The Beautiful Thief (The Stolen Hearts #2) Read online

  Adam seemed ready and willing to take on the world. Melody bit her bottom lip and ran a hand through her hair. He should be running fast and far away. She was officially toxic and instead he was going to wander across the farm fields of Indiana to get her to safety?

  No. He wasn’t going to put his life on the line for her. Maybe if she was out of options she’d let herself rely on him, let herself put him at risk. But she wasn’t alone.

  It was time for her to admit that she was totally unprepared for the war she’d taken on and call in the backup. She brought her phone to her ear.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m doing what I should’ve done from the beginning. I’m calling Toni.”

  Adam wanted to punch something. Preferably a person, but a wall or door would’ve helped.

  “Who’s Toni?” asked Willa.

  “Toni is her sister,” he managed in a semi-calm voice.

  “Oh,” said Willa, a little surprised. “Why is everyone so upset that she’s being called?”

  “Hey,” said Melody, signaling that someone had answered the phone.

  Adam might have to be okay with her making the call, but he didn’t need to be kept in the dark. He reached out, taking the phone from Mel’s hand and put it on speaker. “Where are you?”

  “Where am I? Who the hell is this?”

  “It’s Adam,” said Mel, in her calming voice. “Have you seen the news?”

  “You mean have I seen your pretty mug flashed all over the big screen? Yeah. I saw it. What are we doing about it?”

  “I’m in Huntsville.”

  There was a pause over the line.

  “Her ex knows she’s here, so we have to assume that the cops know she’s here. We’re at a motel and I paid cash. We should be safe for the moment, but who knows how long? I can get her out on foot but we have another problem.”

  Toni let out a bitter laugh. “Another problem? Great. Because we didn’t have enough.”

  Adam let Mel explain about Willa because he didn’t even know where to start with that one.

  “Jadon Belli’s daughter is here. She’s on the run from her father and came to me for protection.”

  Well, that made it sound much less crazy than it actually was.

  “Willa Belli?” said Toni. Obviously she was familiar with the family tree.

  “Hello,” said Willa softly. The first soft thing he’d ever heard her say. Good; he needed her to be afraid right now.

  “Belli and Sterling worked—”

  “I know their relationship,” said Toni sharply. “Okay. We have to take one thing at a time. I’m at O’Hare right now so I can be there in a few hours, but I took precautions after my flight was delayed.”

  “Precautions?” asked Melody.

  “Scott is meeting me now, but I sent someone out to Huntsville just in case you went back home.”

  “Who did you send?”

  “Who is James Weston?” asked Willa.

  “I don’t know,” said Adam for the tenth time as he looked around the parking lot to see whether anyone who looked like they could be a mercenary showed up.

  “I thought Melody was going to help me. I came here for Melody.”

  “That was before Melody became America’s most wanted criminal. Now she needs to take care of herself. Weston will take care of you.”

  “I don’t know anything about him.”

  “You didn’t know anything about Melody either.”

  “I knew she didn’t like Jadon. I knew she saved my life. That’s something.”

  And now the crazy person was starting to make sense. Damn it. “If Melody stays around to help you, she’s going to end up dead. Got it?”

  “Her sister doesn’t like you.”

  “Don’t make me gag you.”

  “It’s not like you don’t know. Why doesn’t Toni like you?”

  “Because I helped to kill their mother.”

  “Oh.” Finally that seemed to shut her up.

  Adam glanced at his phone but there was no word from Melody. Toni should be getting to town soon. The longer they waited, the more police presence there was, the bigger the roadblocks would get. Damn it, they should’ve made a run for it when they first heard the news. When they first had a chance.

  Now Willa was going to get out of this town no problem. But Melody was still here. She trusted Toni to get her out but wouldn’t listen to a damn thing he said. Fuck, she was worse than a guy.

