Alpha Knight

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

Six Weeks Earlier

Sloane

Stealing the 2016 Porsche 911 is the easy part. At least it’s the fun part. This is only my second car theft, but I think I have a real gift for it.

I’m dressed as daddy’s spoiled princess in a pair of Rag & Bone skinny jeans with wedge heels and a Balmain cropped tee. All remnants of my past life, when I really was daddy’s spoiled princess. When stealing a car meant lifting a pair of keys out of my dad’s lock box and choosing one of the twelve sports cars in his garage.

My hair is pulled up in a twist, and I have a khaki rhinestone ball cap pulled over my eyes to hide my face. Anyone who glances over in this crowded parking lot will see someone who matches the car.

It’s just a matter of finding the right make and model in a location without camera surveillance. I’ve been walking around the Scottsdale mall parking lot for days now, dodging cameras and mall cops.

Finally, I spot one. A blue Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS, and it looks to be full leather interior. MSRP can range from 100k to 200k depending on the engine and gadgets inside. I know because my father had one just like it sitting in our garage before... before the fall. Before everything went to s**t. Before I had to learn how to poach pretty cars out of mall parking lots.

In theory, ordinary cars are best—the kind that blend in. But I don’t have the luxury of time or lower risk. I’m on a p*****t schedule with dangerous people, and the Porsche will bring in big bucks.

So the Porsche it is. I already bought a totalled version at the salvage yard, so I have a salvage title. Now all I have to do is swap some parts out, including the VIN, and retitle this baby to sell.

Unfortunately, that means trusting a chop shop to do the swapping and cutting them in on half the proceeds because I don’t have the skills.

Yet.

I plan to learn. In fact, I think I’ll see if the guy can teach me on this one, so the next car I can do on my own.

I walk up to the car like I own the place. Like I own the Porsche, I mean.

Like I own the house and job or father or husband that match this car. It’s a role I know intimately. Lived my whole life. Entitled. Cosseted. Spoiled.

Daddy’s little girl has fallen far from grace.

My device does its work, and the locks pop. Another few seconds and the car revs, and then I’m driving wild and free.

Out of the parking lot. Onto the highway.

Up to Wolf Ridge, the weird-a*s community just past Cave Hills.

Right where I landed when my dad went to jail.