Helena Chang pushed through the big wooden doors at Windward National Bank and strolled inside. She always felt good showing up to work at a place this fancy, listening to her heels clack on the marble floors, holding her head high as she prepared for another workday. She crossed the wide lobby toward the long teller counter lining the back wall, approaching her station with a small smile.

In just two days, she’d be celebrating her daughter’s seventh birthday. Helena would’ve sworn Mia was a newborn just yesterday. A baby photo sat at her station, showing Mia’s plump, smiley face.

Now her little girl had twenty-four friends coming to the trampoline park to celebrate her.

Twenty-four.

Helena set down her purse and tapped a finger on the little framed photo. She laughed to herself. “My daughter, the social butterfly.”

She checked her reflection in her phone camera. Practical ponytail, small gold earrings. Beauty mark hovering just above her lip. People trusted Helena almost instantly. She’d experienced that her whole career and enjoyed it but didn’t take it for granted. Her life had been one of luck in so many ways.

Still thinking of Mia’s big party and smiling to herself, Helena ran the cash from her drawer through the currency counter to make sure she was all good for work. The machine whirred and beeped as the bills fluttered through in a blur. She glanced around the lobby, enjoying the glint of morning sunlight coming in through the windows and highlighting the carved wooden columns.

The machine stopped counting and gave one final beep, and Helena collected the bills and set them back in her drawer. Five thousand dollars. Same every day.

Eddie approached her station. He’d worked security here for almost twenty years, but he still smiled every day like he was happy to come to work, showing off the shiny gold front tooth he referred to as his “bling.”

“Hola, mi amiga.” He gave her a fist bump through the station window. “Lakers lost again last night. I don’t care, long as I get to watch with my son.”

“Is he already home for break?”

“Been home since Monday. Gonna keep being home until the middle of January. I swear, UCLA sends ’em back for half the winter to save money on electricity.” Eddie patted his considerable stomach with a wink. “Works for me, though. When the kid’s home, we get dessert every night.”

“Love that for you. I’d love it even more if you brought me some leftovers, though.”

“We both know my family never has leftovers.”

Helena laughed as Eddie sauntered back to his post beside the huge front doors. He’d acted like having his son home until the middle of January was an issue, but she knew better. Nothing would make Eddie happier than his boy graduating and moving back to Honolulu.

God willing, Mia would go to the University of Hawai‘i when the time came. Life would be so much better that way. Cheaper too.

At 8:59, Mr. Healey clacked across the marble floor in his Florsheims. Looked like a new pair. Even shinier than usual. He’d been the manager here since long before Helena started, and he clearly loved it.

Every day, he wore a three-piece suit. He greeted every customer with professionalism and courtesy. He treated every minute as a chance to show pride in where he worked and how he lived his life.

Near the center of the room, he stopped at a customer service kiosk, where he straightened a pile of pamphlets and several branded pens. At exactly 9:00, he took his position by the doors, then stepped back to welcome each customer as they filed in.

Mrs. Keiko Kawamoto entered first with a quiet, confident pace. Five or ten years Mr. Healey’s senior, she headed right toward the teller area with a small quilted purse held in her hands. She was almost definitely depositing her Social Security check, hard-earned after decades working as a nurse.

Always elegant, Mrs. Kawamoto wore the same shade of coral lipstick every time she visited the bank. She carried herself with poise and ease. Helena hoped to move the same way when she got older.

The first time Helena had processed a deposit from Mrs. Kawamoto, three years ago, the woman had slid a butterscotch candy across the counter without a word. Helena had come to look forward to it, and she didn’t even like butterscotch.

Next, the lawyer from the office next door, Thomas Nakamura, entered. Thomas, small and slender, always arrived organized. Always ready for his turn at the window. His salt-and-pepper hair gave him an air of authority, as did his reputation as the best lawyer in the state.

A mother and her daughter followed Thomas in. The woman wore scrubs, and the girl had her long brown hair in a neat ponytail. Helena didn’t recognize those two, but she hoped they were here to open the girl’s first savings account. That was always fun.

A woman in a crisp black pantsuit and a medical boot appeared to be the last of the morning rush. She moved with athletic confidence despite the injury. Shoulders square, chin level. She reached into her jacket, withdrew a slim black wallet, and approached Mr. Healy.

Even with the boot throwing off her gait, she looked like she could kick ass while holding a cup of tea. Or maybe a gun.

Not your typical customer by any means. Helena wanted to learn more about her. One of her favorite parts about her job as a teller was personalized service. People enjoyed hearing their names, especially when they were entrusting you with their hard-earned paychecks.

Surprising Helena, the owner of the antique shop next to the bank came bounding through the doors.

