A/N - I don't own Tomb Raider in any way.

There is a reference to a Hustle episode in this one, but I hope you enjoy it.

Enjoy.

Lara.

Wardrobe.

Lara sat on one of the seats in the burger bar, opposite John with Monkey, Flip, Chantelle and Ash, eating burgers that were somehow much nicer than anything sold from McDonald's or Burger King. This sort of scene was not unusual although Lara was confused about the speed; usually, after they'd broken into a house or a flat, the gang would split for a short time and they would go their own separate ways. All of them had their own personal lives, friends and family. It was mostly for security but it was actually a way for them to enjoy time in their everyday lives. They all needed to unwind.

Even Lara. Her job as a courier was mundane, but she enjoyed the freedom it gave her and she enjoyed the boxing lessons she had at the club, especially when she hung out with her friends. She would rather be with them than spend her life doing the same boring stuff in an office. She knew Chantelle was a bartender in a club, Flip was a DJ, Monkey was a fitness instructor and Ash was a mechanic. While she didn't know what John was, she doubted very much he relied just on burglary. But then again she wouldn't be surprised if he did since he enjoyed what he did every single time they went out, although their fence had bled the joy out of everything like a haemorrhage.

But recent events had been far from usual. The gang had temporarily split up from each other following the mess with the fence only a fortnight ago, but now they were back. That meant either John was permanently splitting the gang up, or he had found something else for them to do.

"Thanks for treating us to lunch," Lara was glad Ash was the one who decided to break the silence, "but what is going on? I didn't expect to see you again for a while. Have you found a new fence?"

John was silent as he picked up some of his chips and popped them into his mouth. "No. And I don't plan to, either unless we have to," he added.

"What?" Flip looked up in surprise while Ash looked at John with a lack of real surprise.

"Have you got something else in mind?" Chantelle piped up.

"Yes. We don't need to find a fence if we change our MO," John looked over his shoulder, glancing at the nearby patrons briefly before he turned back to his friends, "I was thinking it was time we changed. Houses are good and all, but I think it's time we stopped breaking into them."

Chantelle nodded before she hissed out of the corner of her mouth when she noticed someone behind. "Careful, someone's there," she warned.

John got the message and they all continued eating when he set the example. When he lifted his head and studied Chantelle, it took a minute for her to get the message, but she eventually nodded. "They've gone," she said.

John glanced over his shoulder again and turned back, "We don't have the equipment for pulling off anything big. I'm talking about banks, jewellery shops… In any case, I don't really want to go down that route until we have reached that bridge. I need time to come up with new contacts who can give us a great deal of storage space when we need to hide what we take. We didn't have it before because we didn't need it before. But thanks to that bastard fence taking everything until we were left with sod all, we need cash, and we need it right now."

"What about hotels?" Chantelle asked, making a face while John shook his head slowly, and she went on in the hope of making her idea more and more attractive, "Tourists carry lots of cash."

"There is a point there, John, you should consider it," Monkey pointed out.

Lara could see the logic in the suggestion and she knew John had as well, but judging by how he was shaking his head, he had discounted the idea within seconds of hearing it. He had something else in mind. She didn't bother asking him why he was dead set against the idea, she knew he would get to it.

"No guarantee; there might be a few tourists who're too stupid to carry cash with them, and show off their wallets or purses to pickpockets and will fall for a grifter's game, but while I did give some thought of using a con on them, we are down to the same problems. We don't have the money to set up anything that can get us a lot more," John pointed out, "no, I've had something else in mind for a long-term plan."

"Like what?" Ash challenged, his tone making it clear he wasn't enjoying this game much longer.

"ATMs."

"What?" Lara said in surprise, but Flip grinned in realisation. "Of course, they carry lots of cash," he said.

"Trouble is they're a bugger to get out of the wall never mind finding another way," Ash commented, but his expression showed he was already thinking of ways of getting into an ATM. "But it can be done. What do you have in mind, John?"

"I heard a gang of graffiti 'artists' had been cutting into the ATMs and tearing them out of the walls with a big two by four. I want to know if we can do the same, only better?" John said, adding the last question to Ash.

"I don't see why not," Ash shrugged, pausing for a moment while he picked up his burger and took a bite out of it. He thoughtfully munched on the burger before he swallowed. Lara could see he was busy thinking of the right way of cutting an ATM out of a wall and what they would need to do so, and he spoke again, "I've got the cutting torches for such a job although I can get new ones, and I know where we can get our hands on the right types of car which can tear an ATM out of a wall if I can't find another easy method of getting the thing out of the wall."

"Have you already found an ATM we can get into?" Flip asked.

"I've got a few ideas, but we're going to be giving Ash a little while to figure out a way of getting into an ATM so we can safely get to the money. This is what I've got in mind for our next burglary," John took out a photo from his jacket pocket and he handed it to the others.

