MITCH knew three things about robbing a bank.
The first was that, because of his easily identifiable appearance, he couldn’t actually go into the bank. Even if he disabled the security cameras, the people inside would pick him out of a hundred-person lineup (with his luck, even if he wasn’t in it). The second was that, given the advances in security-based technology—many of which he’d learned about through observation in prison, but knew to be far more evolved in the private sector—a large component of the heist’s success would lie in hacking the bank’s systems and codes to disable the vault, which could be done remotely. The third was that he would need help. And thanks to the two prison stints he’d served so far, Mitch had developed a fairly extensive list of acquaintances, many of whom would be stupid, desperate, or otherwise willing enough to take up some guns and set foot inside the bank.
What Mitch didn’t count on was that while his hacking would succeed without a hitch, the partners with guns would fail spectacularly, be promptly arrested, and drop his name faster than a hat. And somehow, upon seeing Mitchell Turner in all his physical prowess, the police would pin the gun-laden part of the robbery on him, and the hacking on the three smaller men caught in the actual heist and clearly discernible, even masked, on the security footage. And so Mitch’s third strike landed him not in a prison for tax-frauders and info-leakers, but in Wrighton, a maximum security facility where the majority of the inmates had actually committed crimes, and where his size, while impressive, was no guarantee of safety.
And where, three years later, he would come to meet a man named Victor Vale.
XVI
SIX HOURS UNTIL MIDNIGHT
MERIT CENTRAL PRECINCT
ELI stood against the pale gray wall of the police conference room, and readjusted the mask on his face. It was simple, partial, black, running from his temples to his cheekbones, and Serena had teased him for it, but as more than half of Merit’s police force accumulated in the room and took him in (the other half would listen in) he was thankful for the disguise. His face was the one thing he couldn’t change, and as bad an idea as this was, it would be infinitely worse if the entire force had a chance to memorize his features. Serena stood at the podium and smiled her slow smile and spoke to the gathering men and women.
“What happens at midnight?” she had asked as they drove to the station.
Eli had gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white. “I don’t know.” He hated saying those words, not just because they were true or because admitting them meant Victor was a step ahead, but because he couldn’t not say them, because the confession crawled its way up his throat before he thought to swallow. Victor had hung up on him with only the promise of midnight, and Eli had been left fighting the urge to throw the phone against the wall.
“The man behind me is a hero,” Serena was saying now. Eli watched the eyes of the people in the room glaze slightly at her words. “His name is Eli Ever. He has been protecting your city for months, hunting down the kinds of criminals you do not know about, the kind you cannot stop. He has been working to keep you and your citizens safe. But now he needs your help. I want you to listen to him, and do as he says.”
She smiled and stepped away from the podium and its microphone, urging Eli forward with a nod and a lazy smile. Eli let out a low breath, and stepped forward.