The Vengeful Thief (Stolen Hearts Book 5) Read online

  By Mallory Crowe

  Copyright

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Fonts used with permission from Microsoft.

  Copyright © 2017 by Mallory Crowe

  Mallory Crowe (2017-10-24). The Vengeful Thief (Stolen Hearts Book Five)

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

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  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Cunning Thief

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  “Sex hair is the worst.”

  Liv tilted her head and considered her friend Payton as she started to work at the tangles at the top of her long, dyed red hair. “I can’t tell if you’re complaining or bragging.”

  Payton stopped what she was doing to give Liv a wicked grin. “Oh, bragging. Most definitely bragging.”

  Liv was half jealous, considering her own epic dry spell was stretching on uncomfortably long. But considering Payton’s questionable methods of meeting men, she was going to hold off the jealousy for a little bit longer. She shifted her weight and glanced at the kids around them, making sure none of the impressionable young minds were within earshot. She looked at her phone. It was ten minutes past when Josh should’ve met her, but it wasn’t that strange for him to get held up by teachers or friends. And if he was going to make her wait, she’d take advantage and get some more gossip in. If she wasn’t getting any, she might as well live vicariously through others.... “So who was the guy?”

  Payton grinned and Liv could tell she was reliving some of the more intense parts of the evening. “You’re not going to believe me if I tell you.”

  “I don’t believe ninety percent of what you tell me. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear it.”

  Payton snorted. “Fine.” After taking a deep breath, she blurted, “It was Dennis.”

  Liv raised her brows and waited to see whether Payton was messing with her. But when no burst of laughter came out, she pressed for more. “Like, Dennis, Dennis? Dennis Star?”

  She nodded. “One and the same. What can I say? He’s cute and I had a few more beers than I probably should’ve and when he started leading me out of the bar I just... went with it.”

  “Well, ain’t that a damn precious love story,” muttered Liv. “So, you know what I’m going to ask, right? Are the rumors true?” Dennis Star, at five foot five, was attractive and nice enough, but he’d been plagued by rumors of his, well, proportional privates his entire life. It was why every woman Liv knew tended to avoid him, at least in a romantic capacity. But judging from the look on Payton’s face, the rumors might have been wrong....

  “Well.... He doesn’t need much apparently.” At Liv’s questioning look, she continued. “The rumors are unfortunately right, but Dennis doesn’t need a lot downstairs. I’m telling you, Liv, I’ve never been touched like that in my life. Did you know, Dennis was just touching my arm and—”

  A young blonde girl ran by and Payton immediately stopped talking. “Mackenzie! How was school, honey?”

  “Hi, Mama! What are we having for dinner?”

  Liv smiled and Payton rolled her eyes. “Not even a hello. Shows how grateful kids are these days.” Even as she said it, she smiled down at her daughter with an undeniable light in her eyes. It warmed Liv’s heart to see. Payton could be so wild and guarded, but whenever her daughter was around, it was like a switch went off. Maybe this Dennis Star thing was more than a one-night stand. Mackenzie could use a more stable father figure in her life, and Dennis wasn’t the worst match. Especially if he was that good in the bedroom....

  “Mackenzie, did you see Josh on your way out?” asked Liv.

  The child looked disinterestedly over her shoulder at Liv. “He was by the playground.”

  Liv groaned and looked at the time again. Josh should know that she had things to do before work tonight. They should’ve left fifteen minutes ago. “All right. I guess I’ll go hunt him down then. Payton, I’ll talk to you later,” she said pointedly, silently informing her friend that she wanted more tales of her exploits with Dennis. She had more vicarious living to do through that girl.

  “I thought he was getting a ride from your friends,” said Mackenzie.

  Liv frowned at that. “What friends?”

  “The ones he was talking to.”

  Liv fell back a few steps and tried to figure out what the child was talking about. It wasn’t unheard of for her to have friends pick up Josh, but she hadn’t set up anyone to pick him up today. It had been weeks since she’d needed to schedule a pickup, thanks to her boss finally agreeing to let her work the night shift. She headed toward the back of the school and quickened her pace as she got closer to the playground. With every step, she told herself this wasn’t a big deal, but still, she was going faster and faster until she rounded the corner of the building to see the playground.

  There, at the very edge of the playground, she could see a man in a van. There was no road behind the school, but whoever it was had driven up on the concrete playground and was talking to Josh.

  And whoever it was didn’t look familiar to her. Which made him a stranger. “Josh!” she called as she started to jog across the playground.

  Josh turned to look at her, the surprise clear on his ten-year-old face. But that surprise turned to shock as the man he was talking to hooked an arm around him and pulled him into the van.

  “Josh!” she screamed. The word ripped from her throat as one of her worst nightmares came true. The van started to tear away from the playground with no regard for the kids still leaving school or the parents hanging around.

