Chapter Eleven
Kingston
S adie turns pale and takes a step back.
Not the reaction I expected, but then again what about her is expected?
Certainly not the fact her father’s a fucking hard core con man. Her last name is different. But that doesn’t matter. I never looked that deep into her. At least not delving into parental lineage. There’s nothing linking them.
Nothing, that is, but the photo.
It’s old, and that’s her. Long dark hair, perma-scowl that barely hides fear and vulnerability. Skinny and gangly, and a pretty kid.
I don’t remember this moment in time, as I was fourteen, but I know who he is. The con man, Mr. Sweet, the papers all called him. He preyed on the vulnerable, bilked people out of their money and homes. Sweet? Not at all. He was the worst.
It would be easy to call the man a bottom feeder, a thug, but he wasn’t. Since the photo surfaced in my hands, I looked into him.
He’s ruthless, lacking in morals, savage, and what some might call a sociopath, but I call a soulless criminal.
Trevor Masters. Serving a twenty-year sentence for his crimes.
Sadie’s father.
“Where did you get that?”
“I was going through the information from my previous investigations into criminals who stole jewels.” I flip the photo toward me a moment. “Now I know you, it’s not hard to see who that is.”
“You don’t know me.” She doesn’t spit the words. She doesn’t hiss or yell or snarl. They’re quiet and soft and they hurt something in my chest and make the breath catch in my throat.
“Runs in the family.”
Her eyes now flash fire and she snatches the photo, crumpling it. “No. It does not. I’m not him. Nothing like him. At all.”
She pushes past me and I let her, the night sky heavy above, the air cold and damp with the promise of rain. A few people passing by glance our way but I ignore them, everything tuned into the vibrations of her.
Sadie opens the door and steps into a dusty, dirty old foyer, complete with flickering fluorescent light above and old pizza flyers on the floor with discarded junk mail.
The building though, with the tin roof and details on the cornices, is something that would look spectacular if stripped of years of old paint and chip board.
I’m aware I’m doing this on a base level so I don’t have to think about the change in Sadie, so I don’t need to feel the tight knot low in my gut.
But I follow her. Through one door and then up a staircase to the second floor, where she opens a door and goes inside. I stop the door with my booted foot and push it open.
“What part of me trying to slam the door in your face do you not understand?”
I step inside. “The same part that isn’t finished yet.”
“I think we are.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m not in the mood,” she says, snapping on a light.
And I don’t move.
It’s not huge. But it’s beautiful. A clean, wide space that managed to be cozy with white oak floors, a small wood and steel table near one of the windows, and a fat sofa and chairs around a shelf of books and a mounted flatscreen that has a pile of books on the fireplace it hangs over. A big plant sits in the space where fire should burn.
Other rooms lead off, three. A kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom no doubt.
It’s not the place of someone who’s grown rich from others, but it’s had money and love and time put into it.
A haven, I think suddenly. That’s what it feels like.
“It’s also not for sale.” Sadie crosses her arms and glares.
“You need to stay in touch with me.”
“When there’s something to talk about. And this photo is not such a subject.”
I sigh and rub a hand over my face. “I came here because….”
The words stop. I’m not sure why I came here. Except maybe I wanted to see her, be near her.
Because I need to keep an eye on her. That’s why. That’s the only reason. End of story. And now I know her father is a big bad criminal I—
“I’m sorry.”
Her eyebrows rise. “You’re sorry? For what?”
“Bringing the photo.”
“You’re sorry for bringing something up you clearly came here to bring up?” She laughs and the go fuck you tone does a good job of hiding the hurt. Good, but not great. Because I can see it, smell it, and I don’t really know what to do with it. “No, you’re not.”
“No.” I guess I’m not. “Are you working with him?”
She stares at me like I’ve slapped her. Hard.
I don’t think she is, but I didn’t get to where I am, I didn’t get to be me, without questioning things. And I’m attracted to her. I learned long ago, with that woman, the one I fell for, that attraction makes us blind. Vulnerable. Stupid.
And I’m not a stupid man.
She’s the exact kind of woman I never thought I’d meet or want. And that’s how cons work. Finding the in.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, Sadie. I’ve a right to know.”
“You have no rights with me except you getting your fucking tiara. I bet after you milk it, you’ll sell it to the highest bidder.”
“No, I’d want you to do it for me.”
“Why? So you can get the highest price?”
I glare and stalk up to her. “And so what if I want that?”
“You don’t get what it is you have with the tiara.” Her eyes narrow. “Rich people.”
“Says the criminal.”
“Ex.”
“And I have a right to know who and what I’m working with,” I say, her scent of jasmine and smoke with its wisp of spice winding around me, drawing me into her. “It’s one thing working with someone who steals from the rich and insured. It’s another working with someone who destroys lives.”
Her dark eyes glitter. “I’m no fan of my father, but how is what he did different from what you and your kind do to people?”
“I don’t take from people who can’t afford it. I don’t destroy lives. And I don’t do it deliberately with no thought about anything except myself.”
She turns away and I catch her arm, her flesh warm beneath the coat. We both look down at my hand and then at each other. And the sparks leap and dance and tease. “I’m not him.”
