I could lie with the best of them.
And with so much on the line, I would lie my freaking ass off. Until I believed the words spewing from my mouth and the pretty illusion I conjured. Sayer could kill me later. Sayer could torture me and drag me back to DC and let Roman kill me. But I would never give Juliet to them.
And if all else failed and I didn’t make it back home, Frankie would know what to do.
“I’m a manager at one of the local resorts,” I explained. “It’s nothing like back home. The pace here is so easygoing and my job is so much less… restricted. But I love it. I love the change of pace.”
Sayer’s jaw ticked and my smile became more confident. He was pissed. He didn’t like that I’d recovered. Or that I’d no doubt confirmed all of his groundwork.
I ignored the satisfying feeling of still being able to read him even after all this time.
“That’s great,” he said, his smile turning forced. “That sounds great.”
I held his gaze, confessing the truth. “It is. I love my life here.” Jesse put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed. I wasn’t sure if he sensed my need for comfort or if he felt responsible for my happiness, but his warm touch was comforting.
Sayer’s jaw ticked again and those blue eyes flared for the first time—the way they used to. Darkening and brightening all at once. I sucked in a breath as old feelings I had worked relentlessly to bury clawed at their internal grave, desperate to resurface.
He’s dangerous, I told them. He’s one of them.
He’s here to kill me.
He’s here to take away everything.
It’s Sayer, they hissed in return, addicted to his voice, desperate for his touch, weeping from the separation.
“A tour!” Gus announced, his boisterous voice slicing through the sudden tension. “You need a tour.”
“Oh, no,” I rushed to decline. “That’s okay. We were actually leaving.”
“Caro, come on,” Gus pushed. “We haven’t seen each other in five years and you’re in a hurry to get out of here? What kind of assholery is that?”
“I, uh, no, you’re so busy and we couldn’t impose—”
“It’s already happening,” Gus insisted. “The tour is happening. I won’t take no for an answer.” He spun around, as animated as I remembered him. “This is the gallery. Our current installation is kick ass as you can see. Our artist is a real talent. Young, handsome, a legit genius with the brush.”
Jesse shot me a confused look. “Aren’t you the current artist?”
Gus grinned. “Oh, right. It’s probably best if we move on. You can ogle my work later.” He started walking toward the bar. “I’ll even give you the friends and family discount, Caro. Six percent off.”
I ignored the dig. “Wow, Gus. I don’t know what to do with your generosity.”
“Right? That’s what everyone says.”
We followed after Gus while he pointed out the inanest shit ever. There’s a table. That’s one of our chairs. Look at the light fixtures over the bar. That left Sayer to follow behind us. I hated that I couldn’t keep my eyes on him. I hated that he had the advantage and the perspective and all the things I wanted. In an effort to get out of tonight alive, I had to play the con they’d started without my permission. Which meant I couldn’t let Jesse in on any of it.
I could have run from the building screaming like it was on fire, but Sayer and Gus had found me. They weren’t going to let go or give up or walk away. At least not without a fight. So all that would have done was lead them straight to Juliet.
But along with playing my role in a game I didn’t know the rules for, I had to keep Jesse safe too. He couldn’t know any of this. He couldn’t suspect anything was wrong.
Jesse was a good guy and he would do what all good guys did—he would try to help me.
Only his help would only hurt. And probably get us both killed.
When Gus started skirting the back of the gallery near the kitchen, we turned a corner and I took the opportunity to glance back at Sayer. His gaze was already on me.
“You okay, Six?” he asked with that cruel, distanced smirk twisting his mouth.
No. I wasn’t okay. I turned back around.
“More art,” Gus was saying. “That’s the kitchen.” We approached a doorway. Gus stepped into it and as we followed after him, we realized it was a darkened hallway leading to a stairwell headed to the basement. “Okay, enough with the boring stuff. Let’s get to the cool part.”