  Liv glanced around, and after realizing that no one was coming to Josh’s rescue, she took off running, her legs and arms pumping harder and faster than they ever had before. She was tempted to run right after the van, but when she saw the van hook right out of the parking lot, she knew where they had to be going. She ran straight past the school dumpster and through the closest backyard cluttered with a rusted-out car and other mechanical odds and ends until she reached the front yard. There, right in front of her, was the van. Liv did the only thing she could think of and threw herself in front of the speeding vehicle.

  Slade exhaled as he lowered himself to the extent that his arms would allow and then sucked it in again as he pulled up, raising his body until his chin passed the top of the bar. Then he held that position for five full seconds before he lowered himself once more.

  He wasn’t keeping track. Right now he was working until muscle failure, and so far his muscles were holding out. He started to raise himself up once more when the door to the gym opened and footsteps sounded. He didn’t need to turn his head to realize it was Gage approaching. He’d worked with his team long enough to recognize the sound of their steps, breaths,
curses, and even know which one was picking a lock.

  But the other giveaway was that Gage was currently the only one besides Slade who was at their compound on the outskirts of Chicago. “I’m busy,” he bit out before he started on another pull-up.

  “I know. And you know I know that you’re busy. Which means that if I’m going to come in here and interrupt you, I’m going to have a good reason.”

  Slade stopped at the top and frowned. Gage was scared. He didn’t remember the last time anything scared the cocky computer hacker. Not only was Gage one of the best cyber attackers there was, but since his time with Slade, he’d learned a few hundred ways to physically take down his opponent as well. The last time they’d had a push-up battle, Gage had actually given Slade a run for his money. He still lost, but it hadn’t been an easy victory for Slade, which was a tough blow for him since he’d always considered himself Gage’s mentor.

  He let go of the bar and dropped to the ground, lifting his shirt to wipe the sweat away as he turned to Gage. “What’s going on?”

  “First of all, I want you to know that everything is okay.”

  He heard the words coming out of his friend’s mouth, but he didn’t really believe any of them. “Spit it out, Gage.”

  “You know how we technically work for Scott Hart and, kind of at the same time, his girlfriend, Toni?”

  “Why are you telling me things I already know, Gage?”

  “And you know how they told us that until they get operations in order, we should lay low and maybe even go home to see our families?”

  Slade could feel the tension creep into his shoulders at the mention of his family. There was a very real reason he’d chosen to ignore that recommendation and had stayed to focus on recentering himself and working on pushing his body to the physical limits as he rebuilt the gym that, coincidentally, Scott Hart himself had set on fire.

  “I don’t want to hear a fucking thing about my family,” he snapped.

  “I know that. And I wish I could respect it, but you know I’m nosy and I did a background check on you a long time ago.”

  Slade let out a growl of disapproval even though he wasn’t the slightest bit surprised. It was only expected that Gage would use his powers for evil.

  “Anyway,” continued Gage, “I got a hit on one of your family members today and figured you’d want to know.”

  “Spit it out before I lose my patience,” warned Slade.

  “Fine.” He took a piece of paper out of his back pocket and handed it to Slade. Before Slade could unfold it, Gage continued. “It’s about your son. Someone tried to kidnap him yesterday.”

  Liv hated being the center of attention. She’d spent so much of her life trying to learn how to fade into the background and master the art of being invisible. But now that her arm was in a giant sling and she had been the focus of not one, not two, but five different local news articles, she could just see everyone’s eyes follow her as she walked down the aisle of the grocery store.

  “Ignore them.” Melissa turned the cart down the international aisle.

  “I’m trying to ignore them,” muttered Liv as she searched for the noodles to make her famous macaroni and cheese. “They’re the ones who need to do the ignoring.”

  Melissa rolled her eyes as she pushed the cart farther into the aisle. “You can’t go acting all heroic and then get upset when people call you out on it.”

  Liv wished that was the problem. “They don’t think I’m a hero. They think I’m a dumbass.” Which would be fine, if she didn’t agree with them. She’d lived her entire life in various small towns, not giving a damn what anyone thought about her because she knew they were all wrong. But in this instance, she couldn’t deny the truth. She’d jumped in front of that moving van without a single logical thought in her head. Every single maternal instinct toward Josh had somehow activated and had driven her to do anything and everything in her power to stop that van.

  Even if it meant stopping it with her hundred-and-thirty-pound body. Which, in this strange instance, had helped. The van had stopped after hitting her, and Josh had somehow managed to wiggle free and open the door in all the commotion. Once he jumped out, the kidnappers decided to cut their losses and hightailed it out of there before any cops showed up. Which, in this county, took way too long, considering there was not much else going on.

