Chapter One

Better to have an enemy who slaps you in the face...
...than a friend who stabs you in the back.

"Mom," Charlie chuckled into the phone as he listened to both of his parents argue about who he got his natural born talents from, "Come on, it's long distance." Despite his attempted interruption, he could still hear his parents jokingly bicker about who gave him his natural talent to plan things down to the last possible moment.

"Mom," he called into the phone again.

"Yes, my little thief," he heard her say into the phone. A small, reluctant smile sprang to his lips at the name. She had been calling him that for as long as he could remember; my little thief had been his calling card from the day he had been born to now some twenty-five years later. She called him that every chance she got. As everyone had expected, he and his siblings had all followed in their parents footsteps , but only he had been bestowed the nickname.

"Mom, I'm not little anymore," he told her once more.

"Ah, yes," Natalie chuckled into the phone, "But, you'll always be my little thief."

"Come on, Nat," he heard his father say, "Stop embarrassing the kid. It's bad enough Gill, Lyle and Rob know that nickname; you really want to give Bridger more ammo to embarrass him with too. It's bad enough; he knows how his first ever professional heist went..." Charlie cringed at the memory. All had gone to plan, but there had been a few mishaps along the way – mishaps that both his parents and his mentor John Bridger loved to remind him about whenever they got the chance.

"Oh, shush," he heard his mother say to his father, "Charlie, call us when the job is done, please? I want to make sure everything went okay."

"Mom, everything is going to be fine," he tried to assure his mother as he walked through St. Mark's Square, "I have it all planned down to the-"

"I know, I know," the semi-retired thief said to her son, "But, please, ease your mother and your father's worrying and just call us when the job is done, okay? I-I just want to make sure you're okay." Charlie bit back a sigh. Since his grandfather's supposed death all of those years ago, both of his parents had been obsessed with making sure that he and his siblings didn't follow in the great Danny Ocean's final footsteps. His father was much more lackadaisical about it than his mother had become over the years, but if all she wanted was a phone call – it was the least he could do.

"Alright, Mom," he told her, "I'll call you tomorrow from a landline, if I can find one, okay?"

"That's all we ask," he heard his father reply.

"Well, see you when I see you."

"Charles," his mother warned.

"Love you, Mom, Dad."

"Love you, my little thief," Natalie responded.

"Love you, son," Rusty chimed in just before Charlie hung up the phone. He would definitely need to call them tomorrow, but that was tomorrow's worry – today he had other things that took precedence. Continuing, his walk through St. Mark's Square, Charlie tried to keep the smile off of his face as he came face to face with his mentor and an old friend of his parents.

"I sent it," John Bridger told him.

"I thought you were supposed to do your shopping after we pull off the job," Charlie chuckled, shoving his hands into his pockets, "That's what Mom always told Dad anyway."

"I feel so optimistic," Bridger told him, "So? How do you feel?"

"I'm fine, just got off the phone with my folks," Charlie explained, "They say hi by the way. Glad to hear you pulled a Danny as they call it."

"Fine," Bridger focused on, "You know what 'fine' stands for, don't you?"

"Yeah, unfortunately," Charlie sighed.

"Freaked out..."

"Insecure..."

"Neurotic..."

"And emotional," Charlie finished.

"Good. See those columns behind you," Bridger said, pointing to the columns that lined the square.

"What about 'em," Charlie asked, as he turned to look at them.

"That's where they used to string up thieves who felt fine," warned Bridger.

"Well, after you." The two men laughed as they turned and continued to walk through the square together. Bridger reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a cigar.

"For after the haul," Bridger explained, as he handed it over to Charlie. Charlie smiled as a million memories flooded to mind of his parents' crew doing the same after they finished a heist. Many of them were retired, a couple of them had moved onto another great adventure, but the smoking of a cigar after a well pulled off con or heist had been passed down to their children and for some, their grandchildren.

"Hope I get to fire it up," Charlie sighed, as he took a whiff of the cigar.

"Still no word from the garbage men?"

"No, if they're no shows that's three months of prep down the tubes, I dragged you out of retirement for nothing and gave my mother something else to worry about," Charlie sighed. Bridger smiled at the mention of his old friend Natalie.

"Your mother never should have gotten out of the game," he told Charlie, "All she does is worry about you, your brother and your sister – she could put all that energy into being a thief again. There would be a lot less for her to worry about. And this is fun. I like this – you've taken over the reins, all the worries. Me loosey-goosey just along for the ride."

"Dad gets her out from time to time, they do small cons now, not the big ones they used to run with, with my Grandpa Danny," Charlie explained, a sad smile crossing his face as he remembered the grandfather that always let him stretch his sticky fingers when they went looking for candy at the grocery store, "And I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, John. Just remember, a police boat can get from the station to our position in seven – that means you got four minutes to work your magic."

