The Tomorrow Heist by Jack Soren Read Free Book Online

changed into his workout clothes and spent an hour burning off frustration more than fat in the home gym he’d set up in the flat’s second bedroom. The exertion and rush to get from set to set without letting more than thirty seconds pass was just what he needed. His mind wasn’t given the chance to wander as he moved from squats, to push-­ups, to dips, and so on. But when he got to the cardio part of his workout, the treadmill let his mind drift again. He tried to focus on the job tomorrow, but his mind kept recalling other jobs they’d pulled over the years. Especially the ones where he brought a lost treasure back from the dead and delivered it to its rightful owner. And while it was usually Lew who was crass enough to point out the paycheck, Jonathan also found himself thinking about the finder’s fees.
    As he showered, he thought about Lew’s crazy idea: Let’s be The Monarch again.
    Jonathan smiled as he rinsed the final remnants of shampoo out of his hair and wiped his eyes. He chuckled, shaking his head, as he turned and let the water pelt him in his well-­exercised shoulder blade.
    As the rhythm of the water droned, Jonathan’s conscious mind drifted far away, recalling his favorite moments from some of the jobs he and Lew had pulled over the years. When he finally snapped back to the present, his shoulder was tingling from the extended massage. He turned off the water and toweled himself dry in the tiny bathroom.
    â€œHe’s crazy,” Jonathan said. Someone needed to say it out loud.

 
    Chapter Five
    Jirojin Maru
    1,100 km East of Tokyo
    7:00 A .M. Local Time
    U MI T ENABE , CEO of the Tenabe Group, drank her breakfast tea while the Jirojin Maru ’s steward stood by waiting for her assessment of his efforts. Umi thought he looked tired but knew he had only been awake for an hour. Umi, as usual, had been up since 4 A.M. tending to paperwork and international phone calls. She had been running her multinational group of companies—­or Zaibatsu —­from her superyacht for months now. While difficult, at first it had been legally necessary. Now, it was just nostalgia—­this was where she’d spent her last moments with her husband as he died.
    Before she’d inherited her father’s company over seventy years ago, Umi had believed she would follow the path that most of her contemporaries had taken—­marrying and disappearing into the identity of her husband. But her father’s sudden passing had changed all of that. At thirty-­two years of age, she became—­for all intents and purposes—­a man. It was 1945, a difficult time in Japan. Her father was an important and very rich man at the time. But after bringing a morning meeting to order in an office building in Nagasaki, her father’s life was ended and Umi’s path forever altered in a brilliant flash of light.
    She continued to sip her tea, watching the steward squirm in her peripheral vision. Now at a hundred and two years of age, Umi still enjoyed torturing the men in her life. There had only ever been one man she hadn’t felt that way about. But Mikawa, her husband of only a dozen years, had been murdered six months ago. While his death had released Mikawa from the cancer ravaging his body, Umi could not bring herself to abide the act. Her every moment since that day was in the pursuit of a single, solitary goal: revenge.
    About to send the steward back to the kitchen for a “better” cup of tea, Umi changed her mind when her computer screen announced she had an incoming call. Especially when she saw who it was from.
    â€œ Ike, ” Umi said, telling the steward to get out. Then she added that he’d better bring a better cup of tea for lunch, or he’d be out of a job. When the door was closed behind him, she answered the video call.
    â€œTatsu, it’s so good to see you,” Umi said, slightly surprised that she actually