Gio

Charlie rattles off the numbers as I punch them into the panel. A beep signals and the alarm is off. I unlock and open the door.

Charlie and Tony rush past me. “We’re behind.” I hear Frank say through the earbud.

Gio looks over me, accessing. “Sit here.” He finally says, helping me lean against the door. “We need to do this fast.” He instructs, and then he’s racing away from me.

I’m distracted.

It’s a dangerous thing to be distracted when you only have six and a half minutes to complete a job. And I have to complete this job.

Not only because I want the money, though that helps.

I want the fucking revenge.

I want to ruin Robert Pearce and his son. I want to take everything they own. Here’s the thing about robberies, most places are insured so the person who is robbed never actually loses much. Maybe a little bit of time, maybe some therapy is needed. If they have insurance, all of their merchandise is covered. This is a fact I remind myself of often, I’m not really hurting people.

Except for today.

Because I know that in that safe, that Tony will slice through like butter, is something that is not insured.

I had a lot of time to learn about Robert Pearce after his son nearly raped my sister. Here’s the thing when you have a lot of money, you can get away with almost everything. The Pearces have a lot of wealth, but so do we. Robert Pearce however, has more cops on his payroll - that's the difference. That’s what keeps his son out of jail, scot free.

I’m going to make him regret having this case swept under the rug.

The Pearces appear to live above board. They claim to sell ethical jewelry at multiple price points. On the outside they look clean and perfect, but most of his diamonds come at the cost of blood.

It took a lot of digging to learn his dirty little secrets, but I did. According to my source there is a perfect pink diamond worth thirty-two million dollars. A diamond that was stolen and traveled through multiple hands to make its way to Providence, RI.

A diamond that is not insured. You can’t insure something you don’t technically own.

Pearce is a stupid fuck. He bragged about the diamond, flaunted it around town. And now, I’m going to take it from him. Just to prove a point.

No one is untouchable.

“I’m in.” Charlie’s voice comes through my ear. He’s clearing the footage from the security cameras. He’ll replace it with a loop from earlier in the night so it looks like nothing happened at all. Obviously in the morning they’ll realize something happened when they check the vault and find it empty, but no one will know who did it.I can’t let this job fail, even as I abandon a limping Annie at the entrance.

I’m angry at myself for letting her get hurt. Maybe I pushed her too much, didn’t prepare her, missed something. I take my role as captain very seriously, I never want anything to happen to my guys, but I especially didn’t want anything to happen to her.

I wanted her to walk away from all of this tonight.

“I’m at the safe.” Tony shares. He’ll begin to cut through the thick metal with the burning bar. The thing is so powerful the best safes melt beneath it. The sound it makes when Tony starts reverberates through me.

It’s a lovely sound.

It reminds me of money.

I break the glass on one of the display cases filled with diamond rings, bracelets, necklaces and more. I fill my sack with jewelry. These will sell for a lot, but it's chump change in comparison to the pink diamond.

After the heist I’ll take the score to the fence I work with. He’ll get rid of all the diamonds and place a stack of cash in my hand.

A really large stack of cash.

The kind I like.

"We’re clear.” Charlie gives his update first. Leaving the computer to meet Tony and I at the safe.

“We’re in.” Tony calls.

When we get there Tony is plucking a small pink diamond from the safe with a grin. “Here it is boys.”