I froze, causing Jesse to bump into me. “What’s down there, Gus?”
He was already halfway to the bottom. His cat-that-ate-the-canary grin did nothing to soothe my nerves. “It’s a surprise.”
Shaking my head, I took a step back. Sayer was right there. His muscled chest grazing my back. “I don’t like surprises,” I told them.
Sayer’s hand landed on my hip. His fingers wrapped around the bone, squeezing tightly, cradling intimately. “You’ll like this one, Caro. I promise.”
I couldn’t hide the fear anymore. Pleading with my eyes, I appealed to the more sensible of the two men. “What’s down there, Gus?”
“Aw, come on, old friend, you’ve made it this far. Don’t chicken out now,” he goaded.
That was a direct reference to me running from DC.
I knew I should never have agreed to this date with Jesse. I could make an argument that this was his fault. His idea. Only I’d gone along with it willingly. Like a stupid lemming. Or a suicidal sheep. I just needed someone to blame. Resisting the urge to bang my head against the brick wall, I ignored Sayer’s punishing squeeze and followed after Gus. If for no other reason than to escape Sayer’s touch.
He was the same as before. But so different.
The Sayer I knew before was long and lean, the way runners were built. His shoulders had been narrow and his waist tapered. And even at twenty-three, his face had held onto some of the boyishness of his youth.
Now he was all muscle. His green hooded sweater did little to hide his ripped physique beneath the expensive material. His shoulders had broadened, with all this new strength of course, but with age too. He had stepped into manhood and gripped it with two fists.
All traces of boy and teenager and young man were gone. In their place was a deliciously stubbled jaw and raw, untamed power. He towered over me, taller, stronger, meaner. And unlike before when his body had been a shelter for me to run to, the safe haven I counted on for protection, it was only cruel distance now. There was an invisible space between us that stretched across oceans. Continents.
Worlds.
Sayer Wesley had gone to prison as the person I trusted most in this world and come out a stranger.
He wore his five years in prison like new skin, flexing the hard-fought years with bared teeth and shredded muscle. There was no softness left in him, no gentle touch or understanding ear. Only anger. Only hatred.
He was at once utterly beautiful and every nightmare I had ever had come to life.
I decided not to look at him again tonight. Not even if his plan was to kill me. It hurt too much.
At the bottom of the steps, there was a short hallway that led to a supply room that had the door propped open and another door that was closed. This was it. This was the empty room where they were going to kill us. The people upstairs would pause at the sound of gun shots, but the loud pop music would disguise the gunfire to make them think they were hearing things. Gus and Sayer would shove our dead bodies into barrels of acid and then close the door behind them before rejoining the party like nothing had happened.
And I would never be heard from again. My dead body would eventually be dumped, but nobody would be able to identify the body because I’d be turned into human soup. Caroline Valero would just fade away into oblivion, another unsolved homicide that nobody cared enough about to demand justice.
Or something along those lines.
It was possible I’d been binging too much Luther lately.
When Gus put his hand on the doorknob, a sudden surge of panic gripped me and I latched onto Jesse’s hand, squeezing so tightly my fingers went numb.
“You’re going to love this, Caro,” Gus exclaimed, some of his familiar optimism slipping into his tone. He pushed open the door and we were led into an office.
I breathed with instant relief. Having expected an empty room with soundproof walls and a drain in the middle of the floor, modern, efficient desks and filing cabinets and plush leather chairs were a welcome sight.
My gaze fell on the safe in the corner of the room immediately. Old habits and all that. Thick, heavy and a brand I was unfamiliar with, I couldn’t help but be intrigued. Instantly, I wanted to find out what was in it. The dormant thief in me itched to know what secrets they had locked inside that impossible box. It was big enough for me to walk inside and stand up in, so it must be filled with useful trinkets and titillating information.
But it was also too obvious. And since Gus was involved, there would be cameras and security and measures taken to keep all their dirty little secrets secret.
