The Con Read online

  My hands play with the buttons on my blouse before I straighten them against the designer material and dust the invisible lint off. I want to make sure I look perfectly presentable. Like I belong in these expensive clothing.

  The doorbell rings and it's showtime. Walking down the hallway I look around, forcing myself to take in the trailer I've lived in all my life. I want to remind myself why I've agreed to do this. Why I need this money so bad.

  After taking one last look, I open the front door and step outside. The glare of the Arizona sun can hurt my eyes sometimes and my shades block it perfectly, but the handsome man in front of me is blinding perfection. He looks like he stepped out of the pages of a high-end fashion magazine. His brown hair is cut short to about three inches of wavy locks. He's rocking four-day-old scruff, and I know this because I remember the first morning I saw him this past week and he hadn't shaved. Before that day I didn't think it was possible for him to look better than he already did, but when he doesn't shave it just makes him look hotter and more distinguished.

  Okay, sexy. He looks fucking sexy.

  He's also wearing a black pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses and he's covered head to foot in a Calvin Klein three-piece, perfectly tailored black suit. A black tie is tied perfectly around his neck, his white dress shirt creased in just the right places, and on his feet are black Calvin Klein shoes.

  "Are you ready, Giselle?" he asks, while his right hand moves to play with his left cuff link.

  "As ready as I'll ever be, Matteo."

  Locking the door behind me we hop into his orange and black muscle car. I'm pretty sure it's a Camaro, but I know nothing about cars so I could be wrong. Then we're on the road and headed to our first stop, Damien's warehouse, where Jagger has the Bentley waiting for us.

  My knees start to tremble which is just fucking perfect. I feel like an old woman with shaky hands and now shaky legs.

  He picked the wrong person. Jagger should have never asked me to do this with him. I'm going to ruin this for him. I just know it.

  His hand falls on my knee and squeezes gently. Even with my legs covered in cloth his touch affects me.

  "Calm down there, Giselle. Take a deep breath in, and then breathe out. This is all almost over."

  I glare over at him, but he can't see because my eyes are covered by these dark lenses and black frames. "Could you not call me that right now? It's not helping."

  "But it's necessary. If we break character it will be too easy to slip up later on. Just know I'm thinking of the little girl with the ballet slippers when I call you Giselle, okay?"

  "Okay," I reply, taking a deep breath in.

  "If you get nervous in there, rely on your ears. Stay quiet and listen. You think of a con artist as a smooth talker, but really they bond and get the trust of others by listening. Be confident and listen intently, and you'll do just fine."

  When we reach the warehouse it looks abandoned. I don't know what I was expecting, but I guess I thought I'd see Angelo and this Damien person here waiting for us. Instead the parking lot is completely empty.

  Jagger hits a few buttons on the keypad of his visor and the large industrial size garage door opens and we drive inside. I silently follow Jagger's lead. When he gets out of the car, I get out of the car. When he walks over to the Bentley, I walk over to the Bentley.

  He opens the passenger door for me to get in, but then reaches an arm around me and embraces me around the waist, pulling me to him so we're chest to chest. My breathing labors and I shudder under his hold. His free arm reaches up so his hand can caress my cheek.

  "I know you're scared. This can’t be easy for you, but I'll be next to you the whole time. It'll be over sooner than you think."

  His sunglasses slide to the tip of his nose as I look up at him. His nurturing eyes, one blue and one light brown, remind me that I can trust him with anything. I can trust him with my life. He's comforting me just by being near me, by touching my skin, and it's something I don't even think he realizes he does. The problem will be when we're inside the bank and he's not touching me. That's when I'm afraid I'll completely lose it.

  "Matteo?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Can you stay close to me when we're in the bank? Right now I believe everything you're saying, but when you move away from me, when you're not touching me, it's then that I tend to doubt everything."

  His thumb comes down to caress my bottom lip. "So what you're saying is you need me to be touching you, to be affectionate when we're in there so you don't freak out?"

