Chapter Twenty
Sadie
Kingston is leaning against my building’s wall when I come out the next morning.
Little flurries of snow that melt the moment they touch anything make the early cold snap more fun.
He’s a gorgeous sight all in black, tall, lean, austere beauty almost hypnotic. He’s compelling, and that compulsion, that draw to him, is made even more addictive by the heavenly scent of rich coffee from the steaming requisite New York deli to-go cups.
Kingston’s blue gaze punches me hard as it greets me and I struggle to breathe as he sips a cup in his left hand and holds forth the other in his right.
“Is this bodega coffee?”
“I felt like slumming it.”
I laugh and take the cup. It isn’t from a crap bodega. This is from one of the retro-style coffee places on Avenue C, barista made. I narrow my eyes from him after I take a sip.
“I lied,” he says. “There are only so many sacrifices a man can make and good coffee isn’t one of them.”
“You’re not being wheeled about on a golden platform, so there’s hope for you.”
I start walking. I don’t look back or wait. Kingston Sinclair is there, easily keeping my pace as we power down the street in the early morning.
“I don’t know when it became verbally beat up the billionaire week, but you keep upping the ante in your insults,” he says with way too much cheer for seven-thirty a.m. “Is there a prize at the end of the week?”
“No. I’m just doing it for fun.” And to cover the spot of pain that lurks dark and dank in my chest, right down deep where I can’t get to it. “How did you know I’d be up early?”
He shrugs. “I just figured you were wanting to get a jump on the counterfeit. And I have your photos.”
Kingston pulls a manilla envelope from his beautiful jacket that’s probably yak silk. I don’t know if there’s such a thing, but if there is and it’s rare and expensive, then he’ll have it.
I’m being horrible and unfair, because he might have a thing for ridiculously expensive watches, but he’s not anything like the people I usually work for, who love to show off through money. For someone like him, he’s remarkably down to earth and I find that dangerous. To me.
“Thanks.” I shove the envelope in my bag and swing it back onto my shoulder, managing not to spill or drop the coffee.
“You’re welcome.” We pause at the lights. “But I was going to ring your bell if you hadn’t appeared.”
I glance at him. “Not let yourself into the building like yesterday?”
“No, I like to keep the element of surprise.”
An itch to ask starts, but I keep my mouth firmly shut, even as his twitches up in a smile.
“You want to ask, don’t you, Sadie?” Kingston shakes his head, his breath little fleeting puffs of white. “Good to know.”
“Did you just come to annoy me?”
“The photos?”
“Nope. You want more.”
“Damn fucking right. I want to follow up on our conversation last night.” The smile is gone as we continue walking toward the East Village.
I huff out a breath. “I told you I’ll see what I can do.”
“You’re doing it today.” This isn’t a question and we both know it. “Time’s getting shorter. I need this underway today or we have to hit the drawing board again. So, where are we off to?”
I’m off to see Athena. He—he can do whatever he damn well wants. I shove my free hand in my pocket and take a swallow of the cooling coffee. There’s too little milk for my liking and no sugar, but I’m guessing this is how he sees me liking my brew—almost black and bitter.
Pretty apt, I guess.
“This is going to cost you. Because this needs to be good enough that it’ll pull the wool over expert eyes. If it comes down to that.”
He stops and I do, too.
“Explain, Sadie.”
“If this is shown to Jenson and your mother and they call someone in, then we have to make it look like the real deal. The upside is if they don’t have the real one, then the expert will have to go on what they know about the jeweler.”
He frowns and someone yells at us for blocking the path. Kingston mutters something and takes my arm, leading me to the side near a building. “We’re planning on going that far?”
“Prepare for all contingencies,” I say. “And…” I suck in a breath, because this is something I spent hours thinking about, long after he left. “I don’t like to lose, but I’m not above subterfuge.”
“Sadie.” He says my name as a warning, almost a question. He’s a smart man, he’s cottoning on to what I mean.
I shrug, aware he’s still touching me and though my coat is warm enough, he turns my internal temperature up to high tropics, just from that touch of his hand on my arm.
“It might be the only way. If it is really missing and we can’t get it, then we need plan B. This is it.”
“We pass your fake off as the real deal to my mother and Jenson.”
I nod.
His mouth is grim as he sighs. “Plant B is the last shot, Sadie. I’d prefer to do this above board if we can. Just for myself. But if not? Fuck it. We do that, we save the company with the fake, and then…”
“We part ways.”
His eyes turn blazing. “Fuck no. We work together until I get that thing back. It’s mine.”
Yia-yia’s head is bent down over the photos as she runs reverent fingers over the images. She hasn’t said anything to me since she opened the folder at her worktable.
That suits me fine. Kingston is way too much in my head right now for me to carry on a meaningful conversation. And I know her well enough to leave her be while she’s looking at a job.
He’s not going to be happy. Minutes after he informed me he was coming with me—I think the words were “sticking to you like epoxy”—we hit Avenue A and first miracles of miracles, a yellow cab with a vacant sign headed towards us. I flagged it down and jumped in.