  Sleeping with her had been a mistake. Ever since, she seemed to be doing her best to remind him to keep a healthy distance. Maybe it was time for him to take the hint. He never should’ve come out here with her anyway. He’d known it back in Louisiana. He’d known it in Chicago. He hadn’t done a damn thing to help her. Sure, they found Forbes, but he was still alive and tickin’, so what good did that do anyone?

  The white Jeep that pulled into the parking lot next to him pulled him out of his moment of self-pity. “Weston’s here.”

  Willa stiffened in the passenger’s seat. He felt for her. She was running away from everything she knew and she was bouncing between one set of wolves to another.

  When Weston got out of the Jeep, Adam knew that the mercenary’s appearance wasn’t going to do anything to calm the girl. Weston was big. He probably had a few inches on Adam, but strength-wise they were pretty evenly matched. Which was saying a lot, considering all the weights and hard labor he needed to do to keep up his fighting shape.

  Weston’s light-brown hair was cropped close to the face, making his somber expression look even more severe.

  “You have the number Melody gave you?” asked Adam.

  Willa nodded, for once speechless. Melody couldn’t give out her own number, but Toni apparently had a secure line that Willa could get in touch with. He wanted to give her some other form of comfort, but there was nothing to say. He didn’t know this guy. He couldn’t give her any guarantees about her safety.

  All he could do was get out of the car and nod at the new guy.

  “Smith?” asked Weston.

  Adam nodded. He didn’t like handing Willa off to a guy he didn’t know, but Toni had sent him a picture so at least he knew it wasn’t one of Forbes’s or Belli’s guys pulling one over on him.

  Even though Adam felt bad for the girl, he had a certain amount of sympathy for Weston too. Hell, he and Weston had a lot in common, from what he could tell, so it was only fair to warn him. “She’s a talker.”

  Weston didn’t seem too concerned. “I can handle her.”

  “How did the roads in look?”

  “Crowded. Lots of red and blue lights.”

  Yep. There was their confirmation that they couldn’t drive Melody out of town. Maybe they could get a truck to smuggle her out in. She was small and it wouldn’t be too hard to hide her, but that was a risk. Walking out was a slower but more secure option, unless there were choppers in the air. Even if there were, they’d hide in a barn for as long as they needed to. He had all the survivalist skills she’d need to get out of this Podunk town, and then with the help of Toni, they could get anywhere in the country.

  They. There was the problem. The second her sister showed up and this Scott guy she kept talking about, there was no they. He might as well book a flight back home now. Maybe drive. He could use the peace of the road for a while.

  He opened the passenger door for Willa. “This is your stop, hun.”

  She looked as if she was going to be sick, but she didn’t beg to stay or ask any more of her rapid-fire questions as she got out of the car, holding her bag close to her chest.

  “Willa, this is Weston. He’s going to get you out of town.”

  She nodded and her eyes were wide. For the first time, he saw through the annoyance and she just looked innocent and scared. He set a hand on her skinny shoulder and gave a quick squeeze. “We’re going to keep Belli from getting to you, okay?”

  “Thanks,” she said as she met his eyes and gave a little smile that
didn’t reach her eyes. Then she walked to where Weston held his passenger door open for her. Weston didn’t even say hello before he shut the door.

  “We’re good,” said Weston. “Tell Toni I’ll make contact once we’re past the roadblocks.”

  He headed for the driver’s side, but Adam moved to stand in his way. “Take care of her,” he warned.

  “I thought you said she was annoying.”

  “Yeah. Nowhere near as annoying as I’ll be if I find out she got hurt on your watch.” With that, Adam turned back to his own car. After he watched Weston drive off, he dialed the motel and had them connect him to the room Melody was in.

  “Hello?” she answered after a few rings.

  “It’s me,” he said, purposely not giving a name. “Weston picked the baggage up. I’m on my way back.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  Adam’s head fell and he rubbed at his temples. “Mel, you need—”

  “Toni’s here now. Scott is on his way. I’m all set. You don’t need to put yourself at risk anymore for me.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Adam, please. You’ve already done too much.”

  He looked up and somehow the world didn’t look the same. It seemed duller. Gray. Fucking useless. He was quiet for a few moments, but there was really nothing to say.