It was the photo of a large house with four storeys nestled between two others. Lara didn't need to ask why it had attracted the attention of John; she had been with the gang long enough to know expensive houses by sight and where they were found in London alone.

"The house is being owned by a single woman, but anyone who has owns a house like this must be loaded," John smirked.

Ash fixed him with an unimpressed look. "John, I thought we didn't want to break into houses at this point."

"We don't," Johns' expression was fixed, "but I want to burgle this house anyway."

Chantelle sighed. "John-," she whined irritably.

"I know. We don't have the contacts, but I don't want anything in that house large and when you realise who this woman is, you'll understand."

"Why, who is she?" Monkey demanded while he showed great patience.

John smirked. "Have any of you heard of Dosh4You?" He asked them, but Lara could see his eyes were fixed on Ash, who went very still. She didn't notice the reactions of the others, they seemed as baffled as she was.

Ash gaped. "That's where she lives?"

"Yes."

"How did you track her down?" Ash asked in disbelief.

"It took a long time, Ash, but when I found her, it was luck. Until the moment I saw her, I was determined to just hit ATMs, but this is a chance in a lifetime," John didn't take his eyes off of Ash, but his smile was wiped clean off. In its place was a look of sympathy.

"Excuse me, but can you please tell us what is going on?" Chantelle asked as her patience ebbed away.

John sighed and looked at Ash, who nodded.

Ash's expression was grave as he spoke grimly, "Three years ago, my sister was married to this rich kid banker from the city. They had a nice house and a kid on the way, and they'd been happily married for a good few years. But it all went wrong when my sister began noticing that her bloody loving husband was on the phone virtually all day, and he was stressed out. She tried to find out what was going on, but it wasn't until she found him crying over these men evicting them from their home she learnt he had lost his job. From what I heard, he had been excelling higher and higher above his peers, but it's the sort of job where you could only go so high before you tumbled down, and that's what happened to my brother in law.

"He was a Wally of the sort you'd want to avoid. He didn't want to worry his pregnant wife, so he took out a loan from a loan's company. Dosh4You in the hopes it would be a temporary solution which would be waved away and forgotten while he tried to think of a way of making a comeback. I don't know if he was close or not, truth be told I never cared, but I do know he and my sister were evicted from their home by bailiffs while two coppers looked on grimly, and I know the little bastard was close to paying the company off but they wanted their money back with extra interest."

"And your brother in law didn't have it?" Monkey guessed quietly.

"He had some of it, but it wasn't enough. When Dosh4You sent those bastards to turf my sister and her dick of a husband out, he already had half of the money, and they took the lot while they were forced to live in hotels, the cheaper the better. They eventually tried to sue Dosh4You, since they were making so much noise, and the stress got to my sister. She had a miscarriage," Ash looked down at his hands grimly.

Lara gasped in horror.

"Ash, mate, I'm so sorry," Flip whispered.

"Me too, Ash," Chantelle hugged him.

"Thanks, guys," Ash replied awkwardly but you could tell he was happy. But his expression became bleaker once more. "They tried to make Dosh4You pay for what they'd done, but the courts would not touch them, and while they managed to use the miscarriage angle to their advantage, somehow Dosh4You got out of it and they paid out £10k's worth of cash and dropped the case."

"What?" Lara whispered in horror at the implications when she caught a double meaning there. It sounded to her that Dosh4You recognised more trouble was on the way, and they wanted to end it.

She had to admit whoever ran the company was smart enough to see the danger and was willing to adapt. But there was no doubt in her mind they would never have dropped such a case otherwise.

But what sickened Lara the most was how they had just paid out what had to be a meagre sum for a priceless death. If it had happened to her, Lara was sure she would have stormed the Dosh4You offices, and burnt the place to the ground, with everyone in it. After what she'd just heard she doubted Dosh4You had done that out of the goodness of their hearts. A baby had died, but since they were loan sharks and didn't care if they turfed the unfortunate bastards who fell for their cons it was a big step up to infanticide. It sounded more like a bribe more than anything else. She guessed she could now see why Ash had wanted to make them pay so badly. They had been more interested in preventing bad publicity.

"I think they didn't want the bad publicity. It didn't help a baby died in the whole mess, and they knew they couldn't survive it. So they did the best thing they could do, and they dropped the case."

"I bet they did it to look good to their customers," Lara sneered at the thought.

"That would be a first. I've spent the last couple of years trying to find a way of hitting them where it hurts, but I was never able to find the CEO of the business. Her name is Astrid O'Connell. She has no social media pages, no photos, nothing. All she has is a few newspaper photos, showing her at trials when she tries to defend herself from ruining people's lives. When do we do this?"

Lara didn't have a problem with the idea of burgling this woman after what she'd done, but she was worried about Ash. He was a level headed and calm man by nature, but what worried her was he was going to do something they would all regret.