The Capone is planning a late night robbery

Velvet Vixen’s eyes dart across the scattered blueprints until one detail hits her like a slap in the face: a red pen line traced along the old municipal tunnel map beneath the First Bank Museum. There’s a faded note beside it in Cleo’s looping handwriting:

“Access via storm grate near 6th & Laurel – after-hours entry. Museum locks engage at 9:00 PM.”

Velvet Vixen checks her phone.

8:42 PM.

“Oh no no no—not today, Capone.”

Later at the Museum:

Boots pounding on pavement. Cape flaring behind her like a second heartbeat. Kendrick doesn’t stop for crosswalks, doesn’t stop for breath, doesn’t even stop to process the fact that she still smells like dust and melted rope.

The storm grate at 6th & Laurel is exactly where the map said it’d be. The cover’s been popped. A small metal ladder leads down into the shadowed dark of a forgotten access tunnel.

“God, it smells like wet mop and vintage regret,” she mutters, sliding down the rungs.

Torchlight flickers somewhere far ahead. She hears voices echoing in the narrow corridor—muffled, laughing, confident.

Cleo Capone and her girls are already inside.

“Bingo.”

Velvet Vixen crouches low, careful, watching from the shadows as Cleo’s trio of pinstripe-clad minions lift a reinforced panel beneath the museum’s basement level. Cleo stands nearby, her hair pinned up, coat draped over one arm, pistol holstered under the other like a femme fatale straight off a movie reel.

“Ladies,” Cleo says with a smirk, “let’s make this quick. No traps, no flair. We grab the notes, crack the vault, and get out before anyone knows we were here.”

The henchgirls nod.

Kendrick’s fingers twitch. Her heart pounds. She’s here. She’s early. And for once—they don’t know it yet.