  "Yes," I whisper out in a faltering breath. His thumb on my lip is causing a craving to flood my body that I can't take care of at the moment. I shouldn't even be thinking about him in that way right now.

  "I think I can do that." He smirks before leaning down and kissing the corner of my mouth. My eyes flutter closed as I try to savor the brief touch of his lips. He pulls away and then lets go of me. Our connection is broken.

  "Get in, Giselle. This is all almost over."

  ***

  "Do you remember the rules?"

  "I remember."

  "Okay, let's go."

  We get out of the sleek black Bentley that Jagger parked right in front of the World Time Bank and Trust in Phoenix. The brick building is large, three stories tall, and I'm already starting to doubt this plan. There is no way Cheyenne is the only manager on duty at this large bank.

  Jagger walks over to me and reaches out for my hand, grasping it in his as he intertwines our fingers and squeezes my palm gently. It's comforting. He's trying to keep me at ease.

  We walk in the entrance, Jagger holding open the gold and wooden door with glass windows as I step in first, but he never lets go of my hand. He follows me in and we're met with a customer service representative sitting at a desk at the entrance. Next to her is a large burly man in a security uniform. He's meant to be there to be intimidating and it's working.

  "We'd like to speak with someone regarding our accounts," Jagger says from beside me. He sounds so cool and calm, the words slipping past his tongue so smoothly.

  "Okay, sir. Can I have your name please?"

  "Matteo Esposito and this is my wife, Giselle."

  I may be nervous right now but I'm also a love-struck woman. I love how the words my wife sound coming from him.

  Her eyes grow wide as she recognizes the name. Everyone in the state of Arizona knows the Esposito name and what they do. "Yes, sir. And what can we do for you in regards to your accounts?"

  He leans in forward over her desk and speaks in a low voice. "We'd like to make a large withdrawal and we'd like some privacy while doing so."

  The woman never stood a chance. His silky, smooth voice and boyish charm is hard to fight against. Her eyelashes flutter, the color in her face rising.

  Jagger really has no idea how charming he is to women.

  "Yes, sir. Of course. I'll see if a manager is available to take you. Hold on one moment."

  Instead of picking up the phone which is right next to her on the desk, the petite blond woman gets up and walks to another area of the bank, disappearing behind a closed door.

  "Jag... Matteo," I whisper softly but it's too late. I've already broken a rule, the most important rule, and I look around to see if anyone caught my slip up. The security guard is watching both of us with curiosity.

  Oh, shit. Did he hear me? What did I say? Jag, I said Jag. Jag could mean anything. Even if he did hear me that doesn't mean he'll suspect I was calling Matteo by a different name. I could have been abbreviating a type of car or talking about the television show.

  My hands begin to tremble and Jagger squeezes gently, reminding me that he's here with me.

  "Yes, sweetie?"

  I peek over at the security guard before responding. "It was nothing, Matteo. We can discuss it when we're done, over lunch."

  At this point I have no idea what words are falling out of my mouth or if I'm even forming complete sentences. Jagger leans in, his lips brushing against my
ear. "Relax. No one heard anything." He kisses my temple before standing up straight as we wait for the customer service representative to come back.

  He's reassuring me. To anyone else he just seems like an affectionate husband. Only we know the truth.

  A moment later I see a new woman walk out the same door the customer service rep walked in just a moment before. She's pretty, in a way that screams trying too hard. She's average size, with above average curves, but they look very natural as she saunters over to us. Her brown hair is down in soft waves and her face is covered in very little make-up, but the make-up she does wear is meant to stand out. Thick black Mascara coats her lashes and bright pink lipstick covers her plump lips.

  It's Cheyenne. I recognize her from the picture in one of the files Jagger showed me this week.

  "Mr. and Mrs. Esposito, I presume?"

  "Yes, I'm Matteo and this is my beautiful wife, Giselle."

  She smiles over at me before redirecting her gaze back on Jagger. "I'm Cheyenne, the assistant manager here, and I'll be happy to assist you with any and all of your needs. If you'd please follow me back to my office."