  And between all her relief about Joshy being okay and the pain radiating from her sprained arm, she hadn’t been paying attention to any license plates. So the police had managed to do absolutely nothing for her besides tell her how stupid she’d been to jump in front of the moving vehicle instead of getting a license plate.

  “Stop it,” said Melissa.

  Liv blinked a few times. “Stop shopping?”

  “No, stop berating yourself. I’ve known you long enough to see when you go down the self-hating path. You’re a hero. Without you, Josh would be who knows where right now.” She shuddered.

  That was the damnedest thing. Not knowing. Who had tried to take Josh? Why? After numerous interviews with the police, he had said that the kidnappers asked for him by name. It wasn’t a random abduction. It was well known that Liv and Melissa had almost no money, so it couldn’t be ransom. And even though Liv wasn’t exactly the most popular, no one hated her, and everyone loved Melissa. There were no enemies. The whole thing just made no sense, and the harder Liv worked to figure it out, the worse her headache got.

  As they reached the end of the small grocery store aisle, she was able to look out the large glass pane windows at Main Street. She loved that even in the grocery store, you felt the ever-present aura that was Laurie Falls.

  It was comforting to look out over the bustling small businesses that occupied the busiest street in the town with a whopping total of five traffic lights. She hadn’t been around when the first few went in, but she had attended the seven total town meetings to discuss adding in the fifth. It was kind of a big deal.

  Behind the glass, she could appreciate the sight without feeling scrutinized or judged. The strange contradiction about moving to a small town because you loved the small-town feel was that sometimes people would never grow to accept you. Especially if you were living an unconventional life with Melissa and Josh.

  The town never quite knew what to make of her. Half of the townsfolk still assumed she and Melissa were a happy lesbian couple, and the reactions were a mix of standoffish and condescending.

  She told the locals that she’d moved in with Melissa to help her best friend raise Josh, her brother’s son, but in truth she’d moved in because she had nowhere else to go at the time. Melissa had been a godsend when she needed it the most, and Josh, the child she’d never wanted, had become the center of her being.

  To the point that the very thought of losing him had her throwing herself in front of a moving van. But it wasn’t her fault Josh happened to be so awesome.

  The sudden calm of the peaceful afternoon was cut short by the roar of a motor. A bike rolled past the grocery store. Not the normal souped-up Harley like most of the older guys in town had. This was a rougher bike that looked as if it had a few hundred thousand miles under its belt. She watched as it went farther down the road before turning off toward the residential section of town. Probably just a visitor....

  “Don’t see a Buell Blast that often,” said Melissa from behind Liv.

  Liv turned to her. “A what?”

  She pointed to the window. “The bike. My brother used to drive one. His always sounded like it was about to fall to pieces any minute, but he managed to keep it running.”

  Liv digested this new piece of information about Josh’s father. She knew so little about him. Josh had been so young when he died and Melissa almost never talked about him. So he rode a motorcycle? Great. If Josh ever found that out, he’d be sure to buy the first bike he could once he was old enough to drive. Or earlier. The kid was way too smart for his own good, and she lived in fear of him using his powers for evil instead of good
someday.

  Alice and Jonathan Tumbled started down the international aisle and Liv knew her time to contemplate the mysterious absent man from her life was over. She could see Alice’s eyes immediately dart to her slinged arm, and Liv tucked her head down to avoid any and all eye contact. “What’s next on the list?” She turned to Melissa. “Frozen pizza, right?”

  Slade was grateful for the tinted visor that covered his face from the curious onlookers of Laurie Falls. When he’d left this place ten years ago, he never planned to come back. Not even casually driving through. So the fact that he was here now for some indeterminate amount of time had him on edge and just waiting for someone to jump out at him.

  This town had so many memories in its borders. Some of the best days of his life and then the one bad day that turned his entire life on its axis. He hit the accelerator on the bike, and the revving engine gave him some measure of calm. He managed to keep it close to the speed limit because he didn’t want to draw any attention from the cops, but he still took the corners fast as he worked his way through the subdivision that hadn’t existed ten years ago. This all used to be forested land that he’d wandered around during his childhood. The big duplex stood right over the bog where he’d pushed Lacey in back when they were freshmen in high school. She hadn’t talked to him the rest of the year, and at the time it had been the worst torture he’d ever known.

  Because you didn’t really know what you had until it was gone.

  He gripped the bars tighter and turned into the Sunshine Hills trailer park. Even though it had been years since he’d been here, the route to his old trailer felt like second nature. The muscle memory was still there, as if he’d come home to Lacey and Josh just yesterday. The trailer he used to call home.

  Once he reached it, he brought the bike to a stop and put one booted foot on the gravel road. He didn’t get off the bike, though. There was no way in hell he was going in.