Bee followed Charlie across the patio, through the sliding glass door and into the main living area. Malika, Oliver and Cassie whispered to each other behind the island counter in the kitchen. It was mostly Cassie and Oliver whispering, and Malika staring at Charlie’s girlfriend with a dazed expression, like at any moment little clouds shaped like hearts would appear around her and she would hover two feet off the ground.
‘Baby,’ Cassie said, closing in on Charlie the moment he stepped foot in the house, ‘I think Oliver, the nanny and I are gonna head out and find him those books he likes.’ She held out her palm with a smile. ‘Please and thank you.’
Charlie pulled out his wallet. ‘What books you reading?’ His eyes were bright with interest, his wet clothes the only reminder of their screaming fight on the beach.
‘Percy Jackson,’ Oliver said. ‘Me and Mom have been reading the first one, but we weren’t able to finish it.’
Bee ran her fingers through his hair. She could still see the gun pressed to his temple if she looked hard enough.
Charlie handed Cassie three hundred-dollar bills. ‘Buy him all of them,’ he said. ‘See if they have a collector’s edition or something. Actually’ – he pulled out another two hundred – ‘stop somewhere and buy him some clothes. The ones he’s got here are from Christmas and it looks like he’s outgrown ’em.’
‘You got it!’ Cassie pressed a kiss to the corner of Charlie’s mouth. ‘Come on, Oliver. Let’s go have some fun!’
Charlie motioned for Mr White to go with them. ‘You don’t look away for even a second.’
The four of them left, Cassie and Oliver’s laughter audible even after the door closed.
Charlie diplomatically waved a hand at the table, and Bee rolled her eyes but took a seat. He dismissed Adam with a look.
Adam nodded once and moved to guard the entrance.
Charlie pulled out a flat silver container from his back pocket and removed a cigarette.
Bee groaned. ‘Can we not smoke inside the house please?’
He froze, looked at the cigarette in his hand and back to her. ‘This is my house,’ he said, but she wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or the cancer stick.
‘There’s a Degas on the wall, hmm? You remember?’
‘Yeah,’ Charlie sighed and put the cigarette away. ‘I remember.’
‘The ten-million-dollar irreplaceable painting? Maybe we don’t ruin it with cigarette smoke?’
He held up his empty hands. ‘I’m obeying you. You’ve won.’ He sat down across from her and fiddled with the buttons on his shirt. ‘You could’ve taken it with you. I did buy it for you.’
She stared past him, at the ballerinas dancing on the wall, and frowned. ‘That’s why I didn’t take it.’
‘Oh my God,’ he said. ‘I don’t get you sometimes, Bee. I really don’t. Is it because I bought it legitimately?’
‘No, it’s because you bought it to bribe me not to divorce you.’
He shook his head. ‘That’s not entirely accurate.’
‘You also didn’t buy it legitimately. You bought it from a fence. It was stolen. You just technically didn’t do the stealing.’
‘Eh. Semantics.’
Bee tried to rake her fingers through her hair but got stuck halfway on a knot. She blew out a loud breath through puffed cheeks and stared up at the ceiling. ‘Can we get back on track please, instead of repeating this same stupid argument that we’ve had—’ Bee stopped herself. She wasn’t going to let him get to her again. ‘Yes, back on track. OK.’ She exhaled and inhaled several more times, eyes still closed, and focused on the way her stomach rose and fell.
When she opened her eyes, Charlie was staring at her like she was the ten-million-dollar Degas painting.
‘Knock it off.’
‘What? I wasn’t doing anything.’
‘I don’t like the way you look at me.’
He shrugged. ‘How was I looking at you?’
‘Like you still love me.’
‘I do! I’ve been— Have I not made myself perfectly, abundantly clear? I’m just waiting for you to get over whatever this’ – he circled two fingers in the air – ‘is.’
‘Divorce,’ Bee snapped. ‘You’re waiting for me to get over divorcing you.’
‘Yeah.’
She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing again. In and out. In and out. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘so what’s your plan?’
‘I hired the best man I could to keep you safe and get you to me.’ He jerked a thumb at Adam. ‘The very, very best. You should see his credentials, Bee. They’re gonna make action movies about this guy.’
‘Charlie,’ she said, her voice tight, explaining something simple to a simpleton. ‘Charlie, what’s next?’
He scratched his nose. ‘Well. We’re here now. And this beach house is like a fort. We’ve got the only road in blocked off.’
‘Yeah, which is great until Alvarez rolls up with triple the manpower. Or takes a couple of his go-fast boats from Miami and comes at us by sea.’
Charlie said, ‘Yeah.’
She nodded hard. ‘Yeah.’
He picked at dirt under his fingernail. ‘So, I was hoping you’d be able to help with that. You know. With an exit strategy. We made such a great team, back in the day. Remember?’
She remembered. She remembered getting a courier drunk at a bar, lifting his wallet, sliding Charlie his credentials. She remembered the two of them stealing the courier’s four million dollars’ worth of untraceable gold nuggets – the heist that led to them buying the beach house.
She remembered Charlie, young and handsome, only needing her support and the barest of whispers to knock off the head of the family and take his place.
She remembered being locked away after, put on a pedestal with a sign that said FOR DISPLAY PURPOSES ONLY. Told she was too fragile for the bloody war he was fighting.