  “Adam?”

  He hung up and tossed the phone on the passenger seat. What the fuck did she want from him?

  He wasn’t going to beg. What kind of moron would beg for a chance to be with someone like that? He knew from the second he’d kidnapped her in the first place that she was out of his league. Even a princess rolled around in the dirt once in a while. Now it was time for him to go back to the swamp and her to go back to the castle.

  But he’d definitely have to hit a lot of bars before he ever made it to Louisiana.

  “Don’t say it,” warned Melody as she hung up.

  “I don’t need to say a damn thing.” Toni sat on the motel bed without a care for how dirty it might be. “You look like you just shot a guy. That says more than I ever could.”

  Melody swallowed and looked down. She had no reason to feel guilty. She was doing Adam a favor. He’d been drawn too deep into her family drama. If Forbes wanted revenge, she and Toni would give him a target, and by the time they were done with him, he would never be able to touch Adam. This was for his own good.

  So why did it feel as if she’d just slammed a door in his face? “I don’t want to talk about Adam. I want to talk about what we’re doing.”

  “You mean with the fact that you’re America’s most wanted?” Toni punctuated the fact by turning on the TV and finding a news station that was still showing her picture.

  Melody ripped the remote from her sister’s hand and turned it off. “I get it. It’s bad. What did Forbes say I did?”

  “Forbes? The guy who killed Mom, who you found and didn’t immediately let me know?”

  “Anger later. Productivity now. What has the entire police force motivated to bring me in?”

  “What else? You were part of a robbery gone wrong and a cop ended up dead. Nothing to motivate a manhunt like a cop killer.”

  “Cop killer! To be a cop killer, a cop has to be....” Toni gave her a knowing look and Melody didn’t finish the sentence. Forbes had been thorough with his frame-up. To make her a cop killer, Forbes had killed a cop. Thanks to the way she’d grown up, she’d never been too fond of the boys in blue, but that didn’t mean she wanted anyone dead because of her.

  “You should see the shoddy details of the robbery part of the frame-up,” said Toni, quickly changing the subject of a police officer murdered because of this. “It’s pretty insulting. Remind me to thank Forbes for that, too, when we get our hands on him.”

  “And how are we going to do that?”

  Toni looked around the dark motel room. “What do you think? We have you here. Forbes has a bone to pick with you. Congratulations, Mel. You’re now the best part of any con. You’re our bait.”

  Adam tilted the shot glass until the whiskey just about spilled over the side but knocked it back to the bar top just in time.

  “Drink it or leave,” said the bartender. The older guy had an arm full of tattoos and wrinkles that were probably ten years premature thanks to the hard life he’d lived.

  Adam slid his last twenty dollars on the bar.

  “You want me to get you another drink you’re not going to touch?” asked the bartender.

  “No. I want you to leave me the hell alone.”

  The bartender narrowed his eyes and started to say something when the guy on the other end of the bar chimed in. “I’ll double that twenty if the two of you shut the hell up.”

  Adam pointed to the stranger. “See. He gets it.”

  “If I have to hear you bitch about your woman problems for even one second, I’m going to throw up all over this bar and then we’ll all lose.”

  Adam clenched his jaw and tipped the shot glass once more. “What makes you think it’s a woman?”

  “Because you’re a cliché. Don’t worry. So am I. And I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to drink. In silence.”

  Well, hard to argue with that logic. Although Adam had yet to take a drink, it looked as though this guy had already downed more than his fair share of liquor.

  And Adam had yet to take a sip. Fuck. Because he didn’t drink on the job. So if he let even a drop of this shitty bottom shelf whiskey get down his throat, he was admitting defeat. He was admitting that he was leaving town and letting Melody go.

  Fuck it. He lifted the glass and it was halfway to his lips when he felt it. His survival instincts kicked in and he knew something wasn’t right. Looking up, the bartender was backing away. He sighed and set the full shot glass down as he swiveled around on the barstool.