Scanning the ceiling, looking for cameras, I finally figured out why they brought me here.
“Son of a bitch,” I hissed under my breath. I felt Jesse’s surprised gaze on me so I gave a halfhearted effort to cover up my reaction. “That’s quite a painting.” Then hated myself for drawing attention to it.
“Oh, yeah? You like that?” Gus asked with a smug grin. “That’s one of our older pieces. We’ve been hanging onto it for a while. You know, waiting for the right opportunity to display it.”
“Are those diamonds?” Jesse blurted, checking out a long counter of displayed jewelry.
I spun around while Gus explained something about being a collector of fine things. The room backed up his claim. There was an antique cigar box worth thousands. A Rembrandt and Leighton worth so much more than that. There was a little black journal that was absolutely priceless, containing an accomplished job ledger from a notorious hitman. Extravagant jewelry and a priceless sculpture and all of my sins stockpiled in one reckless room.
The Leighton especially, the Fisherman and the Siren, which I’d managed to steal on a dare after a night of vodka and bad decisions when it was on temporary display at a gallery in DC, had my name written all over it. I doubted Jesse was up on his FBI lists, but to me it felt like my name was splashed in red paint all over it. That’s the painting that would send me to prison.
That’s the one that would upend everything.
Hell, everything in this room would just add years to my sentence.
This was like my own personal dragon’s cave. While working for the syndicate I was given jobs, assignments in which I would steal, con and coerce my way through. And while working for the syndicate my moral compass had swung a little too freely. I was good at my job. Really good. Which might have led to my hobby. Over the seven years I worked for the Volkov family, I was able to amass quite the collection.
All of which I entrusted to a certain associate of mine to keep hidden—away from my father’s sticky fingers.
What I hadn’t realized until the moment it mattered most, was the associate I’d entrusted to keep everything safe for me also had sticky fingers. Sayer had lied about where he kept everything. He’d safeguarded his own fortune by stealing mine.
When Francesca and I ran, I had cash, but none of the truly valuable items that would have given us complete financial freedom. And kept my name clear.
Now here they all were. These things were mine. All of them. I’d stolen them fair and square. And Sayer, the bastard that he was, had not only tracked me down and interrupted my peaceful existence, but he’d chosen to flaunt all of my trophies as if they were his own.
I was going to murder him.
Okay, not really. But as long as he didn’t murder me first, I was going to get back every single thing of mine and rub his nose in it. Then Juliet and I would be gone for good.
Chapter Twelve
“What do you think, Caro?” Gus asked, still grinning like the foolish idiot he was.
I met his gaze and told him the truth. “I think you’re showing off.”
“This is quite the impressive collection,” Jesse added neutrally. He could sense the obvious tension in the room. But he was a civilian, a nice guy that only knew nice people. He could not fathom the bad blood between us or the origin of the priceless items in the room.
Normal people didn’t automatically assume everything surrounding them was stolen. Or that the girl they had a crush on used to work for the Russian mafia and had the reputation of being a high-class thief. That was fantasy to the everyday person. Fiction.
Gus shrugged. “Honestly, I inherited most of it.”
I blinked at him, still shocked at his unabashed arrogance. “Is that so?”
“The lady everything originally belonged to up and died.”
“She died?”
Gus held my gaze, “Well, she’s dead to me.”
I rolled my eyes and turned to Sayer, hopefully appealing to a more levelheaded moron. He held his hands in the air and walked further into the room. “We’re not here to pick a fight, Six. We’re hoping for your opinion. We’re wondering how much this is all worth?”
The door clicked closed with a sort of ominous finality at the same time I said, “I don’t know why you think I’d know the answer to that question.”
The room went dark, and a red light came on over the door.
“What the hell?” Jesse asked.
“Oh, no,” Gus sighed, not sounding worried in the slightest. “Sayer, you forgot again.”