"Now, you told me ten and you said I would have five..."

"When," Charlie asked, looking at the man in complete confusion as he ran through the plan in his head one more time.

"Do not be messing with me right now, okay," Charlie continued, once John cracked a joking smile, "I will kick your ass."

"Oh yeah," Bridger challenged, "Come on, take your best shot. Come on."

"What," Charlie chuckled, as he made a swipe for the old man, "Uh oh."

Across the square a few friends from Charlie's childhood were waiting for them - Handsome Rob, Left Ear and Lyle. Him and Left Ear went all the way back to before school started. Sometimes Charlie considered Left Ear to be closer to family than a friend. Not long after Charlie had been introduced to his absent father, Left Ear's father Basher had been made aware of his existence after Left Ear had lost his mother in a heist gone wrong. The two bonded over being new to the world and developed the same affinity for sticky fingers and the same love for explosives that their parents did.

Handsome Rob was a friend that Charlie had made upon being enrolled in the same boarding school that his mother had attended during her teen years. He didn't have a parent in the life, but he had a love for trouble and the ladies that had gotten them both stuck in some particularly difficult situations. Taking pity on Rob, Natalie and Rusty showed him the ropes. They taught him everything he knew and then some.

Right around the time that Charlie met Handsome Rob, his mother's friend Roman Nagel introduced him to his son Lyle who would be joining him at school after skipping a couple of grades. A chip off the old block, his father would call him. The tech genius of the group, he knew everything about the world of technology and got in more than enough trouble when he started going along with Charlie's idiotic (in his mother's words, not his) plans.

Together the four of them caused a mess of trouble that got them caught on more than one occasion during their school years, but once they were introduced to John Bridger, their days of being caught were behind them.

"Come on, let's go," Handsome Rob said, as he came up behind Left Ear reaching for the book that the other man was reading, "What is it this time?"

"Da Vinci," Left Ear explained, "Architect. Engineer. Painter."

"Yeah, fascinating," Rob replied with a slight role of his eyes.

"Hey, look, look, check this out," Left Ear said, pulling his old friend back towards him and the book, "Learn the language of poetry, art, romance, sex."

"Unlike you, my friend, I don't need a guidebook," Rob teased as a smirk played on his lips, "Can we go? Please?"

"Right, guv'nor," Left Ear teased with a bad British accent.

"Come along, make yourself useful," Rob responded, as the two of them climbed on the boat that Charlie had rented for them for today's heist, "Untie that line. Today."

"Yeah," Lyle said, looking up from his computer before reaching over to the line that held the boat to the dock.

"Yeah, Gilligan," Left Ear teased the baby of their little group, "If you don't mind."

Across town, at the location where the heist was going to be taking place, the still slightly new member of their little crew was breaking into the apartment below where the safe that they were targeting was being kept, at the same time that Handsome Rob was picking up Bridger and Charlie from their little jaunt in St. Mark's Square.

"We set," Charlie asked Lyle as he climbed into the boat.

"Yeah, I've enhanced the viewing matrix to track both the Cartesian coordinates," Lyle began to explain to his friend, "And three altitude angles, the yaw, pitch and roll to give us the exact location and orientation of our baby."

"We're in Italy speak English," Left Ear teased.

"Steve, how we looking," Charlie asked, the newest member of their crew over their wireless headsets.

"Papa took the boat to work at 8:15, so the garage is empty," Steve replied, as he continued his work in the apartment that he had just broken into, "Mama left with daughter at 8:30 for preschool as usual. So for the next 45 minutes, we own this place gentlemen."

"Still no word from the garbage men," Bridger asked, as the rest of the crew got ready on the boat.

"Hey, who got you the beekeepers in Budapest," Steve asked, "They'll be there. You can trust these guys."

"Steve, how many times do I have to tell you," Bridger asked him, "I trust everyone – I just don't trust the devil inside them." Slowly the rest of the crew pulled in to the garage of their location with Lyle bypassing the security to get the gate up without causing any kind of unnecessary security risks.

"We're in," Charlie told Steve who was waiting patiently for the next part of their plan.

"Just tell me where to paint," Steve responded as he looked down at his watch.

"Your men are still not in position," Bridger asked once more.

"They will be," Steve responded slightly bored with the conversation.

"Well, you don't know that Steve. We should abort."

"I'm sorry, John," Steve apologized, "But, I think that's Charlie's call now." Everyone paused and looked at Charlie in concern.

"Our baby's being taken out of here tonight," Lyle explained to Charlie and the rest of the crew, "This is our only shot at it." Charlie looked to John who looked back at his young protégée stoically.