Helena broke into a big smile when she saw him.

In his seventies, Braddox the Hawaiian still boasted a barrel chest with a booming laugh to match. Every day, he found a reason to pop in and make a deposit with Helena, no matter how small, but usually in the afternoons.

The guy was almost always friendly, but Helena had seen him get a little surly or impatient over the years too. Even with her. But most often, he was direct, bold, and to the point, a wholly transparent individual. She liked that about him.

She knew he stopped by mostly to flirt with her, and she didn’t mind. He was funny and so much older that it always felt like a safe and pleasant exchange for both of them—a fun way to break up the monotony of the day.

By far, Helena’s favorite thing about Braddox was that he always had a new Hawaiian shirt for her to mock. Today’s was electric blue with humpback whales breaching ocean waves. Quite frankly, the shirt was hideous. She couldn’t wait to comment.

Braddox ambled toward her window. He winked, just like always. She opened her mouth to respond but didn’t manage to get a word out.

The doors hit the walls with twin cracks like gunshots.

Intruders wearing all black charged inside. They split off without speaking. Teams of two peeled toward different corners of the lobby as if choreographed.

Ten people wearing bulletproof vests with black balaclavas covering their faces.

Two found their marks in the center of the room.

All carried weapons. The scary kind.

The lobby, which had felt spacious with the golden morning light shining through it sixty seconds ago, became a cramped box. Helena’s lungs tightened.

The man who’d entered first stood in the center of the lobby with his weapon raised. “Get down! Everybody down!” His voice was smooth and commanding. He raised his gun toward the ceiling and fired multiple rounds.

Helena couldn’t hold in a scream. The shots echoed in the enormous lobby. She dropped without conscious thought and pressed the side of her face to the cool marble, praying a ricocheting bullet hadn’t killed anybody.

The woman in the medical boot had pulled Mrs. Kawamoto down before the man even started yelling. She seemed even-keeled despite the circumstances. But what good was confidence against guns like that?

And what about Mr. Healey, Eddie, Thomas, and Braddox? What about the mom with her little girl? They’d all hit the floor, but would they be okay?

Someone on the other side of the counter sniffled. Maybe the little girl or her mother. Or both. But nobody was groaning or wailing. That meant the robbers hadn’t shot anyone. Not yet.

Maybe, hopefully, we’ll all make it out of this.

Helena tried to keep her breathing steady as she laced her hands behind her head. That was the pose they’d taught her, right? Or should her hands be behind her back?

She’d trained for this. The money didn’t matter. Lives did. But she struggled to remember what to do in the face of reality.

Helena had heard about the Russian bank robbers terrorizing the islands over the last couple months.

If this was the same crew, at least they hadn’t killed anyone before.

They’ll get the money and get out. We’re going to be okay.

Helena flicked a glance up, out the corner of her eye, at the emergency button beneath her teller station. But one of the robbers strode past her behind the counter and went to help his colleague, who was leading out a group of Helena’s back-office coworkers. She tried to get a good look at him as he passed. He was tall, white, and quite skinny, with small brown eyes, but she couldn’t see more under his mask.

On the way back, the Russian man went first, then the coworkers, with a slender woman—broad shouldered and wearing the same balaclava as the others—taking up the rear with a gun held on them.

As they passed Helena’s prone position again, the man grunted at her. “Get up.”

Her fellow employees and the customers lay face down on the floor in the center of the lobby. Six of the bad guys pointed their guns at them while two collected phones, smartwatches, and other items, tossing them into a backpack.

The biggest bad guy, a massive hulk of a man, stopped an extra beat beside Mr. Healey. This robber had to be almost seven feet tall and three hundred pounds, with a surly, deep voice. “Give me your keys.”

Mr. Healey hesitated.

“Keys to the offices and the vault. Hand them over. Now!”

In her mind, Helena urged Mr. Healey to do as he was told. No need to make this giant any angrier. She breathed a sigh of relief when Mr. Healey handed over his key ring. The big guy tossed it to the leader, who had very distinctive glacier-blue eyes.

Those keys and the attached fob would get the robbers anywhere inside the bank. But none of that mattered as long as everyone made it out of this situation alive.

The lead man barked orders at a pair of his cronies holding guns on the employees in the center of the room, and the two leaped into action, closing the blinds on every window that faced the outside.

In less than a minute, they’d drawn every shade.

The back-office crew and Helena still stood awkwardly off to the side with their two captors…and their phones. The lead man turned, his blue eyes like laser beams as his gaze landed on the devices. He shook his head in disappointment, then said something in Russian. He narrowed in on the two robbers who’d brought Helena and her colleagues out. “Zoya. Saint Pete.”