  She turns around, walking away in her high heels and tight skirt, and we follow her. With every step her heels make on the marble floor of the lobby, I feel the eyes of the employees and patrons on us. They're watching us, but when I look up it seems my paranoia is getting the best of me. The bank seems to be running like any other day. No one in the establishment is even looking in our direction.

  Cheyenne opens a door to an office near the back of the first floor. "If you'd have a seat. I'll be with you in just a moment," she says, a huge fake smile plastered on her face and I see a hint of lipstick on her teeth. We step inside and as soon as Jagger closes the door we're finally alone.

  I lose it.

  "I can't do this," I blurt out, pacing back and forth along the long leather sofa in the office. "I don’t know what I was thinking agreeing to this, but I'm out. You can do this on your own. They've seen me already so you don't need me." I rush over to the door to escape, but Jagger is blocking it, his hands coming out to grasp my arms.

  "You need to calm down, Giselle."

  "I'm not Giselle," I hiss, trying to push past him.

  His arms wrap around me as he pulls me into his chest. "Calm down, twinkle toes. We're already here; you're already a part of this. In less than an hour this will all be over. I need you to trust me."

  My mouth is against his neck as I mutter, "I do trust you, Jagger. I'm just scared and if I stay here I'm going to blow this."

  His arms stay wrapped around me as he kisses the top of my forehead, speaking into my hair. "You're not going to blow this, twinkle toes. If anything, you're helping me. I need you here. I need you with me. Can you stay... please... for me?"

  When he pleads with me like that I know there is no way that I am leaving here now.

  I nod my head into his neck as my arms wrap around his muscular frame and I hug him, basking in the comfort his closeness brings me. I realize now that I screwed up for the second time, I broke another rule–I backed out of the con. We stay like this, holding each other for reassurance, until Cheyenne comes back in the room. Walking behind her mahogany desk she sits down in the black leather chair.

  Jagger clasps my hand in his and we join her, sitting across from her at the desk. We sit in our own chairs, but his hand never leaves mine.

  "Mr. and Mrs. Esposito, what can I do for you?"

  "We'd like to make a large cash withdrawal from our main account," Jagger replies to her.

  "How much were you looking to withdraw?"

  She knows the answer to this question. She knows all the answers, but I realize she has to ask them as a formality, so it looks like we're all just being acquainted for the first time.

  "Five million dollars." Jagger's expression is flat as he waits for her to respond.

  "That is a lot of money, Mr. Esposito. It would take us close to an hour to prepare it all. Are you sure I can't convince you to keep your money here?"

  “We're planning on replacing the money shortly, Cheyenne. I know you have this kind of money on hand for me, since it was part of the agreement I made when I entrusted my money in your bank."

  "Yes, Mr. Esposito. If you could please show me some identification I can verify everything with my system and get you your money."

  Jagger hands over his ID and then I hand over mine. She glances at them and then types something on the keyboard of her computer before comparing our identification to the identification on the screen.

  "Everything looks good, Mr. Esposito. If you'll both just fill out these forms to make the process move quickly." She pulls out forms from a drawer in her desk before continuing. "The one form is the joint ownership large withdrawal form. The other form is for the government's records. It's a requirement when withdrawing more than ten thousand in cash. You both can stay here while we get everything prepared for you. We have some duffle bags in the vault that I'll be happy to have your money placed in once it's been prepared."

  I doubt the bank has duffle bags on hand for these kinds of transactions. Withdrawing this much cash has to be rare. I can't see people just walking in and doing this on a daily basis. Cheyenne must have had them in there waiting for us.

  She walks out of the room and Jagger begins to fill out the forms placed in front of him. I do my part by signing the withdrawal form and then the form designated specifically for our account, trying to focus on doing anything but screaming out our guilt. So far Jagger's plan has gone smoothly, just like he told me it would. I don't know why I let myself get so worked up and worried. After this is all over my mind is going to need to take a long vacation.