There’s going to be words if I know him. But I need this time. And he’s already invaded so much, I don’t need him in every single aspect of my life.
It feels a little too intimate. Too pervasive. Too permanent.
And he’s right. I’m not for him.
Could you imagine? A billionaire and an ex-criminal who can’t shake her past? Not the past where I was the Raven, but the darker one, the fetid one, that part which is part of me, stretching back to when I landed in my father’s care. If anyone can call it care.
If it hadn’t been for Athena…
Suddenly I look over at the woman in question, the one who saved me. She’s no longer studying the photos. She’s studying me.
And I resist the urge to squirm.
“Well?”
“You know what I think, honey.” She eyes me again and sighs, one bright blue fingernail stroking an image. “I want to know what you think.”
“That you’re not the sweet old lady everyone thinks you are.”
Athena snorts and rises from the chintz chair. “Drop the old and we’ll talk.” But the humor doesn’t reach her eyes. “Not about this. About the man tying you in knots.”
“He’s no one.”
“Not many people would call a billionaire that. Then again, the mold was destroyed when you came along, Sadie.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I don’t. I do. I’m lost and I damn well know it. But soon he’ll be gone and I can forget him. Or pretend to, anyway. Every word I said to him about us never being a thing and me not wanting it to be is true. Doesn’t make the ache inside go away, though.
“I’ve known you were ten. I managed to get you away from him and we formed a good team, dodging the system, so I know you. And your tells. And honey, you’re not even trying to hide anything right now.”
“Because,” I say, “there’s nothing to hide. Nothing’s going on.”
“If you say so.”
I glance at the pictures and then at her. “Can you do it?”
Yia-yia laughs. “I’m not an amateur. I’m the best.”
She was also a master jeweler in her own right, but her real skill lay in counterfeit jobs and she knows it. “I’m not stroking your ego, Yia-yia.”
“Of course I can. It’ll cost.”
“Clearly, he can pay.”
She picks up a photo. “Remember when we met? You tried to fence me some piece of crap your father made you steal. I still have that.”
“It was junk.”
“Monetarily, yes. But not all things of value have a big dollar price tag.” She looks from the photo and to me. “Do you understand what this is worth? Or, should I say, does your young man?”
“He’s not my anything. Unless you mean a pain in my ass.” I cross my arms. “Because he’s that.”
“There are worse things, Sadie.”
Oh, God. She wants to talk in riddles and I don’t have the time. “Kingston knows it’s very expensive. And it’s his. The real one. I’m going to get it back. He’ll sell it, well, technically I will for him. That is, if I don’t steal it, instead.”
“Sadie!”
I roll my eyes. “I won’t, but officially, I haven’t decided.”
“Hmmm, so you both think the price is the tag it would be given in a store?”
“Yes.”
Athena spreads the photos out, moving them about in some kind of order that pleases her. “I thought I taught you better than that. You are better than that.”
“I’m a thief.”
“Ex. You did what you needed. Just like I did. We all do things to get by. But I honed all your skills and you took to that. You ran with it. You had your short-lived wild days, and you never hurt anyone. Never took from anyone who couldn’t afford it.”
“I don’t regret it.”
She meets my gaze with those eyes that see too much and I swallow. I do. I regret the stealing when I didn’t have to, but I can’t turn back the clock. I’ve managed to turn that into a way to stop others from doing the same with my clients. Christ, I should give myself a fucking parade for my virtue.
I’m pathetic.
I take a breath. Maudlin and regrets never help. Learning from mistakes does. This lady who is family to me taught me that. And I know she’s trying to teach me something else.
“I know what you regret, Sadie, honey. But the past is the past. I gave you tools, but you’re the one who got away from the life your father would have sucked you into. And I think without me, you’d have found your way. So don’t let that color decisions now.”
I frown. “I’m not.”
“And be careful of playing games.”
“I’m not doing that, either.”
She smiles softly, like she can see things I can’t. And it’s annoying. “Be careful. Certain games bite back hard.” Athena turns and sits. “Now, this job…”
“You can do it? A rush job?”
“I’m the best no one has heard of for a reason. Yes, I can do it.”
I know it’s been a while for her. But if I have faith in anyone it’s Yia-yia, even if she’s having a Confucius moment.
My phone beeps. I pull it from my pocket. Damon. “I need to go. I can leave this with you?”
“Yes.” She waves me away with a hand, her head clearly already immersed in the job. “Remember what I said.”
I murmur a yes and head out. I don’t need to heed warnings. I’m fucking secure in my decisions.
She thinks I’m playing a game of the hearts with Kingston, but she couldn’t be more wrong. We’ve laid everything on the table. Everything is clear as glass and lacking any tricky depths.
Sure, I might lust for him, but I don’t really want him. He’s too like me. Also, he’s from a different world. He doesn’t want me either, not beyond the sex.
And I can live with that.
Even if I like him more than I want to admit.