BOUND BY BLOOD AND DESIRE

Grace Turner stared down at the kitchen table, its once-polished oak surface now scratched and stained with unpaid bills. The late notice on the mortgage, the credit card statements, the pink shutoff warning from the electric company—each one felt like a slap. She didn’t look up when Ava spoke again.

“We either sit here and drown, or we take what's not ours and hope to God we don’t get caught.”

Grace finally met her friend’s eyes. Ava, fierce and defiant, leaned against the fridge like she owned it. Always in control, even when her husband’s business went belly-up and the bank took their car.

Beside her, Sam crossed her arms, silent but not disagreeing. Her lips were pressed into a line so tight it looked painful. She had two kids and a husband who drank away every dollar he didn’t lose in stocks.

Grace was the last one standing in a crumbling empire of wives and white picket fences. And now she was about to fall, too.

“I just... it’s a grocery store.” Grace's voice was soft. “Not a bank. Not a casino. It’s where we buy milk and diapers.”

“It’s also a cash-heavy business with no security on Tuesdays. You think it’s an accident?” Ava asked. “You think they’re not hiding something there?”

Sam spoke up then. “It’s not just groceries. Ava’s right. There’s something... off. I’ve seen guys in suits handing off envelopes in the back alley. Every Tuesday. Like clockwork.”

Grace felt her stomach twist. “And we’re just supposed to walk in there and take it?”

“No.” Ava pulled out a worn manila envelope and dropped it on the table. “We go in. We wear masks. We get the money. We disappear. Five minutes, tops. I used to work that register, remember? I know the layout.”

There was a moment of heavy silence. Grace reached for the envelope with shaking hands. Inside were blueprints, notes, timing details.

“You’ve been planning this?” she whispered.

Ava didn’t blink. “Since the day my husband cried like a little boy after the repo truck took our car.”

Grace looked back down at the table. Her wedding ring caught the light, dull and lifeless like her marriage. Like the lie she lived every day in this quiet suburb that masked so much decay.

She slipped the ring off slowly, placed it beside the past due bills, and stood.

“I’m in.”

Sam exhaled like she’d been holding her breath for years.

“Jesus,” she muttered, rubbing her temples. “What the hell are we doing?”

“What we have to,” Ava said flatly. She stood straighter, already morphing into the version of herself Grace always suspected lived beneath the surface—a version forged in survival, not suburbia.

Grace looked at both of them, her pulse quickening. There was no turning back now. The weight of the decision settled in her bones like cold water.

“We’ll do it Tuesday night,” Ava said. “Store closes at ten. Staff’s minimal. Just the assistant manager and one cashier on duty. They’ll be too scared to ask questions.”

“What about cameras?” Grace asked.

“Disabled. Temporarily,” Ava said. “I have a guy.”

“You have a guy?” Sam raised a brow.

Ava didn’t answer.

Grace didn’t push. Some questions were better left unasked.

Ava walked to the kitchen counter, picked up a burner phone, and slid it across to Grace.

“From now on, no texts, no calls from your personal phones. Use this. We keep our meetings short, no paper trail, and never talk in public.”

Sam took hers next, flipping it open like it was radioactive.

Grace stared at the phone in her hand. It felt heavier than it should’ve—like it carried the weight of everything she was about to become.

Later that night, Grace stood in her bedroom, staring at her reflection in the mirror. The woman looking back at her wore a silk nightgown and had soft brown eyes and worry lines starting to crease her forehead. Her hair was falling out of its bun, and she looked... small.

But there was something else in her eyes now. A flicker. A crack in the porcelain mask she’d worn for years.

She wasn’t the same woman who’d clutched her grocery list and coupon binder while smiling at cashiers. She wasn’t the woman who smoothed out her husband’s collar before he left each morning for a job he’d lied about losing weeks ago.

She was someone else now.

And in five days, she’d become someone her past self would’ve never recognized.

She walked to the drawer, pulled it open slowly, and stared down at the black leather gloves inside.

Just like Ava said: no fingerprints.