He's been watching her for days.
Not in a creepy way—at least, that's what he tells himself—but in the way a man watches a flame he can't name. Something about her doesn't sit right. The way she moves, the way she doesn't flinch when men twice her size try to intimidate her. She walks like she's lived ten lives and buried every one of them.
She calls herself BB, but Rico knows that's not her real name. No one in the slums hides that well unless they have something worth hiding.
He leans against the far wall of the safe house, arms folded, hoodie low over his face. He's a new recruit—barely two weeks in—but he didn't come here to make friends. He came for one thing: to disappear into the streets long enough to find her. The woman in the news, the heiress who vanished without a trace.
And now, here she is. Hiding in plain sight. Pretending to be like them.
He doesn't confront her. Not yet. Timing is everything, and Rico plays the long game.
"You're quiet," Mama Tee says to Ivie, tossing her a rough cloth to wipe down an old revolver. "You scared of a little steel?"
Ivie catches it with ease. "Guns don't scare me. People do."
That earns her a rare smile from the crew's second-in-command, a lean guy named Razor who usually doesn't trust anyone that wears clean sneakers. Rico watches the exchange without blinking.
He knows her type—women born in gold cages with diamond locks. But there's something different about this one. She doesn't flinch. Doesn't brag. She doesn't even look at her phone, because she doesn't carry one.
She's not playing poor. She's living it.
And that makes her dangerous.
Mama Tee claps her hands. "We move tonight. Small job. Warehouse near Ojuelegba. Food crates, medicine. We strip the trucks and disappear."
Rico steps forward. "I'm in."
So does BB.
Their eyes lock for the first time.
It's not romantic. Not yet.
It's a spark.
A recognition.
Two masked hearts colliding in the middle of a storm.
She holds his gaze longer than she should. His hoodie shadows his face, but she sees the heat behind his eyes. He doesn't smile. Neither does she.
But something passes between them.
And it's only just beginning.