They looked at each other, then back at him, apparently having no idea why he’d singled them out. Where Zoya carried herself with strength, Saint Pete just looked young and weak.

The leader gestured at Helena and the others with his gun. “Handle them, please.”

Zoya jumped into motion, apparently realizing her error, and aimed her gun up and down the line. “Give him your phones. Then get on the floor.”

Cold adrenaline dumped into Helena’s system when the point of that muzzle swept over her. She tried not to gasp when it passed.

Saint Pete went from person to person with the backpack. “Hurry up.”

As she dropped her phone into the black void of the bag’s waiting maw, Helena looked over toward the main group, wishing the robbers had put her with them instead of keeping her here. She was more familiar with the front-of-house crew. Or maybe she desperately needed the protective energy the woman in the medical boot, even injured, seemed to offer with the way she kept one hand on Mrs. Kawamoto’s back. Either way, being scared with them would’ve been a lot less scary overall.

Getting to her knees to lie flat at the edge of the throng, Helena watched Eddie the security guard crane his neck and scan the room. It looked like he was planning something. But that was a very, very bad idea.

No, Eddie. Don’t be a hero.

His hand twitched toward his holster. Helena prayed no one would see. But the leader noticed and strolled toward him as if he had all the time in the world.

“Thinking about summoning some long-forgotten bravery, security guard?” He loomed over Eddie, who was still face down on the floor. “We already took your gun, my friend. Or have you forgotten?”

Helena spotted the wall clock just beyond Eddie. The clock read 9:02 a.m. How had only two minutes passed since the bank opened?

The blue-eyed leader aimed his weapon at Eddie’s head, and Helena’s stomach tightened.

They’re not supposed to kill anyone. Robbers just take the money and leave.

The lead man put his finger on the trigger and cursed, his voice like ice against Helena’s ears. “I despise heroes. They’re the worst.”

Eddie stammered. “I…I’m not…I was just…”

No. Please. Not Eddie.

The gunfire was louder than the first warning shots. Someone screamed, and Helena realized the sound was coming from her mouth.

Eddie jerked against the floor, then went still.

For a moment, nobody moved. Then blood spread dark and fast across the marble, and whimpers met Helena’s ears in waves as everyone tried to contain their shock.

Just like that, Eddie was gone.

Tears streamed down Helena’s cheeks. Eddie’s son would have to watch Lakers games alone now. All Helena heard was the whooshing sound of blood pounding in her ears.

What’s happening? Was she going to die? Were they all going to die?

Poor, poor Eddie. And his wife. And his kid. And everyone who’d ever known him, including her.

Mr. Healey was ghost white, which made Helena look at her own hands. Sickly pale too. She barely felt present anymore, somewhere outside her body or above it—only vaguely aware of the tight, terrified feeling in her chest. Only vaguely aware that any one of them could be next.

Time snapped back when the lead man crossed the marble floor to stand beside her. “Time to bring the piggies to the party.”

The robbers replied with a chorus of grunts, followed by some comments in Russian, and Helena thought she heard the name Ivan somewhere in there.

Must be the lead man’s name. Probably a code name like the others—Trotsky and Zoya and Saint Pete.

Ivan stepped around Helena and leaned through the last teller window at the end of the counter. His finger landed on the panic button on the other side and held it down for three seconds, following the exact protocol to bring police to the building.

Helena’s mouth went dry. Normally, police would be a good thing. But…why had the robber called them? Thick, heavy tears seeped from her eyes. If these criminals weren’t afraid of the police, Helena and all the others were going to die.

“Why…?” The start of the question came out before she could stop herself.

The leader looked down at her. “Rusty, my boy!” He nodded at another robber, this one shorter than most of the others. He carried himself like he was older. Moved slower, more carefully. His beady eyes were flat with patience or defiance. Likely both. “We have a curious cat.” The leader’s icy gaze bore into Helena. “You know what curiosity does to cats?”

Helena’s tears dried up. No. They couldn’t kill her. Not now. Not before Mia’s party.

“Please, no. I’m sorry. I-I—”

The smaller man stepped on her back and pressed the muzzle of his rifle to her neck.

Mia’s birthday party was just two days away.

The goody bags sat on her kitchen counter, half filled for Saturday. Twenty-four little unicorn magnets. Twenty-four chocolates. Twenty-four lollipops. Pineapple-flavored, because those were Mia’s favorite.

Helena closed her eyes. Tried to picture Mia’s face. But she was too scared even for that.

The metal felt heavy against her neck. As her tears returned, Helena realized she still hadn’t ordered the pizza for her daughter’s birthday.

Twenty-four kids are coming to my baby’s party, and they’re not going to have anything to eat.