Page 107 of Bad Attitude
“How the hell do you know?”
Kurt focuses on me. “Because that’s my job.”
“Sure. But forgive me if I need a little more…faith.” I frown, figuring it out. “Meridian Pacific? What is that, foreign?”
Kurt inclines his head. “Chinese.”
“Why would they be keeping that amount of stones?”
Kurt holds my gaze, his eyes flat and cold. “Escrow.”
“What?” Dario asks.
But I get it. “So they’re a clearing house, and the diamonds are sanctions evasion? Moving money across borders without financial surveillance? Some kind of private transaction, and they’re doing the dodgy deal?”
“Exactly that.”
Dario chuckles. “You’re smarter than you look, Declan.”
I ignore him. “But how do youknow,Kurt?”
His expression gives nothing away. “That’s my business.”
“Corporate security isn’t a jewelry store near Rodeo Drive.” I hold his gaze. “Armed guards, 24/7.Biometric access controls. Monitored elevators, motion detection, CCTV everywhere. I need something more concrete than your say-so.”
“This is my crew, Declan. This is the job we’re doing.”
“I agree with Declan,” Raven says, unexpectedly. “This is asignificantjump up. We had one guard on the last job, and people could’ve gotten killed. Now we’re breaking into a foreign-owned building with private security?”
“Our lovebirds have a point,” Cole adds. “I get the payoff, but we’ve never done a corporate job before.”
“We do banks,” Cammy says, drawing eyes because she so rarely speaks at these briefings. “I can’t drive the van into a corporate area without getting picked up on more cameras than even Tasha can handle.” She glances at the other woman. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Tasha murmurs.
Kurt takes a moment to look around his crew, sensing the shift against him that I may have instigated. I force myself to stay relaxed, but I sense the moment he makes his decision.
“Very well,” he says. “Declan is correct, Meridian Pacific is holding the stones while a financial transfer is negotiated. I have corroboration from external parties as to the value of that. The stonesarethere.”
“Fifteen million, you said?”
“Correct.”
I lean back into the couch. “It’s not worth it.”
“What?” Dario says.
Cole tilts his head to me, a smile on his lips. Cammy’s gaze snaps my way.
“Declan…” Raven murmurs.
It’s interesting there’s no reaction from Tasha, but then she must already know more than the rest of us. She’s Kurt’s technician.
“Fifteen million of uncut stones without provenance are hard to move in bulk. You’ll get what, forty cents on the dollar? Then he takes his share.” I gesture to Kurt. “What do you usually take? Forty percent? Fifty? That leaves three million, split six ways. Half a mill each, for a job with this much risk?” I look at Raven, because she’s the emotional lynchpin of this group. “What do you think?”
She doesn’t answer, frowning in thought.
“Unfortunately, I’m forced to agree again,” Cole says. “And you’ve forgotten we’re sinking five hundred grand in costs to make this happen. That’s seventy grand from each of us, if you want to look at it like that. Seventy in the hand to five hundred in the bush? It’s a tough ask, Kurt.”