The previous dread flared through my belly. Holy shit, this was the moment! Goodbye, cruel world. “Forgot what?” I asked all even tones and false bravado.
“The security system,” Sayer explained, his voice sounding like it had been dragged across a gravel road. Now that his face was cast in shadow, I imagined a raging monster coming to life inside him. A monstrous beast fueled by the love of his life disappearing, abandoning him to prison and crime and hell. “We’ve taken special measures to keep this room secured, but the door has been acting funny since we got the system installed. It keeps locking us inside.” He let a heavy pause settle over us. “The only way to get out is for someone to open the door from the other side.”
I ground my teeth together to keep from screaming in frustration. “You’re kidding.”
Sayer’s face was cast in darkness, but I felt his gaze crawl all over my skin. “Afraid not.”
My mind spun, desperate for an exit. This was a recipe for disaster. If Gus and Sayer weren’t planning to murder us, then I didn’t want Jesse finding out any of my secrets. Fine, if we were being held at gunpoint or Sayer had handed us two shovels and ordered us to start digging our graves, I might have fessed up to Jesse. He would have a reason to know then.
But since Gus and Sayer had yet to start screwing on their silencers, I decided to spare Jesse the information that would likely lead to his later demise. Yes, it was dangerous for Juliet and me, but also for him. If the bratva had come back into my life, I needed to do whatever it took to save Jesse from that world. I needed to do for Jesse what I couldn’t do for Sayer all those years ago.
“Call someone,” I ordered, pointing at the desk phone. “Call your hostess.”
“The line isn’t set up yet,” Gus answered.
Son of a bitch. I stormed over to a phone and picked it up. Sure, enough there was nothing but empty sound. I made a fool of myself crawling around on the floor, groping in the darkness to test the jacks. Then I did it to the second phone. Nothing.
Kneeling in the middle of the office in my little black dress, I remembered my cell phone. I yanked open my clutch and pulled it out. No service.
“Are you serious?”
Sayer leaned forward on one of the desks, his bigger, brawnier arms flexing in the glow of red light. Where had that muscle come from? “Dead.”
I shook my head, hating that I
was so easily distracted. “Wh-what?”
“Dead serious,” he clarified. “That’s not going to work down here.”
“Damn it.”
“Eventually, they’ll notice we’re missing,” Gus said. “Maybe.”
“Hopefully,” Jesse echoed. “Has this happened before? Will they realize you’re locked in down here?”
The guys shrugged, turning their attention to me rather than Jesse.
I felt them circling like a pack of lions. Like a pack of angry, starving, asshole lions. What were they doing here? And why had I walked so stupidly into their trap?
I was not a naïve gazelle hanging out at the watering hole. I was a lion in my own right. Queen of the fucking jungle.
They couldn’t have known I would show up here on opening night. Let’s operate under the assumption that they moved to this town with the express purpose of confronting me. They wouldn’t have opened up a business if they planned to kill me tonight.
If this was a hit job, they would have found me, rolled into town and grabbed me, finished the job and then left again.
No, they were up to something. This was a con. And obviously a long one. Another one of their games.
They were here for a reason. Yes, the reason was probably me. Or Francesca. But either way, they weren’t going to hit and run this one.
Which meant their cover was as important as mine.
“Serendipity, right, Caro? That we would run into each other here of all places.” Sayer tapped the desk with his knuckles. “After all this time.”
Serendipity was the name of one of our old cons. We would run into each other in the middle of a party and make a big scene, hugging, laughing, I would start to cry. Then we’d ask someone to take a picture of us, and while I was showing them how to use my phone, I would steal their wallet or their hotel key card or whatever.
“Yep,” I mumbled, struggling to stand again in my too short skirt. “Serendipity, Sayer.” Only this time I was the mark.
Jesse reached out his hand and I took it, grateful for the help to my feet. He seemed to sense something was wrong, because he pulled me close to him and dipped his head to ask, “You okay?”