The Dangerous Thief (Stolen Hearts Book 3) Page 13

  He didn’t take a fully deep breath until the doors had closed.

  Fuck. So much for an easy job.

  Willa sighed as she took another drink of water. Yet another day that would be better with alcohol. Considering how often she was thinking that lately, she was going to have to be in a twelve-step program.

  “Earth to Willa. What’s going on?” Stephanie was tossing her salad on her plate and looking rather unimpressed. Willa wasn’t sure whether her friend’s dejected expression was because of Willa’s distant behavior or the fact that the salad was eighty percent dressing and twenty percent greens.

  “I’m sorry.” Willa checked the burner phone Toni had given her one more time. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. “I’m a little distracted.”

  “Gee. If only there was someone you could share your problems with. Maybe over a lunch at the newest and apparently overrated cafe in town.” Stephanie threw her fork down, giving up on the salad. “Please make me feel better about the shitty food by telling me about your problems.”

  “At least my pain can bring someone else joy.” Willa pushed her own dish aside. The chef must’ve screwed someone to get this job because it sure as hell wasn’t their cooking skills keeping them employed. “Steph, I really don’t want to get into the details. I don’t want to think about my problems right now.”

  “Well, I don’t want to think about mine,” she said in a slightly annoyed voice.

  Willa immediately felt guilty. She might be going through some first-class, serious stuff, but that didn’t mean she had to act as if she were the only one with problems. It wasn’t as if she could help any of the Murray family. “Well, if you want to talk about anything, I’m here.”

  “Let’s just pay the check and leave.”

  Useless in taking down her father. Useless as a friend. James had liked her French toast, though. So she had one thing going for her. She could cook basic breakfast foods. Yay her.

  The waitress brought the check and Stephanie picked it up before Willa could, slipping her credit card inside.

  “Where is AJ today?” asked Willa, deciding that changing the subject was the best idea.

  “I don’t know. He hasn’t been talking to me much recently.”

  Well, apparently trying to change the subject had led her right back to Stephanie’s problems. “Are you two fighting?”

  “No. It’s not me. It’s....” Stephanie took a deep breath. “If I tell you this, you need to swear yourself to secrecy.”

  Willa leaned in. “You know I’ve got you.”

  “Fine. Well, just between you and me, my mom found Jesus.”

  “Your mom found religion?”

  “I wish. No, she found the pool boy. Jesus.”

  “You know that’s not how you say that name, right?”

  “The comedic factor of saying my mother found Jesus is literally the only good thing about this situation. Please let me have this.”

  “For screwing your mom, he deserves his name mispronounced.”

  Stephanie let her head fall in her hands and her shoulders shook. For a moment, Willa thought she might be crying, but it turned out to be sad laughter. “It’s so bad, Willa. It’s not like Mom and Dad were ever that close, but she was caught in the locker room of the club by a bunch of her frenemies. Everyone knows, so now Dad is leaving her for the principle of it and they’re fighting over everything. You think this wouldn’t be a big deal since I’m a grown ass woman, but I’m getting calls from them constantly to bitch at each other. I just... can I stay at your place for a little bit?”

  Willa stuttered as she tripped over her words. She absolutely wanted to be there for her friend but there happened to be a criminal base sitting right under her apartment right now.

  “So can we go?” asked Stephanie, already grabbing her purse and standing up.

  “I... can’t think of a good reason to say no.”

  Once the elevator door opened, Willa shot out, walking as loudly as possible. “Come on, Steph,” she said loud enough so anyone in this apartment and even the one below it would hear.

  She hung her purse up on the hooks in the entryway before she went to the living area. No James, which was good and concerning at the same time. Was it so hard to send an “I’m okay” text?

  Maybe that was something girlfriends got. She definitely wasn’t girlfriend material. Still. Next time she saw him, she was going to inform him that sex buddies deserved text messages.

