Gloria’s Secret by Nelle L’Amour
“Rien ne pèse tant qu’un secret.”
—Jean de La Fontaine
PROLOGUE
Fifteen years earlier…
Darkness shrouds us. We prowl like two cats, my eyes darting left and right, my ears attuned to even the slightest sound.
I nervously tap my partner in crime’s shoulder. Like me, he’s clad in black sweats and a hoodie, along with black gloves and athletic shoes. Identical black ski masks cover our faces. We blend into the thick opaque air, only the whites of our eyes visible.
“Kev, I’m scared. Maybe we should back out,” I whisper. My heart’s thudding in my ears, and I can feel sweat beads clustering on my flesh.
He squeezes my hand. It’s cold and clammy beneath my gloves. “Glorious, we’ve come this far. There’s no turning back.”
Something scuttles across my shoes. I jump. Kevin beams the flashlight he’s holding onto the floor. Phew! It’s only a mouse.
The seconds feel like hours. The safe, Kevin assures me, is only steps away. It feels like miles. Kevin swings the flashlight until it lands on the huge vault in front of us. All slick, polished steel, it’s bigger than I imagined—a massive, towering fortress.
“Hold this.” Kevin hands me the flashlight. I try hard to calm my trembling hands as I watch Kevin rotate the fist-size combination lock.
Right. Click. Right again. Click. Left. Click. Right. Click.
“Bingo!”
My thundering heart practically leaps out of my chest when the heavy door springs open. My eyes grow round, filling the apertures of the ski mask. Bundles of one hundred dollar bills are stashed inside, stuffing the safe to the hilt.
Kevin instantly starts shoveling them into his large satchel. I’m paralyzed with shock and fear.
“Glorious, what are you waiting for?”
No matter how much I will them, I can’t get my hands to move. The stacks of green bills beckon me, but this feels wrong. So, so wrong. What am I doing here?
Kevin continues to recklessly shovel handfuls of the neatly tied up green bundles into his canvas bag.
“C’mon, we’ve gotta work fast.” His voice sounds frantic.
Reluctantly, I crouch down and extend a trembling hand into the safe. The touch of the raw money burns my fingertips. I can’t do this! I can’t!
An ear-deafening siren sounds. Hot infrared lights flash. The effect is dizzying. An inner panic button goes off inside me as all air leaves my lungs.
“Fuck!” shouts Kevin. “We’ve gotta get of here.”
“Leave the money,” I plead.
“No. It’s ours. Yours.”
No choice. Each grabbing a handle of the heavy, money-laden satchel, we sprint toward the exit.
Heavy footsteps. Not ours. The glaring ray of a flashlight beams into my eyes, blinding me. “What the fuck are you doing here?” The booming, accented voice echoes in the chamber. We’re doomed!
“Nobody steals from Boris Borofsky.”
“Fuck you,” Kevin shouts back.
A powerful arm grips my neck. I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. The other hand rips off my ski mask. My platinum tresses tumble out.
He fists a handful of my hair, yanking my head back. His wretched pink eyes clash with mine, one blue and the other brown.
“You little cunt!” growls the accented voice through clenched teeth. “You’re going to pay for this, seka!
“And so are you, bitch,” spits Kevin.
Something hard presses into my chest, just above my heart.
Kevin wrenches me free from my assailant but not before a deafening boom explodes in my ear. A scorching white fire shoots through my body. Oh the pain!
“You mother fucker.” My Kevin.
I feel my body sag as another shot is fired.
“FUUUUUUCK!” A roar like a wounded lion, not mine.
“Oh, Glorious!” cries Kevin as he lifts me in his arms.
The world inside my head fades to black.
Chapter 1
I was running late. I was never late. “Late” wasn’t part of my vocabulary. Damn that breakfast meeting. My guest, the stiff-lipped, balding head of a major Madison Avenue ad agency, showed up forty-five minutes late. There’d been a cab accident on Madison Avenue that had caused a traffic jam. The unexpected had no place in my life. To make matters worse, I had to run back up to my hotel room because I’d carelessly left my cell phone in a different handbag. As the CEO of Gloria’s Secret, one of the largest retail emporiums in the world, I couldn’t be without my lifeline for the rest of the day.