The Reluctant Thief (The Stolen Hearts #4) Read online

  He decided to not beat around the bush any longer and came right out with it. “What are you planning, Toni?”

  “Scott, it’s been a long weekend. I’m going to go to my shitty hotel, take a long, hot shower and try to wash off any memory of me ever wearing this horrid suit for you. That’s honestly what I have planned.”

  Whenever someone said “honestly,” he was inclined to not believe them, but then he got the sudden mental image of Toni in the shower. An image that was much easier to conjure considering he’d actually seen her take off her shirt in front of him just a few minutes ago.

  Who the hell did that? He knew they’d been working together for a while now, but she should care enough about her body to try to keep random guys from seeing her black lacy bra that was cut just low enough that it barely covered her—

  “I’m not going to stay out of town for long,” he warned abruptly, forcing all of the unbridled images from his mind.

  “Yeah, yeah.” She closed the trunk and took a step back. She tugged at her hair until the bun came undone and her blonde hair tumbled around her shoulders. “Take a breather, Hart. I have a feeling jail wasn’t a relaxing weekend getaway.”

  He could still feel the pain in his cheekbone from where his head had been slammed into the concrete wall by one of his former coworkers. He’d never worked in Chicago, but he had acquaintances here. They’d all been quick to jump on the “traitor” bandwagon and made sure he felt the full weight of their disgust in his supposed terrorist activity.

  He had never roughed up a criminal, no matter how heinous the crime, but he couldn’t say he blamed these guys all that much. People had died in that explosion. The ones who hadn’t died might be scarred, physically or mentally, for life. This country wasn’t supposed to have buildings coming down in the middle of the street. It was what he spent his entire career trying to prevent.

  Not that he had a career any longer. He had quit his job a while back to devote himself full-time to bringing Sterling down, but he always assumed he’d go back eventually. Now it was looking as though he’d never have that opportunity.

  Which meant he needed to get Sterling more than ever. Because he was losing everything he had to live for, one by one. Right now, the only thing he had left was Sterling, and fuck if that wasn’t the most depressing thought he ever had.

  He wanted to say good-bye to Toni but didn’t really know what to say. She was right that he owed her thanks for what she’d done to save him, but it was damn hard to get the words out. The entire situation never should’ve happened. He respected the law. He respected the force. Even though Sterling was manipulating it to his benefit, the vast majority of those guys just wanted to make the world a better place. By manipulating the system like she’d done, she’d gone against so much of what he believed in.

  But that was her entire life. She didn’t play by societal rules or government laws. It was Toni’s law of the land, in her mind. She was an overall good person, so he mostly approved, but she still had a tendency to cross the boundaries of right and wrong with startling frequency.

  Now that he was on the run from the law, he couldn’t exactly make his disapproval known. Not that she would care anyway. “I’ll see you when I get back to town,” he said finally.

  “Can’t wait,” said Toni in an unenthusiastic voice that made it more than evident that she wanted to get rid of him sooner rather than later.

  He picked up the bag and backed away. He thought he should say a better good-bye but gave up and instead turned and walked away without looking back.

  He might just have to reconcile the fact that he and Toni would never be friends. Which was probably a good thing for his sanity, but it made him feel damn uneasy.

  Toni hadn’t been lying. She really did go back to her shitty hotel and take a long shower. The wallpaper might be cracking and one of the outlet covers might be missing from the wall, but the water heater worked damn well.

  She probably stayed there for over half an hour, until her fingers were pruned and exhaustion threatened to take over. When she stepped out from the relaxing spray, she flipped on the news. They were still talking about the explosion in the posh side of Chicago, but they weren’t naming names, which was a good sign. She’d erased all pictures and mentions of Scott from the local news stations’ servers, a task that had tested the boundaries of even her endurance and abilities, but by now they could’ve gotten new information.

  If Sterling hadn’t supplied it, maybe he was going to let Hart go. Maybe he was hoping he’d gotten rid of him. She just needed Sterling to hold his cards for the next eight hours. She glanced at the clock as she lay down on the bed. She wasn’t looking forward to what she was going to do the next morning, but she’d run all possible scenarios through her mind and this was the best way to get Hart off the national radar and to get Sterling where she wanted him.

  She sighed and closed her eyes. Her biggest scam ever was either going to start tomorrow or she was going to end up dead.

  The next morning, she felt as though she was in a daze as she got dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a feminist t-shirt. She didn’t let herself overthink anything. If she did, she’d wimp out of this.

  She needed to keep her head on straight, buckle down, and get this done. She’d gone through all possible routes of how she could get to Sterling. She’d made lists and charts, but this was the quickest way and put the fewest of her loved ones at risk.

  Because this whole thing with Scott being arrested had been a wakeup call. Sterling wasn’t pulling punches any longer, so Toni couldn’t either. She was going right into the belly of the beast.

  And those were her thoughts as she told the cab driver the address and when she walked up to the security desk.

  “How can I help you?” asked the friendly guy behind the counter.