  “What happened to the liquor shelf?” called Stephanie from the far side of the living room.

  “The shelves gave out a few weeks ago. I haven’t gotten a chance to get it fixed.” She’d been out of the room when they’d broken. Jules had made it sound like a freak accident, but that accident led them right to her father’s apartment. Willa now knew it was more than likely that Jules had broken the shelves on purpose.

  The perfect excuse to go to her father’s. Possibly the biggest mistake Jules had ever made.

  “I have some vodka in here.” Willa pulled down two small glasses. Then she took out the bottle of raspberry-flavored vodka and poured them both a drink. Stephanie immediately downed the contents, but Willa just moved the glass from hand to hand.

  “So what’s your mom going to do?” She poured Stephanie another drink.

  Stephanie climbed up onto a stool and took a drink of her vodka, this time only a sip, which was probably safer. “Who knows. She and Jesus,” this time she pronounced it correctly, with the J sounding like an H, “are still together, but I don’t think either of them like it. Jesus thought he would bag a rich lady and become a kept man. He didn’t realize that some money just isn’t worth it.” Stephanie started to take another drink and seemed to think better of it and set her glass down. “You want to know the worst part?”

  “What?”

  “My mom is having more sex than me.”

  Willa snorted. “It’s not like you don’t have options.”

  “Shitty options.” Her eyes suddenly widened. “That’s what we need to do. We need to find our own Jesus.”

  Willa really wished Stephanie was drunker so she could blame this talk on the alcohol. But before Willa could respond, the elevator opened. Willa and Stephanie both stiffened but before Willa could run to see who it was, James strode in, his anger practically vibrating off him. He stopped when he saw Stephanie, and Willa tried to transmit her apology for the inconvenience with her eyes.

  “Who the hell are you?” asked Stephanie.

  James let out a low noise in the back of his throat that was hopefully too low for Stephanie to hear.

  “This is my security detail,” said Willa. “I hope you don’t mind him hanging around. My father insisted. James, this is Stephanie.”

  He nodded a hello but didn’t say anything. His bad mood was practically terrifying.

  “So your meeting didn’t go well?” she asked, willing him to tell her exactly what she wanted to know without giving too much away to Stephanie.

  “Nothing got done,” he said through clipped words. “But it could’ve gone worse.”

  She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. No one had been hurt. “You can go relax in the back bedroom if you want. We’re just going to be out here.”

  “Oh. My. God.” Stephanie hopped off her stool and approached James.

  “Why don’t we have another drink?” said Willa, trying to distract her friend.

  But Stephanie wasn’t to be distracted. She pointed an accusatory finger at James. “You’re a Jesus!”

  James’s cold expression was replaced by absolute confusion. “What?”

  “Ignore her,” said Willa. “She’s drunk.”

  “You know it takes more than that to get me drunk.” Stephanie moved to stand between Willa and James. “I can’t believe you’re screwing your bodyguard and didn’t tell me.” She eyed James. “I mean, I get it. The sex part, but you still should’ve told me!”

  “What happens between us is between us,”
said James.

  Stephanie stared at him for a few seconds. “My God. Even when you’re being a dick, you’re hot. Where are you from? Are there more like you? Do you have brothers?”

  Okay, this was getting out of hand. “James, can you give me a few minutes alone with her?”

  He seemed relieved when he retreated off to a bedroom, and Willa couldn’t blame him. “Steph, what the hell?”

  “What?” She made her way back to her drink.

  “This isn’t about a dry spell or you needing a fuck buddy. You have guys falling all over you. If you want to work out your anger, that’s fine, but don’t be rude to my....” She realized she didn’t have the right word to say. Bodyguard was a lie and she didn’t want to lie to Stephanie any more than she already was. Boyfriend and friend weren’t right. James was still label-less.

  “Oh,” said Stephanie. “I didn’t realize he wasn’t a Jesus. He’s the real deal.”

