye contact.Hiseyes went from confusion to recognition to anger then panic.Herealized the jig was up, but that wasn’t a great thing because people who panicked made bad decisions.Iturned to look atWade, who saw the look on my face, andInoticed he moved closer toEllie, gearing up for something bad to happen.

Wade andIhad served together long enough to know how to communicate silently.Youneeded that while overseas for moments like these when you couldn’t verbally communicate.

Ronald walked out of the room and looked around as though he was searching for someone.Seeinganother bank employee,Ronaldyelled out to him. “I’mlooking for the gentleman who was helping us.We’reon a time crunch and need to speak with him right now.”

“Okay sir.I’llsee ifIcan find him,” the man said and walked away.

Ronald walked back into the room and began pacing.Adifferent bank employee walked back over to the room, along with whoIassumed was a manager.Iwas close enough thatIcould make out most of what he was saying.

“I do apologize, but it appears we are having technical difficulties and won’t be able to transfer the money until tomorrow,” the associate said.

I heard mumbled curses and irritated questions regarding why.

“We have all your paperwork on file, so it should be simple to take care of tomorrow if you’d like to come back first thing in the morning,” the bank associate explained.

“The bank doesn’t close for another hour.We’dlike to wait,”Ronaldsaid, clearly not wanting to come back tomorrow.

“My name isGerald, andI’mthe bank manager here.I’mafraid that won’t be possible.You’llhave to come back tomorrow.”

“This is bullshit,”Iheard from a male voice, followed by gasps.

“Sir, please put down the weapon,”Iheard the bank manager say, which got my full attention and had me shifting my body toward the office.

The two bank employees moved backward away from the office with their hands in front of them.Ruthiealso began to walk out of the office with a gun to her head, held in place byJason.

“The money needs to be transferred today, no exceptions,”Jasonargued. “Sodo what you need to do to make that happen.Ifyou can’t transfer it, then cash it out and put all the money in a bag and give it toRonald, but we are leaving with that money.”

Ronald stood behindJason, clearly unsure of what to do.Hewanted that money, butIthink he realized the jig was up.Onceyou pulled a gun at a bank, your sentence escalated exponentially.Evenif you didn’t fire the weapon, simply brandishing a gun inside a bank came with a mandatory jail sentence.Ronaldmay have turned out to be an asshole, but he wasn’t an idiot, and judging by the look on his face, he realized this was escalating too quickly for him to remain in control.

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