CHAPTER 1
Tay
The sound of the metal hitting the floor reverberated through the darkened room and Tay froze.
No.
The last thing that they needed right now was for someone to hear that and come and investigate. There was a lot riding on them not being found; secrets that needed to remain hidden. Discovery and the ruination of all their plans simply wasn’t an option.
They took a step forward, wincing as their shoes squeaked on the floor.
Was everything destined to go wrong?
They paused again, waited, and when no-one came around the corner demanding to know what was going on, proceeded as planned.
The door they opened was heavy, and they hadn’t appreciated how many times they’d seen it casually flung open and closed during the day. Everything seemed so much easier in the daytime.
Everything had felt safer in the daytime.
Now, when the lights were low and the sun had set, the world seemed that little bit more edgy, dangerous. Especially when Tay was where they shouldn’t be.
A muffled sound had them hurriedly pushing the door closed and secreting themself away into a corner. The lights were flicked on, and one of the security guards poked their head around the door. Tiago looked around and called over his shoulder to whoever must have been in the hall behind him, “Something must have fallen. I can’t see anything out of place.”
Tay held their breath and hoped that he wouldn’t come in and investigate further. Their groundwork had suggested that he wouldn’t, but it was one of the dangers of running a job somewhere that was filled with people. You just couldn’t account for human curiosity.
The light flicked back off and Tay let out a sigh as he withdrew. They could probably have come up with some story for why they were in this room in the middle of the night, but they weren’t sure how convincing it would be, or indeed if it would be believed. And the last thing they needed right now was to get caught where they shouldn’t be.
There was a moratorium on being here out of hours. The only person who had that authority was tucked up in bed—or at least Tay hoped so.
They waited another couple of minutes to allow for Tiago to get out of earshot, before shuffling carefully back over to the large metal door behind which lay the greatest of treasures.
Ice cream.
Tay opened the freezer to see pint upon pint of ice cream, of all different flavors. Apricot and sour cream, red velvet cheesecake, hazelnut, apple pie… Chef Guilia had outdone herself, and now it was all Tay’s.
Well, not just all Tay’s. An ice-cream heist of this magnitude called for co-conspirators. Grabbing their phone from theirpocket, they shot off a quick text to Holly and Sadie. When Mandi had moved in with her Mommy, Amelia, Holly became Tay’s new roommate in the Littles’ Wing. To celebrate her official moving in, the three of them had asked permission for Sadie to come for a sleepover.
Little did the Bigs know that they had more than just sleeping in mind.
It was summer, and so Sadie had managed to persuade her Daddy to buy a portable cool box for the Ranch. When fully charged, it could be loaded up with all kinds of frozen goodies and taken out onto the grounds for a picnic, without anything defrosting.
Master Derek was not likely to behappydiscovering his graciousness was a part of this plot. He had no idea that the three of them had been planning this for months.
Tay had originally floated the idea when Mandi had been their roommate, but as much as Mandi was on board with sneaking the odd carton of ice cream, decanting the entire freezer had made her stutter nervously. Tay had decided that it would be far too unfair to put Mandi through that, so they’d put a pin in the idea.
Until Holly had arrived. Holly was chirpy and happy, with a secret undercurrent of brattiness that Tay admired, although they weren’t just pulling this heist to be bratty. It wasn’t like Tay didn’t know that they’d get caught—there was no way they’d be able to pull this off for very long—but they didn’t know what else to do. Sneaking small cartons of ice cream wasn’t having an effect. Chef just laughed and made sure there were extras of Tay’s favorite flavors.
Unacceptable.
They wanted more. They wanted to be seen, and if this was the only way to do it…
There was a knock at the door, a complicated rat-a-tat-tat that only Sadie could have come up with. Tay scuttled over to let her and Holly in.
“Wow.” Holly’s eyes were huge when she saw the open freezer. “We’re taking all of that?”
“We’re taking all of that,” said Tay firmly. “Come on, let’s load up the cool box.”
It must have taken about fifteen minutes, but by the time the freezer had been emptied of ice cream, there was still one carton left that wouldn’t fit in the cool box.
