Page 18 of Steal Me (Rebel Hearts Heists 1)
Chapter 9
Catch me if you can
Sloane
“Regardless of why the FBI is after you, Sloane, all the witnesses during the robbery will have reported that we took you and the FBI agent saw you with us, so unfortunately we can’t let you go. That would get us caught. Do you understand that?’ I nod, relieved that he doesn’t plan on ditching me for now because if Pierce caught up with me again, I’d want these guys in my corner.
“Blaine and I have decided that our safest bet is to try and reach our house in Washington. It’s on a beach a few hours north of Seattle, in a remote location. We’ll be able to hide there until we all decide what’s next. But before we can make our way there, there’s a few things we need to take care of. The four of us. Blaine and I will ‘drop out’ of college. Kaden, you’ll separately go and ask for a sabbatical. Say that you have a sick family member or something. Like this, we’ll all have reasons to justify not going back to sit finals before winter break. If we all disappeared out of the blue and with no explanation, it would look wildly suspicious.”
River intervenes again. “Hey, what about me?”
Kaden chuckles.“One out of four can disappear without explaining. And I agree it makes perfect sense for it to be you, since you’re fucking crazy and people won’t question it if you just take off.”
That rubs River the wrong way. “Hey motherfu—”
“Enough! You can argue later. But Kaden’s right: people have come to expect odd behavior from you, Rivs. Sorry. So as I was saying, we’ll go and take care of school tomorrow. Also we’ll go home, pay the lease for the apartment until the end of the year, so no one should have a reason to look in there until we’re safely in Washington. We can do that online but it’s better to do it from campus than from any other location that could get us found. Especially, we need to be mindful about using our phones until we can ditch them and get new ones under false names. Blaine and I will take care of that tomorrow and also, we need to retrieve River’s stack of cash from the apartment and deposit at least part of it. Kaden, we’ll split that in four. We’ll each make several deposits in banks around town tomorrow and take part of it with us. Cash flow is always good. We’ll make sure to keep track of what you’re owed Rivs. Ok?”
River narrows his eyes but when he objects to the plan, it isn’t because of the money. “So let me get this straight: you, Blaine and Kaden will go back to LA to take care of all this shit … does this mean that I’m on babysitting duty?”
I don’t have time to react to his obvious irritation at being stuck with me because Kaden cuts him off. “Yeah. You’ll go get Sloane a few clothes since all she has is the clothes Blaine gave her earlier on and the stuff I gave her to sleep in. We’ll take some more clothes for all of us from the apartment but it’s too dangerous to go back to Sloane’s dorm. Especially since agent dip-shit might be watching it like a hawk.”
River doesn’t budge. “I get that. What I don’t fucking get is why can’t I go deposit money or do some of the other shit you guys are in charge of and someone else can babysit. Why don’t you, huh? From the sounds coming from Sloane’s room last night, you guys ‘get along’ pretty well.”
I have to admit that I’d prefer to be left with Kaden or one of the brothers rather than River but I know better than to voice my feelings because Royce’s rebuttal is completely expected.
“Because we don’t fucking trust you, Rivs. The main reason why we need to take care of all that cash is that you didn’t deposit it when we told you to. So we need to risk our asses because of you. Think about what the fuck would happen if maintenance had to access the apartment for any reason and they stumbled upon nine-fucking-million bucks in cash, huh? So you’ll let us take care of business and you’ll be nice to Sloane. Don’t even think about doing anything stupid because to me it’s an equal pain in the ass to have to dispose of two bodies rather than just one, got it? So when we get back here tomorrow night, she better have every hair in the same place it is now. Understood?”
After everything is decided, River storms off to the other room while the other three guys all look at each other. If I didn’t think better of it, I’d think that each of them wants to sleep in my room.
Royce takes control of the situation again and I’d be lying if I didn’t find his strong, slightly bossy attitude a huge turn on. “This is your bed, Sloane. Blaine and I will take the couch in this room and Kaden will keep an eye on the crazy bastard out there.” Kaden looks displeased with Royce’s decision but doesn’t argue. He places a soft kiss on my forehead and wishes me goodnight.
I go take a much needed shower, washing this stressful day off of me and especially Pierce’s touch earlier. It’s unbelievable how I could ever have let him touch me once upon a time. But if I have to be entirely honest with myself, our sex life was never great. Pierce was always about his own pleasure and never mine: he always pushed me to indulge his every fantasy or whim in bed but he never returned the favor. He actually judged me the one time I mustered the courage to ask for something I wanted and after being slut shamed, I never dared opening up again.
Pierce was only my second lover ever, after my high school sweetheart; and my experience with sex before him had been limited to clumsy sex in my boyfriend’s truck or in my room, always scared that someone could walk in on us. When Pierce called me a slut and an attention seeker for asking him to have sex in front of a mirror, he convinced me that he was right, and that maybe that was why no one loved me because of this constant need to be noticed.
I know I should’ve walked out then, when his abusive manipulations were still only veiled, sporadic episodes and for the most part I still believed that he treated me like a princess. That was one of his main tactics: he’d treat me so nicely most of the time, calculating carefully when to hit with a hurtful remark or a fit of jealousy that he would blame on me being a slut.
He’d manipulated me into distancing myself from my family by creating discord and playing on my feelings of inadequacy toward Sasha, telling me that he was the only person who truly cared about me, while everyone else saw me just like a less perfect version of my elder sister. And I fell for it, until he was the only person I really hung out with because he’d convinced me that everyone else didn’t care about me.
The water runs cold and I towel off and put on Kaden’s t-shirt and shorts, brush my hair and teeth and finally enter the bedroom where the brothers are trying to both fit on the tiny sofa bed opposite the bed that Royce allocated to me. They’re both huge guys and a sofa bed is way too short for them as well as too narrow. Royce’s legs are dangling off the bed from the calf down.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense for me to take the couch and you guys take the bed?”
Royce barely lets me finish before shaking his head. “Fuck no. Look Sloane, I know the whole kidnapping and robbing banks thing probably didn’t give the best first impression, but we aren’t mannerless cavemen. You take the bed, end of.”
Blaine nods his agreement and I almost offer them to share the bed with me, because he’s right. Aside from River, who the jury is still out on, and aside from the whole being kidnapped at gunpoint, the guys have shown me nothing but kindness so far and I trust that if they were to sleep by my side, they’d never take advantage of the situation. Like Kaden didn’t last night, because he just reacted to my advances, he didn’t initiate things between us.
Slut.
Pierce’s voice rings in my ears again and I make a conscious effort to shake it off. If I think about him, I’ll have more nightmares tonight. “Ok but then how about taking a few of the extra pillows on my bed and one of you could sleep on the floor? I saw some extra blankets in the closet. It’s better than both trying to fit on the couch.”
In the end we use the couch cushions to create a makeshift bed for Royce on the floor on one side of the bed and I convince them to let Blaine sleep on the bed by building a barrier between us with a few extra pillows.
I lie there with my eyes open, staring at the ceiling for a very long time: it’s a combination of things that are stressing me out: the earlier events with Pierce, Blaine’s nearness which I am extremely aware of despite the cushion barrier and last but not least, the idea of being left with River tomorrow.
???
River