  “Hey, buddy,” he said as Matthew Forbes sat next to him. Adam would’ve slammed his head right into the bar if it weren’t for the three armed guys who trailed behind Forbes. Of course it would end like this.

  “Figures I’d find you in a shit hole.” Forbes signaled to the bartender. “Why don’t you get me and my guys something expensive?” He reached over, took Adam’s drink and downed it in one quick gulp, wincing as it went down. “Definitely not that shit.”

  He wasn’t dead yet. Normally that would be a good thing, except it meant Forbes wanted something from him. Considering the story dominating all the news channels, Adam knew exactly what it was.

  “I don’t know where she is,” he said, cutting through the bullshit and getting right to it. “If I did, I’d be there and not here. With you.”

  “You and your little girlfriend have been causing me a lot of trouble.”

  Adam held up a finger. “No. Girlfriend would imply a relationship. Relationship implies time. I just met that crazy chick a few weeks ago. Remember? I think you were there.”

  The bartender was smarter than Adam gave him credit for. He’d magically disappeared while he and Forbes had been talking. The drunk on the other end of the bar hadn’t moved, but he never struck Adam as a smart guy anyway.

  He’d run soon enough probably. Forbes’s conversational tone wasn’t going to last much longer.

  Forbes squinted and frowned. “Here’s the deal, Smith. My boss is a very vengeful man. He has his sights on you and your girl. So I need to deliver both of you to him. And my boss might be vengeful, but I’m worse. See, I’m creative. I’m willing to bet that if I send little pieces of you to her, she’s going to show up eventually.”

  Creative.... Adam remembered that. He’d had to listen to Forbes talk about all the creative ways he wanted to pass the time with Melody back when they’d first kidnapped her. Now that he was this angry, Adam didn’t want to think about what would happen if he got his hands on her again.

  He glanced at the three goons Forbes had shadowing him. Four against one was tough. Four trained military guys? He would never make it. But if he could take down Forbes, it was wor
th the chance. He lunged for Forbes and landed in one solid punch to the face. He tried to get his arm around Forbes’s neck, but even a half-dazed Forbes was dangerous.

  Forbes already had a knife pulled and stabbed Adam in the forearm before Adam could get the leverage needed to snap Forbes’s spine. After the shock of the pain, Adam went a different route and tightened his grip. Even though he was cutting off Forbes’s air, the knife was still in his arm. Which meant Forbes could still reach it. They both went for the blade at the same time, but by now Adam had more to deal with.

  The three goons were surrounding him and had their weapons drawn. Adam angled Forbes to cover as much of his body as possible, but at this close range, anyone with decent knowledge of firearms could hit him and avoid Forbes. He tightened his grip once more. Damn it; this was his only chance.

  Except then he heard the sound of a round being loaded into a chamber and, even while keeping Forbes in his grip, he closed his eyes and waited for the shot.

  When the gunshot rang through the small bar, it didn’t hit him. He opened his eyes to see the drunk holding a Glock 17 in his very steady hand. “Step away slowly,” he said.

  The goons seemed to be recalculating the risk factors now that there was someone else in the mix, but their guns were all still pointed right at him.

  “Don’t you let him go,” wheezed out Forbes.

  “Do the math,” said the not-so-drunk guy. “You can start shooting now, but your boss and probably one of you will end up dead. Or we can call this a draw and live to have a Mexican standoff another day.”

  “I don’t need to survive,” said Adam. “I just need to live long enough to finish this.” He started to cut off Forbes’s air again, but that seemed to make up the goons’ minds as they tensed and aimed the guns at him again.

  “And you won’t live long enough to give him a headache. Let’s go.”

  Adam reached down with the arm not around Forbes’s throat and picked the gun out of his side holster.

  “Smith,” warned the other guy. “Live to fight another day.”

  Adam released Forbes and tossed him away. “This isn’t over,” he warned. He walked away, fully aware that there could be a bullet in his back any second as the not-drunk guy kept his Glock trained on the four.