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This is Madrid. Located in Southwestern Europe, at the perfect latitude to make it a hellhole temperature-wise in summer. My city. In a word, caliente. It’s been around since the middle ages, and while some of the buildings are new, they blend in pretty nicely with the old ones. We have football, tapas, and the most delicious sangria in the world. The only problems… are crimes. Those, and the ships. You see most places have robberies or murders. We have… heists. And if you’re wondering about the connection between heists and ships… seriously, where have you been in the last 3 years?
Three years ago, it seemed to be a normal day in Madrid. Until a group of armed robbers took over the Royal Mint and began printing money. Back then, nobody knew it was going to be the biggest heist in the world.
That was when Madrid first heard about Raquel Murillo, the police inspector who had been assigned on the case. I didn’t know what to think about her at first, and the fact that she had chosen to save the daughter of some ambassador instead of a few hostages did not help matters.
I wasn’t nearly as invested in the heist as the rest of Madrid was, however. People started placing bets on whether the robbers were going to escape or not, and when Tokyo rode back into the mint after escaping capture, there was a very long line of both men and women wanting to marry her for that only. She had been called everything from a madwoman to a hopeless romantic, but I can’t shake the feeling that she would have shot anyone who had dared to say any of that to her face.
And then one day, the heist ended as fast as it started. In an unexpected turn of events, the thieves got away with more money than God. I thought that was going to be the end of it. But my little sister had other plans, apparently.
“Raquel quit,” she said, a huge grin spreading over her face as she showed me a headline on her phone. “Murillo. The inspector,” she said as she rolled her eyes. “And get this, she disappeared off the face of the earth. The police act like she never existed.”
“So?” I asked, totally unimpressed. “She probably wanted a vacation after she blew it, I don’t blame her.”
“Did she actually blow it, though? Get this-“ she said as she showed me another picture on her phone. “This guy here was with her at the villa in Toledo. He’s not a policeman since he doesn’t wear a uniform. So what the hell was he doing in the middle of the most important investigation in all Spain?”
“Maybe he was undercover, or military or something.”
“Undercover yes, military though? The guy looks like a nerd. A cute one, admittedly, but-“
“What does this have to do with Murillo?”
“I think they were together. I’ve seen some pictures of them and they look pretty close. I bet she ran off with him.”
“And you care about this because…”
“As I said, she disappeared off the face of the earth,” my sister said as she threw a bit of food in her mouth. “You can’t do that unless you have enough money. Guess which of Raquel’s acquaintances had over 200 million euros. In cash.”
“Wait, you think the guy was involved in the heist? And he got close enough to her? How stupid do you think she was, exactly?”
“Stupid, no, in love though… Probably. It is kinda romantic, come to think of it.” I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at that.
“I ship it,” my sister declared with a defiant look on her face.
“Carmencita, we talked about this,” I sighed. “Fictional characters is one thing, but you cannot ship real people.”
Of course, it didn’t end there, however. My sister is nothing if not stubborn. Which is how I got dragged to the book launch of a certain Arturo Roman. I hated that guy since the moment I’ve seen him, and my sister didn’t feel any different. However, he had offered to answer questions about the heist, and that was an opportunity Carmen couldn’t miss.
“Mr. Roman, what can you tell us about Raquel Murillo?” Carmen asked, her best smile plastered on her face.
“I never thought much about her, to be honest,” Arturo shrugged. “Of course, she did her best, but she was not the real hero of the heist. I saved more hostages than she did, and that stunt she pulled with Allison Parker… It’s no wonder she quit, really.”
“Nobody denies the fact that you were the real hero, Mr. Roman,” my sister said as she batted her eyelashes at him. “I was more interested whether she seemed to have any connection with anyone in the band. Maybe the leader?”
“What, Berlin?” Arturo puffed in disgust. “That guy was nothing but a madman. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had the hots for Denver, though. All dumb girls fall for him.”
“But Denver was not the brain, was he?”
“Denver was a stupid brute, thank you very much. I never met the brain of the heist, actually. I heard Murillo ask about him, though. He called himself The Professor.”
“But he wasn’t inside the mint, was he?”
“No.”
“And how would you say Raquel- Mrs. Murillo, I mean- reacted to that? Did she sound surprised, or disappointed?”
“I’d say a bit disappointed. But why are you so interested in her?” Arturo asked, his tone annoyed now. “I’m sure there are people in the audience who have more interesting questions.”
As my sister and I left the audience, I could feel her grinning beside me. “If you’re going to say she didn’t have a perfectly valid reason professionally speaking for being disappointed she didn’t find him there…”
“I didn’t say anything,” she shrugged, but I knew better than that.