"Charlie," Steve asked. Charlie continued to look at John before he looked towards the heavens – something he had seen his mother do a thousand times when she needed guidance from one of the only people that she trusted besides his Dad.

"Keep going," Charlie asked aloud.

"It's up to you, kid," Bridger responded, knowing full well who Charlie was actually asking.

"It's a go," Charlie answered with that familiar Ocean smile. Bridger smiled back and the rest of the crew got back to work.

"Okay, Steve," Lyle began as he looked down at his laptop, "From the west wall measure fourteen feet, eight inches."

"Got it."

"Now measure eight feet, five inches from the north wall," Lyle continued, "That's the northwest corner of our baby."

"Got it," Steve repeated once more.

"Well, it's right above you," Lyle chuckled as everyone around him continued to get ready to execute the rest of their plan, "Now paint, two feet, nine inches wide, two feet, five inches deep. Okay, Left Ear, you're up - fourteen feet, four inches from that west wall." Everyone worked silently as Steve and Left Ear painted their respective ceilings, Rob built a structure that would look like the safe in question and Charlie and John got ready to dive into the water where the safe would end up landing. The silence was so loud that everyone could hear when Steve's phone began to ring over their earwigs.

"Yeah," they heard him say into his phone, "Bene. The garbage men are in position, John." John smiled at Charlie as everyone continued to get ready with Left Ear and Steve planting small explosive devices in the middle of their paint job. As soon as Steve was clear everything happened at once.

The devices were detonated, sending the safe falling from two floors above straight into the water of the garage, while the men in charge of guarding it began freaking out. As soon as the safe was in the water Rob revved the engine of their boat and quickly pulled out of the garage as fast as he could to make the guards believe that the safe was with him and Lyle.

Three of the guards took after them into separate boats, while another went down to the garage to investigate what had happened. Below the surface, Charlie, Left Ear and John were with the real safe using scuba gear to stay under water as long as possible as John worked on opening the safe the only way he trusted – by touch.

Charlie's chest felt like he was holding his breath while he waited desperately to see if Bridger would be able to open the safe without any issues. He watched as John write down possible numbers that would lead him to the correct combination.

"Alright, Charlie," Lyle said into his earwig as the call came over the police scanner, "Someone just called it in, the police boat's headin' your way." Charlie looked down at the watch his grandmother had given him not long after his grandfather's supposed demise and set the timer.

"Seven minutes and counting, let's go," he told John urging him to get into the safe sooner rather than later. John wiped his goggles as he continued to try and break into the safe. It was taking a lot longer than he thought it would, but there was no other way that he would rather do it. Charlie and Left Ear waited with baited breath hoping that John would be able to open it in time.

Taking a deep breath, John turned the dial and he felt the lock slide open. Opening the safe, grins of satisfaction spread across all three of their faces. They had three minutes to load everything onto their underwater carriers before the police arrived. One by one each of the bricks were moved and slowly each carrier was filled. Just as they placed the covers over the gold bricks, the police boat arrived.

Guiding the carriers under the police boat, the three men made their escape and went to meet up with Handsome Rob, Lyle and Steve, their fortune in tow.

"Hey, you guys, come here," John called to the crew as he handed out bottles of champagne that they had bought in celebration, "I want to propose a toast. To us." The five men held their bottles up in jubilation as they cheered to the sentiment before they all took a swig.

"I want to propose a toast to Charlie," John continued, "Because we just stole thirty-five million dollars worth of gold without even holding a gun because he planned this down to a T. Nobody else has done that since the likes of the great Danny Ocean, nobody. Charlie!"

"Charlie," the others called in return, though Steve's was a little quieter.

"Thank you," Charlie chuckled, before taking a swig of his champagne.

"So, come on gentlemen," Left Ear chuckled, "Shopping list. Who's doin' what? Spare no dirty details."

"Come on, you guys," John sighed contently, "Take a lesson from an old man. Don't spend it, invest."

"In what," Left Ear asked.

"In gold," John Bridger answered, an amused smile creeping onto his face .

"Let's figure out how to get out of here first, alright," Charlie interjected, turning back to the van that they had used to get to this cold mountain top to celebrate on.

"What are you gettin' Rob," Left Ear asked turning to his other long time friend.

"There's a lot you can buy with a lot of money," Handsome contemplated, "I'm just thinking about naked girls and leather seats…"

"Obviously. See?"

"Suppose I'd get the Aston Martin Vanquish," Handsome finally answered, "There's not a lot a girl won't do on the passenger seat of one of those things."

"I'm going to get a NAD-T 770 digital decoder with 70-watt aps and Burr-Brown DACs," Lyle supplied.

