Long Way Down
JOSH SALINGER peered over the edge of the fifteenth-floor balcony and hissed. He was low enough that the high-rise forest of Chicago obscured his view of even the most vestigial sky, and his heart hammered with a combination of fear and claustrophobia.
He didn’t feel ready for this jump, and it pissed him off.
In his ear, his comms piece buzzed, and his best friend, Dylan Li—aka Grace—said, “You gonna make this, Recovery Boy, or do we need a Plan B?”
Josh glanced behind him where the darkened “thief-proof” room sat, looking pristine and unmolested as it teased the city beyond its outstretched arms with the treasures contained within.
Thief proof Josh’s still-scrawny ass. He and his team had spent weeks planning this job.
Hacking the temperature control had stumped them for a while, until Stirling had pointed out that instead of trying to pump up the temp to ninety-eight degrees so a human could walk in the room (which would put many of the priceless works inside at risk), all they had to do was account for what the temperature was when disturbed by one human.
And putting the human in a dry suit to contain some of his heat put that difficulty in the bounds of acceptable risk.
Josh had gotten access as an up-and-coming art dealer, his bona fides backed up by Stirling’s excellent hacking and his Uncle Danny’s references.
Uncle Danny’s day job was being an art docent for the Chicago Art Institute, so that hadn’t been hard, and Josh had grown up around art, both in America and abroad.
He knew his shit, so actually doing the job of an art dealer wasn’t a stretch.
Which was good because he had to be doing something to keep his cover up.
Besides, he and his family liked art. With his family’s help, he’d spotted a couple of new talents and gotten them coveted places in nearby shows, even offering to showcase paintings and one sculpture at his parents’ home.
His father, Felix Salinger, owned a Chicago-based cable network that had gone national.
Without his ever asking a broker’s fee, a lot of art had been sold because somebody had seen it on the wall in the Salinger dining room.
His mother had planned the entire room around doing that.
So yeah. The side gig that was supposed to be his real gig had been satisfying, but what it really had done was give him unlimited access to the private collection of Celeste Buenaventura, heiress, party girl, jet-setter, and, in his mother’s words, “porcutwat.” Looked pretty and sexy, had a thousand ways to make any interaction unnecessarily painful.
Sadly, along with her mother’s billions, the girl had also inherited her father’s ruthlessness and recklessness in business.
She ran his enterprises deftly, cheated unions and vendors alike, bought art in quantity and quality to hoard and lord over the masses, and slept with anything that slithered.
She was that rare bird—a person with no moral center but wielding enough imagination to love and appreciate art, even the weird stuff like Otto Dix that made people both queasy and tearful with the horrific nature of mankind at war.
Much of her private collection was stolen; she had a fondness for stuff that had disappeared during WWII after having been confiscated from their victims by the Nazis.
Again, a real porcutwat.
She said it was for “historical significance,” but the majority of recovered art that had been stolen by the Third Reich had been restored to the original owners, or more recently their descendants.
With the exception of the United States government, most of the world still regarded the ideals of the Nazis with contempt.
No, Celeste Buenaventura liked to keep stolen art because it made her feel powerful over the poor and unlucky, which made her the perfect person to set up for this caper, which was why Josh had spent the last four weeks pretending to be her art dealer—and keeping one step away from her entitled octopus hands.
Ugh. As. If.
But her much-examined history had shown that Josh, of all the men in the crew, was Celeste’s type, which was unfortunate, because he was also the guy planning the heist and the guy who needed to be back downstairs at the party to give coy, shy smiles and dodge neatly out of the way from Celeste’s wandering hands like a champion twat tease.
However, that’s what put him on this ledge right now, attaching the paracord to his carabiner and getting ready to leap three stories, catch his weight on the cord, and then rappel three more floors down to the men’s room he’d excused himself into fifteen minutes ago.
“Josh? Recovery Boy? You ready to go? That’s one hell of a jump.”
Josh blinked. The voice was different—no longer the staccato patter of his best friend, the thief who should have been doing this if he’d been at all able to people enough to pull a grift. Instead it was the deeper, more gravelly bass of Grace’s boyfriend, Hunter.