Lucky for me, I wasn’t there when the money started raining from the sky. My sister was, however, and while my Facebook exploded with pictures of my friends fighting to get money, Carmen sent me a single picture. I told you so, it wrote, but it still took me a few seconds to realize who the guy in the picture was. Maybe it was the lack of glasses, or maybe it was seeing him in a red jumper for the first time, a big leap from the costume I had first seen him in.
By the time I got home, the band had already taken over the Bank of Spain, and I couldn’t help being a bit sorry for them. After all, nobody got out alive from the bank in case of an attack. But my sister didn’t seem to care about that too much.
“You know who’s in charge of the case?” she asked as soon as I got inside the house. I just shrugged at that – it wasn’t like she was going to let me answer that anyway.
“Some guy named Tamayo. Military, apparently. You know who isn’t in charge of the case?”
“Inspector Murillo?”
“Bingo. And alright, she may have blown it the last time, but that Angel guy seems to still be involved. And she was in charge last time, not him. So if I was in charge and had a bit of brain, I would have begged her to come back from whatever hole she hid in. Unless…”
“Unless she and jumper guy are fucking?”
“His name is the Professor, but yeah. Anita, come on,” she pleaded. “She brought him to a crime scene last time, there’s literally no reason she would have done that unless they were together.”
“So you’re saying she’s been involved all along?” She sighed at that. “You know, the evidence seems to point that way, but that’s like, the boring version.”
“What’s the fun version?”
“They fucked before she changed sides.”
“So this is what you think they are? Some real-life version of enemies to lovers?” The grin she threw me was huge. “Best ships are like that.”
“This is not a fairytale, Carmen,” I warned her with a sigh. “It’s not going to end like one.”
By the time we got to the bank, I realized I had been right. This was going to end badly. There was a feeling of dread in the air that I couldn’t shake. But I also had been wrong. There was something about being there in the crowd, among all those people. It was a strange energy that seemed to unite us, despite the fact that we had never met each other before. I took one look at my sister and, as I squeezed her hand harder, the reality hit me. They were criminals, yes, but they were also family. A weird, unadjusted family, probably, but a family nevertheless. And while they may have started the first robbery out of greed, this was different. This was payback for what the police had done to one of their own. And yes, maybe it was stupid, but if anybody had hurt my little sister… There was no telling what I would have been capable of.
I had already lost count of the hours we have been staying there when the doors first opened. I thought they were going to release some of the hostages at first, but then I saw the box they were carrying. La puta ama, it wrote, and I felt the tears streaming down my face before I could stop them. I didn’t know much about Nairobi apart from what the press had written about her, but there, in the crowd, I felt like my best friend had been killed.
I spent the next hours in front of the bank, checking my phone from time to time, each new headline making me trust the police less. First, it was the way they had killed Nairobi, using her own son as bait. Then, it was the whole story with Rio, the way they had tortured him and then tried to cover it all up. And, as a new notification popped on my screen, saying that the thieves had proof the police had lied, I found myself whispering yes babies, fuck them up at my phone screen. I briefly wondered if my sister was right if the inspector had actually switched sides. And while my sister was a romantic, I couldn’t help but be a tad more pragmatic. What if she hadn’t switched sides for love? What if she had merely had an epiphany, not unlike the one I was having at the moment?
But then, my sister pulled on my sleeve and she handed her phone to me. I could see the tears welling up in her eyes, so I took the phone with shaking hands, a feeling of dread coming over me. As I pressed play, bringing the phone closer to my ear, the Professor’s voice rang in my head.
“Our colleague Lisbon has been illegally detained,” he said, his voice shaking with anger. “She was captured and is being held at the command post in front of the bank. Without a judge being informed. With no right to a defense. And after the police faked her execution.” I pressed pause at that, but my sister motioned me to continue watching. So watch I did, feeling my own anger bottle up inside me as the Professor played the recording he had.
“Colleague, my ass,” I said with a huff when the clip ended. “Have you seen the guy? The way he knew exactly where the gunshots were on the recording, how he flinched at every one of them? How many times do you think he listened to that recording?”
I’ve never seen my sister looking so proud of me. “See? Now you get it,” she said with a grin. And somehow, in all the madness, I smile despite myself. “Please, they’re probably married by now.”
This is Madrid. It’s insanely hot nine months of the year, and when it does snow, the traffic becomes a literal hell. The nightlife around here is too loud for some people, and the siestas are either too long or too short, depending on who you’re asking. The only upsides… are the crimes. While other places have robberies or murders… we have… heists!