Page 18 of Sugar Baby
“I need to get you out of here, Sophia, away from Atlas. He is dangerous and will stop at nothing to destroy you and your family.”
“Why? Who is he and where is Cain? Is Cain a baddie as well?” This seems an obvious question to ask at this point.
He ignores me as he bustles me out of the fire exit at the end of the corridor, just past the office I was holed up in a few minutes ago. We burst out into the alleyway at the back of the bank, with overflowing skips that are in dire need of emptying and then given some serious bleaching. The stench makes me want to retch.
Nico hauls me past a homeless man rooting through one of them. I follow, my feet moving quickly to keep up and not turn over on my ankle in these six-inch heels, which I hastily replaced. My dress brushes past one of the bins, getting dirt on it and God knows what else.
“Nico!”
He rounds the corner of the alley, leading me onto a small back street that has seen better days. Parked at the curb is a black van. He practically shoves me into it, slamming the door shut behind me. When I try to open it, I find the child-lock has been enabled and I’m stuck.
“Nico!” I bang my hand on the window, hurting myself and wondering now if I’ve trusted the wrong man.
Nico leaps into the driver's seat and fires up the engine.
“Where are Franco and Luca?”
Silence.
“You had better tell me now what’s going on!” I yell at him, “Or I’m ringing my dad and then there will be hell to pay!”
As we turn off the side road and file into the traffic on the main stretch that leads out of town, Nico speaks and what he has to say, shocks me into shutting my mouth.
ChapterThirteen
Cain
Having just seen Sophia disappear through the door at the back of the bank, I take in the obstacles to getting to her. Two gunmen, two other men, not armed that I can see, all with covered-up faces and several people dropping to the floor in panic. I make my way to the side wall and drop. There is a line of counters where customers can fill out forms that face inwards. I crawl behind them and forward, determined to get to Sophia, one way or another. Fuck knows where Nico is, but I can’t waste time looking for him. My only focus is to get to Sophia. This is an absolute disaster, and I knew something would happen. I justknewit. I mean, this is the first time Quinn has given me responsibility over his daughter, so, of course, it’s all gone tits up. I’m deader than dead if I don’t find his Sugar without a scratch on her. I’m trying to think what on earth they want with her, but it’s not hard to deduce that they can see she is wealthy and to probably assume she has a safety deposit box in this elite bank. I come to a dead stop when I see a woman in a black dress with long, lean legs pulled up, so her chin rests on her knees. Her long dark hair is spilling around her shoulders, and those green eyes mesmerise me for just a second.
Our gazes lock.
A pen dangles on its chain between us, swaying from the fall from the top of the counter.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was Sophia Quinn. But I do know. I’ve studied her face, her eyes, and this is not her.
“Atlas,” she breathes out, mistaking me for someone else. “Thank fuck. What the hell is this?”
I blink, trying to think fast. “Not sure,” I murmur. “Are you hurt?”
She shakes her head. “No, but I didn’t even get to the safety deposit box before your two guys turned and joined these other two fucks.”
“Did they now?” I mutter darkly in an effort to convince her I’m this Atlas wanker and that I have no clue what’s going on, the latter being true enough.
I keep my distance from her in case, up close, she realises I’m not who she thinks I am.
That plan goes out of the window, though, when she crawls up to me and cups my face. “Don’t let anything happen to me.”
I take her hand and remove it from my face before the urge to slap it away overcomes me. “I won’t.”
Mostly because I want to know who she is and what the fuck she and this Atlas character have to do with this robbery.
I gesture with my head, my finger on my lips, that we should be silent now and keep moving forward. No one has looked over the counter yet, so I hope it stays that way. The Sophia lookalike follows me, crawling on her hands and knees, which sort of fires up my dick’s engines in a big way. She is a carbon copy but with a couple of minor flaws. I can’t help wondering if she was trying to pass as her. To test that dangerous water, I murmur, “Quietly, Sophia.”
She nods and creeps forward.
Hmm. That has confirmed at least part of this bizarre heist. They must’ve been trying to get to the lockbox. Sophia has no money of her own, so there isn’t the option of trying to empty her accounts because she doesn't have any. Whoever is behind this, Atlas, obviously, has done his homework. That’s when I stop crawling and curse. This woman thinks I’m him, so he looks like me, just as she looks like Sophia.
My brain can’t cope with the complexities of this heist. All I need to do is get to that door and get to the real Sophia before anything happens to her, all the while keeping this fake Sophia safe from the phoney me.