  “He’s not—”

  “I know I could find a guy to get in the sack with,” said Stephanie. “That’s not the problem. But everyone here in the city is so... city. I don’t want a guy in a suit and polo shirt. I want someone like your bodyguard.”

  “The strong and silent type?”

  “No. I want a guy who looks like he could be on the back of a horse.”

  “A cowboy?”

  “Yes! I want a cowboy. Flannel shirt, hat, boots—everything. And not someone who dresses like a cowboy but would squeal if they got mud on them, but like a real man’s man. Someone who gets shit done and at the end of the day wants to crawl into bed with a warm woman to work off the stress.”

  Apparently there was a lot about Stephanie’s fantasy life that Willa didn’t know about. “I don’t want to state the obvious here, but if you want a cowboy, you might have to leave the city.”

  “Leave the city,” said Stephanie, as though she tasted each of the words to see how they felt. “I can’t go anywhere. AJ needs me right now. Dad has been riding him hard. Taking out the stress of the divorce on him.”

  “Steph, I know you and AJ are close, but he’s a grown man. He can take care of himself for a little bit while you work things out. And I don’t mean going off to find a cowboy to screw. I mean take a trip. Get away from family stuff. Breathe some fresh air. You’re obviously not in a healthy space right now.”

  “What if I drive around the entire country and don’t feel any better?” asked Stephanie.

  “Then you’ll be in the same headspace you are right now. No harm, no foul, right?”

  Stephanie took a drink of her vodka. “You might think you’re being a good friend, but I know what you’re really up to.”

  Willa froze as she waited to hear what Steph was going to say.

  “You want me to leave so you and the bodyguard can be alone.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Nope. I understand and totally support you getting laid.” She took one more tiny drink of the vodka and set it down, still leaving a bit at the bottom. “I will leave you to it.”

  “I’m still here if you want to talk,” said Willa.

  “Yeah. Yeah. Just do me a favor and get freaky a few times for me tonight, will you?”

  “What the hell happened?” bit out Austin as he paced back and forth across the apartment.

  Willa wrapped her arms around her body and shifted her weight. The entire room was permeated with an uneasy energy that was being projected off everyone. Even Toni, who was normally so together, sat, pissed off, in the corner.

  The only ones there with a semblance of calm was James, who Willa happened to know was furious about what had happened—he was just good at hiding it—and Scott Hart.

  Scott was looking through a stack of papers, as though it were any other day. “This was just a setback,” he said. “Nothing’s changed.”

  “Nothing’s changed?” Austin’s voice rose to a mid-shout. Jennifer reached out to set a hand on his arm and that seemed to calm him down. “We had bad intel. We’re lucky Jen didn’t die.”

  “It’s not that easy to kill me,” she said.

  “I don’t care how good you are, babe. If you go in thinking all the bases are covered only to find out that there’s a completely different sport being played, it’s dangerous. What happened, Toni?”

  Before Toni could answer, James said, “It’s not her fault. They brought in extra help. She had no way of knowing security measures had been bumped up. I don’t even think Jadon knew.”

  “No,” said Toni. “I should’ve known. I should’ve looked at more emails or found a way to listen to more calls. There would’ve been an electronic trail for this somewhere and I just... I missed it.”

  “Fighting about it or passing blame isn’t going to help anyone. We need to move forward.” Willa hated being the voice of reason considering that she was the least experienced person here, but she wanted to get this back on track. So they hadn’t gotten their documents right then. There was still time. There was no other option. They needed to get dirt on Jadon. “You said that the documents might not be stored in the office, right? So the fact that we didn’t find anything isn’t game changing.”

  Jennifer pursed her lips. “The fact that the payload wasn’t there isn’t the bothersome part. It’s these new security guys. I’ve gone over what happened a hundred times. Because Weston was there, I know when I set off the alarm, but I’ve been trying to figure out what alarm I tripped. It had to be something that could be added quickly but subtle enough that it slipped by Toni.”