  “I’d like to talk to Jonathan Sterling,” she said in a monotone voice. “Tell him it’s Toni Murray. He’s going to want to see me.”

  Toni crossed her legs in the plush office and then uncrossed them. It was impossible to find a comfortable way to sit when waiting for your archnemesis to walk into the room and confront you.

  She looked around at the wood paneling on the three walls that weren’t windows. It was strange that it wasn’t a corner office, but maybe Sterling knew that so many people wanted him dead that fewer windows were better.

  Or maybe it was because he was pretty much never in town and technically didn’t have any ownership rights in this company. That was Sterling’s long game in his criminal empire. He didn’t really own anything. He owned shell companies that owned shell companies that owned shell companies.

  When they’d taken out Greg Stranger, his money man, they’d dealt a huge blow to complex web of lies and cash. But they hadn’t destroyed it, and he went so deep into hiding that it had taken months for him to get the balls to pop out again. And now that he was back, he was cleaning house, ordering the death of Jadon Belli, one of his former right-hand guys, and killing all those people to frame Scott for murder.

  Toni heard the door behind her open. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. A silent warning to run. To get the hell out of there. But she stayed seated. She didn’t look behind her or stand. Just stayed in place and awaited her fate.

  All of a sudden, there he was. Jonathan Fucking Sterling walked around his desk and took a seat right across from her.

  Showtime....

  “Ms. Murray. This is quite a surprise.”

  He wasn’t alone. Standing off to the side of the room was a big bodyguard. He looked as if he spent too much time in the gym, and his dark, hooded eyes were dispassionate and blank. If Sterling wanted her dead, she knew without a doubt that it would be this man doing the dirty work.

  Sterling didn’t get literal blood on his hands.

  She avoided looking at the stranger because the longer she stared at him, the more terrified she got, and she couldn’t afford the fear to get in the way of her plans. And she tended to get a bit
bitchy when she was scared. She needed to be the right amount of humble right now.

  “I didn’t want to surprise you. That’s why I told the desk guy my name.” Nope, that was still too much bitch. Some habits were hard to break.

  “I have to admit, there’s a lot I want to say to you, young lady. But why don’t you start by telling me what you’re doing here.”

  Young lady.... She took in a deep breath and tried to control her anger. She supposed Sterling was older than her. From her intense research into his history, she knew almost everything about him. He was born to a poor mother and father and had one older brother. The childhood had been mainly rooted in tragedy. His brother had been murdered right after high school, and his father had left his mother after rumors of infidelity.

  He had been raised in a sea of lies and pain, which would make her feel bad for him if he wasn’t such an asshole. But he’d crawled his way to a scholarship and ended up with a business degree. After he was apparently unsatisfied with the money he could make legally, he got to work in the eighties, filling his pocketbook any way he could.

  He started off simple, working in the drug business. Except not the street corner drug business. He started wholesale, arranging for massive shipments from South America into the States. After five years of success, he’d garnered the attention of the FBI but avoided prosecution. That drug circle was disbanded, but he regrouped and diversified. Now he worked in trafficking all sorts of things in and out of the country, including stolen art, drugs, and, even worse, people.

  Sterling was the worst of the worst, and now he was young lady-ing her. Toni clenched her hands into fists until her nails bit into her palms. “I’m here because we’re at an impasse,” she said carefully. “After what happened with Hart... I think it’s time we talk.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything to talk about.”

  “I don’t want my family getting hurt,” she said carefully. “I don’t want there to be a national manhunt for Hart. So tell me what I need to do to get you off our backs.”

  He pointed a finger at her. “Your family is the one that started this.”

  She wanted to scream at him. You killed my mother! You were going to kill my sister! You started this, you crazy fucker! “You’re right,” she choked out. “And now I’m here to end it. Tell me what I need to do.”

  Sterling licked his lips as he leaned forward on his elbows and looked her over. “A girl like you has many talents.”

  Oh, please don’t let this be a sex thing.... “Yes...” she said cautiously.

  “I have a team of people who do some more... difficult tasks for me. They could use someone with your expertise.”

  Bingo. She was careful not to let any signs of victory show. “A team?” she asked, as if she didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “A man is only as good as his employees, right? Of course, there’s one big problem. I don’t trust you.”

  Nor should he. She stayed quiet. If she tried to defend herself too much, it would be suspicious. If she was too aloof, it would be suspicious. Silence seemed like the best option.

  “But,” he continued, “I think by now you know what I’m capable of when I get angry.”

  “I need to know that my family and Hart are going to be safe.”

  “Your family, maybe. But Hart has proved to be rather persistent in his belief that I’ve wronged him somehow.”

  Calm. Remain calm. “I took care of Hart. He’s going to be out of town for the next few months. I’ll make sure he stays away for good.” By then, Sterling should be long gone. But she couldn’t exactly tell him that.

  “And you expect me to take your word for this.” Sterling looked her up and down.

  “No. I expect you to test me.” She glanced out of the corner of her eye to the guy who was standing silently. Had he been through this same initiation? Had he made the same promises? What had kept him from ever turning on his boss? Was he truly loyal or did Sterling still have dirt on him? Those were questions she might very well never know the answer to.

