Heiress Takes All

by Emily Wibberley

The wedding came with ranks of people no one would remember—servers, chefs, security guards—into which I could insert my conspirators without notice. When Deonte lifts his tray back up, he leaves behind the cloth napkin he placed on the table, using the tray for cover. The napkin looks forgotten, as if it was there when “the server” first came over, but it wasn’t. Now it is. Right in front of Mitchum.

“That’s so dope.” His eyes going round, he whips his gaze from the window to me. “Can I have one?” “No.”

Is he dumbass?

“Oh yeah, my dad is awful! You really shouldn’t feel bad,” Kevin interjects reassuringly. “Just last week, he had a family evicted from one of his properties because their labradoodle was ten pounds over his dog size limit.”

What a looser.

“He made my sister change before the wedding because her first dress wasn’t, quote-unquote, flattering.” “Asshole,” I can’t help saying.

“He’s never done pro bono legal work in his life!” Kevin says like he’s shooting from the three-point line at the buzzer.

Kevin exchanges a proud look with me. I don’t bother to scowl in return. Kevin actually helped, and maybe some of his distasteful personality can be blamed on having a shitty dad. McCoy pulls out his phone. He selects the contact I programmed into it last night. It rings while everyone holds their breaths.

Mitchum looks down. I watch him double-check his memory, realizing what’s happening here. Confirming the phone was not on the table when he got there with Tom nor left behind by Tom himself. Yet there it is.

The house is old enough that the retrofitted air-conditioning doesn’t reach everywhere, including our semiunderground location. Watching Mitchum, I feel sweat forming on my neck, my forehead.

“Text it and say you have Kevin George Washington Webber,” Kevin suggests.

That would get you so bullied.

“I want to speak to my son,” he says without introduction or pleasantries.

Puerile Prat.

This is where Kevin could betray us. This is where I find out whether everything I’ve planned will disappear in disarray because I put my faith in someone who wears Italian-leather loafers to school.

“Oh, Kevin,” we hear from the phone. “Not again.”

This has happened before?

I frown, indicating for him to shut up. I’m pretty sure he’s just using Call of Duty storylines.

“Is he… hesitating?” Kevin asks. I don’t have the chance to react before our “hostage” grabs the phone. “Dad, seriously? I’m going to tell Mom you hesitated.” He doesn’t manage to hide the hurt under his indignation, or maybe he doesn’t want to. “Is my life not worth the combination to one safe?”

His good-natured half grin re-forms, like a conditioned response to other insulting conversations with his father, albeit probably not ones involving ransom.

We’re each of us dealing in our own ways with hiding hurt or hope or confusion over our place in everything. We’re good pretenders. We have to be.

Halfway is nothing, I remind myself. Close is nothing. It just… doesn’t feel like nothing.

“Look,” he says. “I really wish you hadn’t threatened my kid, but if you’re going to expose this asshole, do it. If my son is released in the next twenty minutes, I’ll give you three hours before I report the safe has been opened. It should be enough time to find whatever proof you need.” He hangs up. I blink, not knowing what the fuck he’s referring to.

Your dad's worse than you think.

I can’t join in. I’m riveted, consumed. I feel as if someone has just carefully disassembled my house of cards and showed me how to win millions with the perfect poker hand instead. Proof. What Mitchum said implies that my dad has done something illegal. Something I could send him to jail for.

The fact that it doesn’t is pushing into pressure points I didn’t know existed. I expected this day would test me. My intuition, my cunning, my improvisation, my persistence. How well I could withstand the emotional wounds every wall of this house inflicts. How deeply I wanted revenge. In my every plan, I never expected this. I never expected the day would force me to confront my capacity for mercy. How like a stain on my conscience it feels.

Mitchum’s unforeseen insinuation is pushing me, forcing me to reckon with the worst I wished for my father even then. I wanted him to know fear and remorse. I never wanted him to disappear from my life forever.

Because I love him, even now. He’s my dad. It’s fucked up. I feel the weight of reality crashing down on me now, the inescapable nature of what I’m doing here, the fatal feature of my heist. My victim isn’t some faceless financial institution, my surroundings not the impersonal steel of meaningless vaults. It’s my own father. My home. I want to wound my mark—not destroy him.

Recognizing the figment of loyalty I still have for my father has exposed it like a message on my heart in invisible ink.

If his own daughter, who for years he’s considered only his empty-headed, worthless heiress, proves she’s capable of the same machinations, he might just care. Not if I falter now, though.

With the millions I’m planning to steal today, I’ll hire a very, very good therapist.

“Pawn,” I say to McCoy, “get into position to escort Rook from the wedding after Phase Four.”