“How long’s it been?” Josh asked hoarsely. His bones felt fragile, his muscles weak. Oh God. He was about to blow this caper because he’d pushed himself too far, too fast, and now he was about to prove everybody who loved him right by wimping out at the last possible moment.
Jesus, boy-o, what in the hell are you trying to prove?
Liam’s voice, during their last heated conversation, reverberated through his head.
Josh had scowled and walked away, leaving Liam, curly hair in stunning disarray, freckled face blotched, usually smiling mouth compressed in anger, and, Josh knew in his fragile bones, hurt.
Josh had owed him an explanation, and now, before making a jump that would have been easy fifteen months ago, before the cancer had sucked out his strength and his stamina, he hoped he’d have the chance to give it to him.
God, Liam, I don’t want you to see me as wounded. Is that too much to fucking ask?
But he hadn’t asked, had he? He’d simply gone about and planned the damned op, politely asking his Uncle Danny—who’d been the one to bring Interpol Officer Liam Craig into their painfully intimate circle of grifters, thieves, and muscle—to pass along their planning to “anybody who might need to know.”
Danny had given him a distinctly disapproving look but had done as Josh asked, probably figuring—as most parental figures did when their children hit adulthood—he would eventually pull his head out of his ass and fix this thing with Liam, who didn’t seem to have a petty or bitter bone in his body.
I want to see him again, Josh thought. I need to tell him I’m sorry. I need to tell him why.
“Josh?” Hunter asked tentatively.
“Yee-fucking-haw,” Josh said grimly… and made the jump.
The first descent was terrifying—and exhilarating—and for a whole heartbeat Josh remembered why he’d done this for fun before.
And then a gust of wind came out of fucking nowhere from off the fucking lake, and Josh was slammed sideways and into the building.
He let out a grunt of pain, and his left arm went numb.
Oh fuck. He had to be three stories lower and to the left and ready to party in less than three minutes.
“Josh?” Hunter asked, his voice taking on the restrained tension of someone trying not to panic.
“Arm,” Josh gasped. “Shoulder. Have Grace ready to pull me in when I hit the balcony.”
Hunter muttered something to somebody else, and Josh concentrated on not throwing up. God, he’d hardly ever thrown up as a kid, but since the big C and chemo and recovery and special foods and protein drinks, throwing up was his go-to for any sort of discomfort.
Fiercely, he concentrated on working the rope, the pulley, gloved hands and slippered feet finding purchase on the hundred-year-old stone of the stately apartment building. Oh thank you, Celeste Buenaventura and your great taste in art and living quarters, even if you are a shitty human being!
He’d forgotten how pain could dog even the most fluid movement, could make his breath come short, could… oh God, foot, foot, foot—he was so close. If only he could extend his arm to pull himself closer.
Pain blinded him, and he almost lost his grip on the rope.
He fought the urge to throw up and was trying to pull his shit together enough to actually slide onto the balcony when he felt an arm around his waist and a hand at his belt, while a familiar voice, accented with London’s East End, conferred with Grace.
“He right bloody bollixed it,” Liam hissed. “God. Out of socket, you think?”
“Here,” Grace said, sounding flat and unemotional, which meant he was really panicked. “Liam, you steady him, I’ll hold his arm. Hunter—”
The crack his shoulder made when it slid back into its socket was what pushed him over the edge.
“Gonna puke,” he rasped, and before he could even position himself, he felt strong hands on his waist and another under his chin, and somebody—probably Grace—was holding the puke bag.
The stomach spasm was mercifully swift, and Grace—ethereally graceful and beautiful like the stars even with such an awful chore—disappeared with the offending receptacle. Someone—Hunter, Grace’s decked, stoic boyfriend—wiped Josh down and thrust a breath mint into his mouth, and Liam…?
Definitely Liam… simply held him upright, whispering into his hair.
“Goddammit, boy-o, you had to do all this without me? Can I come help now? Please?”