  Sterling took out a sticky note and scribbled something down before he handed it over to her. “Go to this location tonight by eight p.m. Bring clothes. You’ll be staying for a while. If you don’t show up, there is no deal. This is a one-time offer of leniency from me and that’s not an offer I give regularly. Do we understand each other?”

  Toni looked at the address he wrote down. It seemed to be one of the suburbs outside of Chicago. “I got it.” She stood. She gave a quick nod to the silent man in the corner but didn’t say good-bye to Sterling. She didn’t owe him any pleasantries.

  The man didn’t nod back, but Toni didn’t read much into his reaction, or lack thereof. She was too relieved to make it out of the office and to the elevator. She was well aware that there could be cameras watching her every move, so she kept her face blank and expressionless the entire ride down and on her march out of the lobby.

  Once she was on the street, the nerves took over. The fear she’d suppressed all morning came to her full force. Her hands trembled and her knees were shaky. She focused on walking in a straight line, one foot in front of the other. She’d seen him. She’d looked Sterling right in the eye and she hadn’t told him what she really thought. She hadn’t attacked him. Nothing. She’d played the good little girl and asked for leniency.

  But she would get her revenge. She just needed to play her cards right. If she made her move at that office, his bodyguard never would’ve let her get a chance to pull out a weapon. Then Sterling would still be alive and she’d be dead, which would be a shit show.

  Her plan was solid. Her plan would work. She repeated that mantra over and over until she reached her hotel. When she opened her door and was ready to use her last few hours of freedom to relax and decompress, she realized she was never going to get that chance.

  Because in the middle of her king-size bed, Scott Hart was taking a nap.

  “You have to be kidding me.”

  “Nope.” Scott opened one eye to see Toni staring at him with a look of utter disgust. “You didn’t really think I was going to let you get rid of me that easily, did you?”

  “Easy! What the hell did you think was easy about yesterday?”

  She had a point there. But he’d had a bit of time to think after she dropped him off at the train station. It was too convenient. Everyone had been in Chicago on Friday and all of a sudden they were dispersed all over the country? And now she was sending him away even though she was certain he wasn’t going to be on America’s Most Wanted or the twenty-four-hour news?

  No, she was planning something. And considering that she was sending her family, her very capable badass family, as far away from her as possible, that meant she was planning something stupid.

  Not only would Jennifer and Melody kill him if he let anything bad happen to Toni, but he owed it to Isobel to watch over her daughter. He was half the reason Isobel had ended up dead. The least he could do was make sure her legacy, no matter how morally dubious, lived on.

  “I think you owe me the truth about what you’re doing here.”

  “I don’t owe you a damn thing.” She kicked off her shoes and walked toward the desk. She seemed to abruptly change her mind about sitting down and paced back toward the door. “Get off my bed,” she demanded. “I’m taking a nap. And get out of my room, while you’re at it. How did you even get in here?”

  “I told the guy up front I lost my key. He wasn’t very thorough.”

  “Son of a—I hate this hotel,” she muttered. “Doesn’t that kind of thing go against your moral code?”

  “You go against my moral code,” he said in a deadpan voice. How often had he had to make exceptions for Toni’s questionable methods? But at least she’d been open before instead of sneaking around. “Tell me what is going on.”

  “Nothing is going on. Now leave my room before I make you leave.”

  That had him opening his eyes. “How exactly are you going to make me leave?
”

  “I’ll....” She drifted off without answering.

  He wondered whether that meant she couldn’t think of a way or whether the ideas going through her head were too violent for his delicate ears. Toni was hard to read. She always held her cards too close to the vest. Which was exactly why he wasn’t leaving. He wanted to respect her personal space and all, but damn it, he just didn’t trust her right now.

  “If you want a nap, you’re just going to have to deal with me being here because I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  “I’m not sharing a bed with you!” she half yelled and half squeaked.

  Scott frowned. He hadn’t meant it like that. There was just one bed in the room, and considering it was a big bed, he hadn’t really thought much of it.

  “It’s not fair for you to show up like this and take over all my space and—” Toni stopped talking and instead sat on the edge of the bed, facing the wall away from him, and he could tell she was taking deep, calming breaths. He debated moving onto the floor, but there were no extra blankets in the room, and judging from the rest of the hotel, he didn’t want to share the floor with however many bugs were also making the place their home.

  “I’m not trying to piss you off,” he said carefully.

  She pulled back the blankets and climbed under, still facing away from him. “I’m in bed in jeans, thanks to you. I hope you’re happy. I never sleep in jeans. No one in their right mind would sleep in jeans.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. “You don’t have pajama pants?”

  “I don’t sleep in bottoms!” she snapped. Then, a second later, there was a bunch of rustling from beneath the covers. She threw the jeans away from her and they hit the wall right next to the tube TV on the dresser. “Screw you. I don’t have to change a thing about how I live because you want to be an ass.”

  “I don’t want to be an ass. I want to know the truth. What are you doing?”