  The tiny office is quiet now that Jagger has finished completing the forms. Two of the four walls are made of glass windows draped in ceiling to floor blinds. The other two walls are solid, each with a single door attached to it. The door behind us is the one we used to walk in the office. It leads out into the open first floor lobby of the bank. The other door, the door I'm staring at now, is the door Cheyenne slipped behind several minutes ago to get the money.

  It's the door I'm anxiously awaiting to open back up for us.

  "Hey, you're doing great," Jagger mutters sweetly as he begins to tap his fingers against the wooden desk.

  "I'm doing horribly. I've broken every one of your rules."

  "You've only broken two."

  I turn in my chair to look at him. "I'm pretty sure by breaking rule one and two, I automatically broke rule number three. I'm not cut out for this kind of career."

  "Lucky for you, you'll never have to do this kind of thing again. One and done."

  The door behind Cheyenne's desk opens and she walks in holding a black medium size duffle bag. Behind her is a young man around my age holding two more duffle bags of equal size. He places them down on the desk in front of us and then leaves through the same door. Cheyenne places her duffle bag down beside the other two.

  "Here's the five million you requested. It's mostly in large bills, but half a million of it is in twenties."

  "That's no problem," Jagger says, standing up from his chair. He fastens the button on his suit before shaking Cheyenne's hand. I follow his lead and stand up, shaking her hand as well.

  We're almost finished. Thank God.

  "It was a pleasure helping you today, Mr. and Mrs. Esposito. I hope to see you again soon." She smiles her fake smile at us again, but this time I notice something that wasn't there earlier. She's nervous. She wasn't nervous before. Something changed from when she left to go count the money, to when she came back with the money.

  I look over to Jagger to see if he notices this, too, but a commotion coming from the other side of the closed door that's directly behind us grabs both of our attention.

  Jagger rushes over to the door and peels it open, peeking between the opening of the wooden door and trim. His body goes still for just a split second, enough for me to notice the change, and then he
's moving. He closes the door and locks it from inside. He turns, his eyes falling on mine and even though his sunglasses are back on, I can tell he's panicked.

  "Is there a back entrance out of here?" His voice comes out fast and assertive.

  Cheyenne looks back and forth between Jagger and me before stuttering out her words. "Ye–yes... b...but he'll kill me... me... if I let you escape out... out that w–way."

  Who will? Who will kill her? Who is out there?

  So quickly it takes a second for my brain to catch up with what I'm seeing, Jagger's hand slips into the back waistband of his pants and comes forward with a semi-automatic black revolver. He points it right at Cheyenne.

  "And I'll kill you if you don't." He grabs one of the duffle bags and walks toward Cheyenne, resting the muzzle of the gun in the center of her forehead. "Now you're going to open that door behind you and get us out of here, before the men out in the lobby even know we're missing."

  "O–okay," she mumbles and then we're off. I go to reach for the other duffle bags on the desk, but Jagger stops me from taking them.

  "Leave the bags and come on, twinkle toes," he whispers loudly and I follow behind him out the back entrance of Cheyenne's office.

  A gun goes off from somewhere behind me and I start to run, Jagger and Cheyenne now running, too. We run down a brightly lit hallway and straight to the back exit door of the bank. As soon as we break through the door we're in the back alleyway of the bank and an alarm goes off, alerting everyone inside of our exit.

  Cheyenne stands in the doorway as Jagger grabs one of my hands with his free hand and we start to run, my ankle aching from trying to run in these heels. We're dodging from one alley to the next until we approach an abandoned car. Jagger checks the doors but they're locked so we continue to run.

  I keep looking behind me, waiting for whoever is after us to catch up, but no one is behind us... yet. There's a white van ahead of us and we sprint forward. Jagger checks the driver's side and this time the door opens freely, so he throws the duffle bag in and then he grabs me by the waist, picking me up so I can climb inside. As soon as I'm over the seat he's climbing in behind me.