"Yeah…"

"It's a big stereo," Lyle explained, "With speakers so loud that it blows a woman's clothes off."

"Now, you're talking," Handsome chuckled, gently knocking his bottle champagne into Lyle's.

"Thirty five million dollars and you can't get more creative than that, man," Left Ear chuckled, "I'm going to Andalucía, south of Spain, right there. Get me a big house; get me a library full of first editions. Get a room for my shoes What about you, Steve?"

"I don't know," their moustached counterpart responded, "I haven't decided yet."

"You haven't decided yet," Left-Ear repeated, "Come on, man, is it the mountain air, just..."

"I liked what you said, I'll take one of each of yours," Steve finally relented. The group of men laughed and held up their respective bottles of champagne for another toast.

"Well, well, two of everything for Steve!"

"Two of those!"

"Oy!"

Over of near the edge of the cliff that they were all standing on, Jeff was looking out at the view as Charlie approached him from behind.

"Loved the toast," the young theif complimented, "But, you could've pulled this off with your eyes closed."

"No, you were incredible," Jeff responded, "You have a lot of your parents in you; just incredible. You saw the whole picture. You covered all the angles. You know, Charlie, I don't know if your grandfather ever mentioned this to you before he died, but there are two kinds of thieves in this world; the ones who steal to enrich their lives and the ones who steal to define their lives. Don't be the latter. Makes you miss out on what's really important in this life."

"What are you talking about, John," Charlie asked his mentor, "You've been a good father."

"Sitting in prisons doesn't make you a good father," Jeff remarked, taking a swig from his champagne bottle, "I spent half my kid's life in prison. Don't get to be my age with nothing but this, Charlie. Do it like your parents; find somebody you want to spend the rest of your life with and hold onto them forever. Okay?"

"Hey," Steve shouted, to get their attention, "Let's go! I'm freezing my ass off."

"Yeah," Bridger called back, "Steve's getting cold. You too?"

"I'm alright," Charlie chuckled.

"I love you, kid, you did really great."

"Thanks John."

"Let's go."

"You should have seen Rob behind the wheel of the boat," Lyle commented from his seat in the back of the van, "He was like Don Johnson."

"Oy, yeah, from Brixton," Left-Ear joked.

"Yeah, what the hell do you know about Brixton, eh?"

"Look at this idiot," Rob complained, waving his hand at the windshield, "Right in the middle of the road." The guys slowly began to look out their respective windows to see what Rob was talking about. Charlie began to get an eerie feeling in his gut. He should have called his mother as soon as the heist was over.

"Who the hell are these guys," Rob wondered aloud. Suddenly the driver and the passenger got out of the car in front of them at the same time that the driver and passenger got out of the van behind them. Before anyone could react to what was happening Steve pulled a gun out of his jacket and aimed it at Rob's head.

"Hey," Lyle shouted.

"Take your hands off the wheel," Steve ordered.

"Steve," Charlie shouted.

"Don't even think about it," Steve continued, watching as Rob's thought process crossed his face, "Just do it!" Jeff opened the sliding glass door next to him causing Steve to open his door and jump out of the vehicle to point his gun at the older gentleman in response.

"No, no, no, no, John," Steve taunted.

"Steve, what the hell are you doing," Charlie yelled.

"Made a few plans of my own," the traitor explained.

"There's nowhere you can go where we won't find you, Steve," Bridger warned, "You know that."

"I think that's probably right, John," Steve conceded before he pulled the trigger. Steve shot at Bridger three times before Rob was able to get the vehicle in gear and get them out there the only way that was possible. They were going to have to go over the side of the bridge and into the freezing cold water below. It wasn't ideal, but it was the only way that they were going to get out of this alive.

Steve and the rest of his traitorous crew continued to shoot at the van as it drove over the side and plummeted down into the water. To make sure that they were truly dead, Steve took one of the guns that the other men handed to him and shot several times down into the water near where the van had sunk.

Under water, Charlie and the rest of the crew were trying their best to avoid being hit by any of the rounds that were being fired off while sharing an oxygen tank between them. If they made it out of this alive, Charlie was going to go home, give his mother and father the biggest hugs – telling them he loved them while he did.

Back on the bridge, everything had gone silent as Steve waited to see what happened. As soon as he saw Bridger's body float to the top of the river – he signaled to his men that it was time to go. They were dead, they were never going to come after him and all of that gold, well, it was his.

Or so he thought…

A/N: A lot of things going on these days, but I finally got this chapter done. It's been a long time coming and I am hoping you enjoy this one as much as you've enjoyed the original two installments. Not sure when the next chapter will be out, but I'll be working on it whenever I have time.

Leave a review and let me know what you think. Stay safe!

xo