Some people are born to be thieves, and I'm not one of them. So, the sooner I muddle through Mila's hacking do-list at the restaurant, the better.

As soon as Esme and I are seated, right after I throw the obligatory glance at the Sabinal River and vow to return and see the gorge one day, I stack my phone on top of hers. Then I slide them away from us. Sure, I look like a pathetic guy who didn't play Lego enough in his childhood. Sure. But an irresistible—I hope!—smile graces my lips. "It's great to unplug for a while, don't you think?"

"Okay." Esme's chuckle is almost a giggle.

"What's good to eat here, my friend?"

Her gaze coasts on the menu in my hands. "I like enchiladas."

For a second, I consider flipping it upside down while gaping at her, but it would take a better actor than me to sell a lie of this magnitude. I stick to what works, putting in another lopsided grin. Fake smiles made my teeth ache. "Splendid! Now, the bonus question: chicken or beef?"

"You don't strike me as a man who eats chicken." Two strands of hair escaped her office bun on the way to the restaurant. One on the right temple, another—on the left. She twirls and twirls the right one round her finger until it's a spiral.

"Beef it is."

Wine appears on the table with the menu, in a decanter rather than a bottle. Hmm... I splash some into her glass, then mine. While Esme gives our choices to the waiter, I touch the cool rim to my lips. "To the new friends we find in new places!"

The ruby liquid is too tangy to compete with the best vintages in Cali, but it has a little something I appreciate: character. A local flair, straight from the soil. Quite good, so I set my glass down with a sigh. I have to work after dinner, plus I can bet dollars to donuts Irene isn't serving Bryn house wine right now. Just a sip for now.

Our food comes, and I still don't have Esme's card. I dig in, waiting for her to say something, go powder her nose, anything to give me an opening.

"You eat like a starved man," Esme says with a half-smile of her own. I don't think it's fake.

"Someone has to! You've barely touched your food, so I have to balance it out!"

I windmill my arms about a thousand times harder than it takes to pantomime a scale and a million times more excitedly than the joke deserves. Since the setting is super-cozy, I hook her purse from the chair's back and send it flying in the least contrived way possible.

The bag hits the floor with a thump, spilling out lipstick, wallet, jingling change—thank God women never zip their purses shut—bingo!

Naturally, Esme's key-card is the only thing that didn't come loose in the purse-x-plosion. If I'm ready for anything, it's bad luck. So, I catapult out of my chair to pounce on the scene of the accident to rake the debris back inside the silk lining.

Esme watches me in a mortified stupor... fuck.

"So, you must eat lots of burritos here in Mexico?"

"Huh?" Esme's eyes pop out of their sockets.

Faking an IQ plunge buys me precious seconds. Sweat beads my neck, once my fingers stuff her key card past the cuff of my shirt, while the other hand shovels a dud into her purse. Clumsy as fuck, but like I said, I'm no thief, only a desperate guy. Increasingly desperate!

With Esme's re-stocked purse in hand, I return to the table and shove it right next to our phones. The plates, bowls of salsa, guacamole, sour-cream and onions, a basket with fried tortilla wedges, wine glasses and salt-and-pepper shakers crowd together to make room for this fresh addition.

I dazzle my unfortunate victim with another grin. "There you go, it's safe now."

She digs her fork out from under the harmonica-squished napkin and stabs her enchilada. That's an enviable self-restraint, because if she isn't wishing to impale my eyeballs like olives by now, she's not the woman I think she is.

"Thank you, Victor," Esme says. When a woman's voice quivers like a string on a fiddle, there's no coming back after that.

The smile I cultivated all day relaxes into a genuine one. A knot between my shoulder blades releases until I almost slump. I actually taste food before I swallow it... but fast. Fast, fast, fast. Not only Esme deserves a good night's sleep after my bungling, I itch for Mila to green light the burglary.

Esme escapes while I pay the bill, but I cut her off and throw open the limo's door for her. It doesn't matter for my plan if she bikes home or gets there in style, but like I said, she deserves nice things after all this. "Thank you for the unforgettable evening, Esme. Julio will take you home."

Julio, the driver, smiles and nods, since I've tipped him enough to drop Esme off in Juneau, Alaska.

Her glance runs me up and down, her brows steeple. "How are you getting back...? It's..." she licks her lips. "It's dark out."

Yeah, that's how I like it. Dark. I'd love it even more if some moron tried to jump me in the street, because pummeling someone would take the load off my chest for a minute. "No worries, I'm a big boy. I'll walk to the hotel. It'll clear my head."

She mutters under her breath, probably something like, You need it, pal.

"Good night, Esme, and... get into that college program," I hear myself say. "You deserve it more than anyone else in Romero."

The limo sails away into the warm Mexican night. I'm left with an image of Esme's lips rounded to an O as the car window slithers up. If she decides I have a split personality disorder, I can't blame her. Neither can I dwell on her opinions of me.

I turn around and sprint to the hotel, ripping the shirt's collar open and wriggling out of the suit jacket as I go. People think they need a special outfit for running, heh. What a load of bullshit!

However, I carefully change my outfit before visiting the Romero Arquitectura. Breaking and entering ain't running. It actually needs special gear. I put on thin gloves, a hoodie, cargo pants, and a small backpack with odds and ends. Everything is dark, dark, dark. Also, just how I like it.

"I'm ready to rock," I report to Mila as I approach our target, staying in the shadows between the pools of weak light given off by the street lamps. Ready to demolish the building brick by brick more like, but whatever.

"Roger-roger." She hesitates, then adds quietly: "Be careful."

Yeah, she must have read my mood. I'm not a thief, and I'm not that deep of a well to plumber.

Fortunately, for the rest of the night, I have to do what I'm actually good at and it's less taxing than sleight of hand. The only time the breath hitches in my throat is just before I wave Esme's card at the lock outside. But the strip on the lock lights green, no problem. Doesn't even blink red.

"Mila, will you make sure that the entry can't be traced to the poor girl?" I whisper.

"Scali!" she hisses. "Later!"

I don't know if it's a yes or a no, but I exhale and slip through the narrowest possible crack in the door.

Snuffing out two guards—one watching a game on his phone instead of the security screens in the reception area, the second pacing the upper floor deep in thought—is so trivial, I don't even get a high from it. Maybe a bit of fizz to wake me up.

That fizz bubbles over like a coke bottle you shake first, then open, when I step into Mr. Veracruz' office.

I press the start button on his desktop, and that's it. I came as far as I could on my own. With a sigh, I lower myself into a captain's leather chair, lift the phone up and summon my virtual crew to the bridge. "I'm in. It's booting up."

Is there a point to sticking to the golden rule of the heists—no names—if Irene would 100% know who broke into her cronies' office? Can't hurt. It's not like the names add anything to my relationship with Mila and Ryan.

"Good job, grunt," Mila says, also omitting my name. For some reason, it brings a smile to my lips. "Wait until it asks for the log-in."

"Yeah. Yeah," I reply. "Waiting is one of my favorite things, particularly when my girl's life is on the line."