Mobile, Alabama

1:08 a.m.


The warehouse smelled like motor oil and bad decisions. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as Clyde and Layla sat across from Roy Delgado — a thick-necked fixer with prison ink, gold teeth, and a twitch in his left eye that never quite stopped.


Roy leaned back in his folding chair, boots kicked up on a busted crate.


“You want clean money and a clean exit?” he said. “Then Mobile’s your ticket. Small federal credit union. Staff rotates every two weeks. Security’s soft. Big shipment of cash hits the vault this Thursday, just after noon.”


Clyde’s jaw tightened. “And you’re sure about the timing?”


Roy grinned. “Come on, Kingston. Have I ever steered you wrong?”


Layla’s eyes narrowed. “Twice.”


Roy’s grin faded.


She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “Tell me who else you told about this job.”


“No one,” he lied. And they both knew it.


Back at the motel, Layla paced in the parking lot, her nerves jangling. Clyde leaned against the car, watching her, arms folded.


“I don’t like it,” she said.


“I know.”


“We’ve got enough to disappear now. Mexico, that little beach house we talk about—why not just go?”


“Because I want it to last,” he said. “I don’t want us running out of pesos in two years and crawling back to this life.”


Layla stopped pacing. “I don’t care about the money. I care about waking up next to you and not hearing sirens in my head.”


Clyde stepped closer, took her hand. “Just one more job. We hit this clean, and I promise—we’re gone.”


She wanted to believe him. She needed to believe him.


So she nodded. “One more.”


Thursday, 12:15 p.m.

Mobile Federal Credit Union


It started like all the others. Layla in a grey hoodie, sunglasses on. Clyde wore a baseball cap and carried a backpack rigged for the cash. They moved like ghosts — in, fast and firm.


But the room felt wrong.


Too quiet.


Too empty.


Layla spotted the red blinking light near the ceiling — hidden camera.


And then she saw the glint of a badge at the receptionist’s hip.

Undercover.


“Clyde—!” she shouted.


But it was already too late.


The front doors burst open.

FBI. SWAT. County.


Clyde shoved her behind a pillar as bullets shredded the air. He took a hit — shoulder — and dropped to one knee.


Layla screamed, firing back wildly, just enough to buy seconds. She dragged Clyde across the floor, blood smearing beneath him like paint.


“Don’t you die on me!” she cried.


“I’m good,” he rasped, but he was pale and gasping.


They crashed through the back exit, took out two agents with quick shots, and scrambled into the Chevelle.


Tires squealed. Bullets followed.


Clyde slumped in the passenger seat, blood soaking through his shirt. Layla’s hands shook as she gripped the wheel, tears streaming down her face.


“I told you,” she whispered, “I told you something was wrong.”


They drove for five hours without stopping. Through backroads and swamp trails, until they reached the farmhouse outside Corpus Christi—a safehouse they’d never used, built for just this kind of disaster.


Clyde was fading.


Layla carried him inside, laid him on the bed, and began to work—patching the wound, whispering over and over:


“I love you. Stay with me. Please stay with me.”


He didn’t answer.


Not that night.