Oh God. “Dammit, Liam,” Josh rasped, trying to put his weight on his feet. “I missed you so bad. Do you really have to see me like this?”
“I’ll take you anyway I can get you, lad. Just don’t leave me behind.”
And then Grace was back, lint roller in one hand for Josh’s all-black suit, bottle of water so Josh could rinse and spit the breath freshener, and a comb for a quick touch-up.
Grace—whose real name was Dylan Li—was often described as a firefly in a tornado.
Off-the-charts brilliant, a stunning dancer, so much natural beauty most people claimed it was like a slug to the gut.
The catch to all this might have been called ADHD on steroids with a nuclear chaser: Grace was lucky he lived through most days, either because his own recklessness and lack of focus would get him killed or because the people around him wanted to kill him before the gods took their share.
But nobody who believed that had seen Grace over this last year, working his ass off to keep Josh alive.
“Thanks, Dylan,” Josh said softly, catching Grace’s hands as he went for one more swipe of Josh’s suit. “I’m fine.”
“You are not fine, and I need at least twenty minutes to tell you why you’re fucked and a fucking asshole, so let me—” He literally spit on his hand, wiped a scuff of dirt from Josh’s check, and then flounced off.
“Oh dear,” Josh murmured. “Everybody’s pissed off, and I’ve got to go get my ass grabbed.”
“Good news is,” Hunter said, shining a light in Josh’s eyes to make sure he wasn’t concussed, “a bigwig entered right when she would have been searching for you. She’s been kissing up to him for the last fifteen minutes.”
Josh perked up. “Our target?”
“No,” Hunter said. “Leon di Rossi, the European shipping tycoon, with his newest belle, Julia Salinger.”
Josh groaned. “They didn’t—”
“They were on standby, my boy,” came a new voice, and Josh hoped the balcony would break off the side of the building so he could die right there.
“Uncle Danny… this was supposed to be—”
“Oh, son,” Danny—who was not Josh’s real uncle, but Josh had always considered him a second father—said. “This is a big enterprise, but we’re a big crew. We’ve all had a hand in this. You wouldn’t want to cut us out now, would you?”
Josh gave him a weak smile. “No,” he said softly. “Sorry, Uncle Danny.”
Danny gave him a tender kiss on the forehead.
“Plenty of people will yell at you—you don’t need me.
Give your prize to Liam and then go back in there and put on your show.
This little caper has had some glitches, but they all do.
If you and your mother and Uncle Leon can get out of there without notice, this will all be worth it. Trust me.”
Josh felt some strength infusing him. Worth it? Well, then—let the con go on!
At his side, Liam gave a nod to Danny, who nodded back, and with that, Hunter, Danny, and Grace all faded away—probably to scale back down the dark side of the building to the waiting van—and only Liam was left.
“Liam…,” Josh said plaintively, hating that his voice was still a little thready with fear and hurt.
“Stop,” Liam said harshly. “No. Not from you. You asked me to stay away until you were up to full strength, and here you are. Jumping out of buildings and risking your life. You’re up to full strength, and here I am.”
Josh grunted. “Not so full strength if I’m fucking up this early in the game, am—”
The self-deprecation died aborning.
Liam Craig had been by his side for so much of his illness. He’d caught Josh when he’d stumbled, carried him to bed when Josh had overdone it, entertained him for hours while Josh’s family went out on capers much like this one and Josh had to stay behind.
Secret by painful secret they’d peeled the veils from each other’s hearts until Josh felt as naked with Liam as he’d ever felt with another human being, including the few lovers he’d taken in his short span on the planet.
It was a painful sort of intimacy, a frightening sort of need, but Josh had been sick, leukemia ravaging his slender body, threatening to destroy every plan and every hope and every dream he’d ever had.
For all that Liam was to his heart, for all that he’d been devastated when Josh had begged him to stay away these last five months, not once—not ever—had they kissed.
Until now.
Liam’s mouth crashed onto Josh’s with absolute fury, and Josh’s breath caught in his chest as he fought for the strength to keep up.