  “And?” said Willa.

  “I think it was a motion sensor inserted under the carpeting. It would’ve been imperceptible to the eye and if it was hooked up to the building Wi-Fi, it could be connected to any cell phone. Quick, easy, and effective.”

  “And is that going to keep you from getting into my father’s apartment?” asked Willa. Scott looked at her questioningly. “I’m not a master thief, but I listen. I know that you said your plan B was getting into his place.”

  “It doesn’t keep us from going there, but we have to assume that if security at his office has been beefed up, the same thing happened at the home.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be some of the best in the world at stuff like this.”

  “Yeah,” said Austin. “And what makes us the best is that we don’t go into situations blind.”

  No. Willa couldn’t accept that. “So you’re telling me that you know everything about every place you’ve ever robbed?”

  “If we don’t know everything, then we get in other ways. We convince the owner to let us in.”

  “You run a con,” said Austin. “Which is impossible for us because Jadon already knows all of our faces. Jennifer and I from what we did to Stranger. Toni because of her connection to Jen. Scott Hart has been on camera around us too many times. Weston is already in play. We can’t do any of the basics, like a gas leak or inspector. Maybe we can work it out to get the owner of the building to let us in when Belli isn’t around, but that’s still risky....” Austin trailed out and his eyes met Willa’s, telling her what he didn’t want to say out loud.

  “Fine,” she said to his unsaid question. “I’ll do it.”

  “No,” said James immediately.

  “I’m his daughter. I have a key and the doorman knows me. If anyone is going to get in, it’s going to be me.”

  “The last time someone searched your father’s apartment, they ended up dead,” said James. “There’s a room full of us who can get in somehow. The civilian doesn’t need to get shot in the head.”

  Civilian.... Somehow, the word sounded like an insult coming out of James’s mouth. “I’m not useless,” she said. “And I’m more invested in this than anyone. I got stabbed!”

  “Barely,” he said, a contradiction to how protective he was being of her at the moment.

  “Maybe we don’t have to get into the apartment,” said Scott. “If Sterling sent guys over, he’s actively monitoring the situation. So we can s
kip over Jadon Belli and work on drawing Sterling out.”

  “What? No. I agreed to help you and in return you were going to help me. That means getting my father arrested.”

  “Do you really think that’s how this is going to go?” asked Hart.

  “How else would it go?”

  “Your father has connections in every corner of the government. We can’t get him arrested. Or he’ll get right out. If this all went out and we could prove to a higher-up that Jadon was a traitor, he was never going to be taken away with handcuffs. He’d be taken with a bag over his head. Are you willing to do this to your own father?”

  Willa took a step back as she looked around the room. Everyone’s eyes were on her. “I’m not stupid,” said Willa. “I knew this wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.”

  “Sometimes knowing something and knowing something are different,” said James gently.

  “That’s not it. Things with Jadon are too hard. You want to pull back on your end of the bargain now that you don’t need Jadon to help you.”

  “Hard isn’t the problem,” said Toni. “We do hard all the time. Hard is our specialty. Hard is one thing. Dead is another. We’ve already lost people. We’re not going to risk your life if we don’t have to.”

  “You’re not risking my life! Jules did this. She’s the one who brought me into this and she’s dead. Because I know it’s easy to forget, but I lost someone too, okay? She might not have been an immediate family member or even a really good friend, but she was someone I cared about. She was a good person who was trying to make the world a better place and I saw my father, someone I trusted and loved, put a gun to her head and kill her. So don’t act like I don’t know the consequences. Don’t act like I don’t know that I could end up splattered on the new rug in that room. I know exactly what I’m getting into.”

  “What about after?” said Scott.

  “After what?”

  “After your father is gone. After your trust fund is raided by the IRS. You don’t have an education. You don’t have any skills. What are you going to do with yourself once we’re gone and you’re all alone?”