“What am I meant to think?” The situation is slipping free from my fingers, but the fire burns down into my bones. That flame between us that ignited the moment I saw her. The moment I tasted her dark sweetness.
I’m mad she’s evading me. I’m annoyed at myself for sliding a knife in between ribs. And I’m fucking turned on.
So is she.
It heats the air.
“You’re not meant to, Kingston. You hired me to do a job, and I’m doing that job.”
“We’re doing it together.”
“I work alone.”
“We work together. Especially now I know what runs in your blood.”
Silence bites and she shifts, sliding in closer, brushing against my body. “The same murky tendrils of morals that runs in yours?”
“We’re not the same.”
Sadie laughs, looking up at me, contempt and desire a dark and fascinating war in her gaze.
“You might have billions, Kingston, but you’re not any better than me.” Her mouth turns in a cold semblance of a smile. “The difference, apart from being handed money on your end, is you’ll do anything and everything to get by, to build a world for yourself because you can. I do it because I have to.”
I frown. “Don’t play games with me. I don’t steal.”
“Don’t you? Mr. Billionaire?”
Letting go of her arm, I hook mine around her, drawing her hard and flush against me and she makes a small sound that’s primal, full of need, and grabs my cock. Desire burns fast and I’m hard. I want her. More than anything.
“You have a way of sliding about things, Sadie. Like the fact your name was with my mother. Like the fact you’re doing this.” I whisper the fingers of my free hand against her cheek. She’s like heated silk.
Her hand comes up, and curls in against the lapel of my jacket. But she’s not pushing, she’s holding and we’re pressed together, a throbbing beat of need. I want her. The understanding—it’s beyond thought—comes again, and I want her so fucking much it’s a physical ache inside.
“And you have a way of pissing me off.” She whispers the words, a world of desire caught in them. “You don’t leave me be.”
“No,” I say, that same desire thick and rich in my own voice, “that’s you.”
“I don’t…” She trails off, rising on her toes, her mouth a brush of air against mine and the heat inside flares, making my guts tighten, my cock harder.
She looks at me, a mere inch from kissing, and she’s a fuck you, she’s a dare. She’s vulnerable and hard. She’s push and pull and I understand everything in that gaze because it pulses inside me, too.
Right or wrong, good idea or bad, I’m going to taste her again. I lower my mouth, her heat coursing through me, but suddenly she moves, turning her head and pushing and I stumble back.
I’m both grateful and resentful at her cowardly, smart move.
“I don’t think that’s something we should do.”
“No,” I say. “I agree.”
“I don’t like you,” she says.
“Preaching to my fucking choir.” I look her up and down and she’s breathing hard. So am I. “But we’re working together. Like has nothing to do with it. Or want. Because we have that, too. And Sadie? When it comes to work? We do everything together. And you tell me everything. Got it?”
“Like it’s made of glass.” Sadie’s mouth curls upwards. “You don’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
And I leave.
Outside in the cold air with the humid touch that says rain, I shove my hands in my pockets and head over to the East Village, my steps biting the ground as I cross in front of traffic and plow through people.
I ignore the shouts and horns.
My phone buzzes in my pocket as I reach the bar where I’m meeting my brothers and their partners. I pull it out and look.
Mother. I read it and shove it away.
It’s easy to find them at the corner of the down-to-earth bar, a far cry from the usual haunt of Ryder. But he looks happy, smiling and laughing at something Elliot says. She’s good for him, and… yeah. I get a drink from the bar and go to them, slumping down in a seat.
“What’s got you in knots?”
I glare at Magnus. “This bullshit non-quest.”
“You don’t give a fuck about that.”
“I do when it comes down to losing everything in regards to the flagship company.”
“Yeah, well…” He looks like he wants to say something, but looks over at Zoey and rubs the back of his neck and offers me a sheepish grin. “Maybe I’m not the right person to ask.”
“Why do you look like life is hard?” Ryder asks.
Hudson nods. “Agreed.”
“You lot, leave your brother alone.” This is Scarlett.
Elliot laughs. “They won’t.”
“Are you okay, Kingston?” asks Zoey, who is way too sweet for black-hearted Magnus, but she loves him anyway.
I just shrug. “Mother’s up to something.” I shake my phone, then grab my drink, finishing it. “She’s full of dire warnings about how I have to do this right.”
And then there’s Sadie. Hot, difficult, intriguing Sadie. A woman who won’t leave me the fuck alone, not even when I sleep.
I’m going to have to do something about that.
Like get this job done and dusted as soon as I can. And yeah, get her to sell the shit out of the heirloom so it won’t remind me of her.
I order another drink and tell my family to leave talk of quests and dead fathers and manipulative mothers alone for the evening.
I’m a little drunk when I finally leave, the liquid warmth of the booze making me feel loose as the world loses its sharp edges. I could get a car home, but I need some air and though it’s spitting fat drops of rain here and there, I start walking.
The hour is late and I stayed past when my brothers left. I stayed and flicked away all and any unwanted attention that came my way from a few willing women. They weren’t my type.
They weren’t Sadie.
I shove my hands in my pockets as I turn onto East Sixth street and falter.
A strange coldness grabs the base of my spine.
I’m not alone.
Someone is following me.