“What are you guys stealing from the safe?” Kevin asks, as if he’s making friendly conversation. Needless to say, I ignore his question. “Kevin, you can go now.” “Blackmail? Money? Diamonds?” Kevin presses. “Ooh, are you forging his will?”

Can't Steal blackmail dude.

It’s Cass again. I pick up, annoyance rushing over me alongside worry. Even with our strict policy of phones on silent, she needs to have a really good reason to call this often. Which, knowing Cass, she probably does. It’s disconcerting, leaving me wondering if the security parameters have constricted further.

“More radio chatter from security,” Cass replies. “The ceremony is delayed. Something regarding the bride.” I close my eyes. Maureen. I wish I could predict what’s gone wrong “regarding the bride.” Frankly, though, it’s difficult to know with Maureen. She changes from welcoming hostess to chatty friend to judgmental socialite to domineering lady of the house with surprising speed.

Bipolar?

She’s leaning into every contradiction of my father’s cruel, kind, indulgent, depriving world. Giving herself over to its worst impulses.

“I’m sure you do,” I reply. “While we’re on the subject of eavesdropping, I’m guessing you just heard him say he would call security if you weren’t returned to him.”

I feel my mind shift gears. If, as Kevin suggested, Maureen is getting cold feet, it’s a problem. Not for Maureen or Dash, who really shouldn’t be getting married. No, it’s a problem for me. Without the ceremony emptying the house, I would need another way to get alone with the safe. I’m not in love with either of my backup options, which involve arson or calling in a bomb threat. They’re risky—very risky.

I ease open the door. It moves noiselessly. The hinge, I remember, is oiled weekly. Inside, the room is disastrous. A frat house filled with fifty-year-old men.

Quickly, I shift my gaze to Jackson. When he notices me, his eyes lighting up with pleased surprise I can’t stand, I crook my finger, urging him to meet me in the hall. He looks relieved for the excuse to leave the room, scrunching up his nose in repulsion while he walks through the smoke. None of the groomsmen watch him go.

Yet here Jackson is, looking like he did when he was pitching me on wearing matching sneakers to prom instead of dress shoes. His efforts, for the record, were unsuccessful.

“Maureen doesn’t like her hair. They’re redoing it for the third time. Dash and the groomsmen find this hilarious,” he explains dryly.

It comes as absolutely no surprise she’s being a diva about her hair, what with her propensity for shifting personalities and her fundamental passion for ordering people around. Of course, nor is it surprising the men in the room past us have jumped on the opportunity to make fun of a twenty-five-year-old bride.

Finally, he lets me go. “Why?” I shrug off his suspicion. “Why not?” “You get me to be a groomsman just because Dash asked you. Now you’re helping Maureen get ready just to keep the wedding from being delayed. Why do you care?” He places his words methodically, each following the previous as if he’s putting together evidence.

Running won’t change what he knows. What he suspects. Running won’t escape the danger I’m in.

“You’re not planning something at this wedding, right?” he hisses. “Revenge? Theft?”

On the nose.

“You’ve been out of my life for weeks. My dad and I have reconciled. I’m excited for Maureen to be my stepmom. We’ve grown very close.”

Bold faced lie.

They’re like regurgitating glass. I know they’re not convincing.

“Is this why you broke up with me?” he asks. “I told you not to do something like… this, and you—what? Wanted to cut me loose so I didn’t stop you?”

Bro its not all about you.

Of course I suggested The Plan to Jackson. Only in its earlier stages, when it was little more than the notion of stealing from my father. I got the idea as soon as I received the Save the Date, when Jackson and I were still dating. When I was still deeply in love with someone I thought loved me back. The conversation has haunted me in every wayward glimpse of Jackson I’ve gotten in the cafeteria over the past weeks.

I didn’t need comfort. This was different. He mistook the dark fire of inspiration for hurt.

I wanted to steal something back from my dad—what I deserved. My father had just given the perfect opportunity, in curly cursive with gold roses stamped into the edges. With the wedding invitation, he’d invited something else entirely.

He told me I shouldn’t get wrapped up in revenge. I should live my life and forget about my dickhead father. I was better than this, he insisted. He was wrong.

That's What most people would do.

If he had discovered the depth of bitterness, jealousy, and ruthlessness in me, he would have abandoned me for good. In my guiltiest moments, I’m convinced it’s why he cheated. Maybe I even deserved it.

The heist is my chance to use everything Jackson couldn’t love in me—my vengefulness, my uncompromising retaliation—for something like redemption.

I head down the idyllic stone pathway leading from the driveway through the grass to the guest cottage. Yes, the grounds have a freaking guest cottage.