Charlie reached for her hand, and she yanked it away. He smiled all the same. ‘You’re always so good with that kinda shit, Bee. So good at solving problems.’
‘That’s why I got divorced,’ Bee said, a harsh enunciation on every word. ‘Solved the biggest problem right there.’
He collapsed back against his seat like he’d been shot. ‘Why you gotta be like this? Huh?’
Bee’s whole body started to quake. ‘Are you serious? Are you serious right now, Charlie? You are the reason our son was pulled out of his bed at gunpoint!’
‘I know, I know, I—’
‘You were so busy getting it in, you didn’t stop to think about the consequences of your choices! Like always, Charlie! You never think things through!’
‘Now, that’s not fair. Look at all this!’ He flapped both arms around. ‘All of this is because of me thinking things through.’
She wiped her mouth with the back of her shaking hand. ‘You are out of your mind.’
‘Oh, and I suppose you’re not out of yours?’ Charlie huffed. ‘Let me remind you that you’re a thief, Bee. Just like me.’
‘I am not a thief like you. I am an exceptional thief. And I can’t believe you just made me quote Hans Gruber!’
He laughed, a delighted, happy smile overtaking his lips. He looked at her, eyes shining again, and she felt something inside her skull snap. The click in her brain as audible as the sound of her shins skidding across the tabletop. As loud as his chair falling back from the force of her and hitting the ground. As persistent as him gasping for breath when she wrapped her hands around his windpipe.
‘This isn’t fucking funny!’ she shouted from her position above him, straddling his chest. She reeled back one arm and landed a solid blow to his cheek.
Adam grabbed her under her arms and lifted her off Charlie. ‘All right, you got one good one in.’
She kicked and flailed. ‘I’m not done with him yet!’
‘Oh, I think you are. Don’t want Oliver coming back to his dad all beat up, yeah?’
And while Bee could understand that Adam had a point, the fury she felt pulsing through her brain kept her from calming down. ‘Oliver had a gun to his head! A gun, Charlie!’
Adam set her down but stood directly in front of her, an immovable force not letting her anywhere near the object of her rage.
She tried to get around him anyway. ‘We had bikers shoot at us!’ she yelled around Adam’s arm. ‘Over and over again! They shot out the windows of my car! What you did wasn’t only stupid, but it almost killed our son!’
Charlie sat up, elbows on his knees and head in his hands, and groaned. ‘You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t hate that? I got selfish, Bee, and it cost Oliver. It cost you.’
He looked up at her from where he sat, so very small, his hair a mess, one cheek pink. ‘There is nothing more important in this world to me than the two of you.’
Bee’s eyes rolled so hard they almost got stuck in the back of her head. ‘Except for money,’ she said to the inside of her skull.
He hung his head. ‘Like you’re so different, right? That’s why we make such a good team, Bee. We’re the same.’
‘The same?’ Bee shook with anger. Flames engulfed her from the inside out. ‘You have ruined my life and our son’s life. I’m sure the house by now is burned. I haven’t had a chance to check the security cameras, but how much do you wanna bet there are Feds parked outside? What about my paintings? Oliver’s baby pictures are in the house, Charlie! Pictures of my brother. My mom!’
‘I’ll send someone,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s not a big deal.’
‘It’s my house, Charlie! It’s my life! And it’s as good as over, so I’d say that’s a pretty big deal!’
He stared at her, frowning, and it struck her then how little he’d changed since they’d first met all those years ago. How much he’d passed on to their son. A handsome, boyish face, far too young for the fancy suits and serious expressions he wore.
‘We’ll figure it out. Together,’ said Charlie, sincere. Clueless. ‘Just like old times.’
Her fists clenched at her sides, and she walked into Adam’s chest.
‘Ugh!’ Bee shoved him. ‘Why are you protecting him?’
Adam dipped his head low and caught her eye. ‘I’m not protecting him.’
She frowned.
Charlie rose to his feet and grabbed the silver case out of his back pocket. ‘I’m gonna smoke one outside, calm down before Oliver gets back.’ He approached them, Adam still standing in between, and stared down at his shoes. ‘I’m sorry, Bee. I hate what happened to Oliver and what happened to you.’
Bee watched him walk out on to the patio, still angry but not so blindly furious. Now all she could see was the impossible task before her.
‘I have to somehow convince Theo freaking Alvarez to not kill us after my idiot ex stole his money.’ She massaged her fingers along her forehead in a futile attempt to force her mind to work. ‘You know, I heard that one time, one of his deliveries got intercepted, right? So he took the guy responsible and the guy’s family. His little kids, his wife, his sixty-year-old mom. And he made the family watch while he peeled the guy’s face off. Guy was still alive of course. Because why would you peel the face off a dead man? What sort of point does that prove?’
Her stomach twisted. ‘And then he killed everybody in that family. One by one. Oh God.’ She bent over and grabbed her knees. ‘Can you imagine how scared those kids were? Watching that happen to their dad? Watching their whole family executed? Oh God.’
She bolted around Adam and for the stairs, only to freeze in the hallway unsure of which room she should enter. Certainly not the master. Not anymore. Oliver’s bedroom? The guest room?
She opened the hallway closet door and found the mink coat Charlie had bought for her years ago that she’d never been able to bring herself to wear. It was warm and terrible, soft and gross, and she closed the closet door and hid beneath it.