Chapter Four #2
“There’s no need to understand exactly how it happened,” Mavis interrupted, her irritation bubbling over.
Rafe might call her Magpie on account of how, when she was a pickpocket, she’d always been drawn to the shiniest prizes, unable to tell the expensive from the ersatz, but Leif was the one who hoarded every scrap of paper, hauling them from city to city, hotel to hotel, in an ever-growing file that he swore would come in handy one day.
He might think today was that day, but Mavis didn’t care enough to wait while he sorted through hundreds of pages, and she’d wager good money Rafe didn’t care either.
“The point is that it did, and now Arden Ryskamp is all but penniless, here in Garlin, and he can’t tell anyone the truth about me without tarnishing his own prospects in the process. ”
Understanding lit up Leif’s face. “Because he’s running a con of his own.”
“Didn’t think he had that in him,” Rafe said dryly.
“He doesn’t see it that way.” Mavis remembered how offended he’d been when she’d made the same point. “But yes, that is more or less the case.”
Leif tapped his fingers along the spine of his book—an anxious habit he’d had for as long as Mavis had known him. “It’s still a risk.”
“We’d be cutting significant losses if we ran,” she protested. “Especially now that I have Thaddeus on the hook. That’s not only wasted time, but resources. I don’t have to tell you that.”
Leif shook his head. “You don’t. Still, the money can be made back in the next con.”
The next con. There was always going to be a next con.
Perhaps that’s why the loss didn’t seem so staggering to Leif, or to Rafe for that matter, who nodded along with his brother.
Arden was right—they would be doing this for the rest of their lives.
Oh, they might change some details here and there as Mavis got older, but this was the only path laid out before them.
“You’re working for someone else,” Arden had said earlier, hitting too close to the truth for Mavis’s comfort.
“How much do we owe Minstead now?” She had a general idea, but Leif would have the exact number.
He didn’t disappoint her. “One million three hundred thousand five hundred and sixty-three solas. Though at the end of the month, there will be more interest added, of course.”
Of course. The interest was the real trouble when it came to deals made with Minstead.
The initial contracts each of them had signed when they became Minstead’s urchins was for five thousand—an easy exchange for children to make when they got shelter and food in return and had little concept of what such a sum meant.
None of them had understood what interest was.
Hell, Mavis hadn’t even been able to read at the time.
She’d just signed her name on the line her father pointed to.
Now, more than a decade later, what should have been fifteen thousand solas between the three of them was well over a million—and that was after the payout from their last nine cons.
It was a debt they would never repay, and giving up on Thaddeus and this con would only add to it.
Rafe seemed to read her mind, his eyes softening. “Better to work for Minstead for the rest of our lives than risk execution.”
“No one is going to execute us,” Mavis said with an exasperated sigh. Their crimes were serious, but they hadn’t killed anyone.
Leif grimaced. “You say that, but I don’t take anything for granted where Lusters are concerned.”
“As the one of us who has spent the most time around them, you don’t have to tell me that.” Mavis bristled, crossing her arms over her chest. “But for what it’s worth, I would take jail over Minstead any day.”
Rafe’s expression shuttered, making Mavis regret her words.
After they grew old enough to leave the urchins, the Hartweillers worked off their debt in different ways, and while Leif paid it off in the boxing ring, Rafe did so as part of Minstead’s personal team, giving him a close-up view of the long list of dirty deeds Minstead committed to stay in power among Strall’s Low City elite.
Minstead took a shine to Rafe, and Mavis had heard rumors from the other urchins that it was only a matter of time before Rafe became Minstead’s right-hand man.
“If it were anyone but Ryskamp, I would agree with you about the risk.” Leif’s voice was softer than Mavis expected. “But your judgment is clouded where he’s concerned.”
A trickle of ice slid down Mavis’s spine. There it was: the confirmation of exactly what she’d feared. As careful as she’d been to keep her feelings for Arden hidden, they’d always known.
“My judgment is perfectly clear,” she said when she found her voice. To her relief, it didn’t waver. “I had a moment of weakness five years ago, yes. I lost track of what was a con and what was real, but in five years I’ve never made that mistake again.”
“You’ve never seen Arden Ryskamp again,” Rafe pointed out.
“It had little to do with him.” Mavis shook her head. “I was young and naive, but I know who I am now, and I know who he is. I don’t punish either of you for mistakes you made five years ago, and I would appreciate it if you offered me the same courtesy.”
“We’re not punishing you, we’re protecting you,” Rafe snapped.
The words knocked the wind from Mavis, and she blinked. The champagne really had gone to her head, because for a moment she thought Rafe was getting soft. Protecting her? No one had ever protected Mavis. She’d had to learn to protect herself.
Before that thought could take root, Rafe heaved a heavy sigh. “If you get in over your head again, you bring the rest of us down with you.”
Mavis swallowed, the gravity of his words hitting her.
She held up her hands—a gesture of peace dulled by the fact that she held the champagne bottle in one hand and her empty glass in the other.
“I understand, but you know I can read a mark better than they can read themselves, and I am telling you that Arden Ryskamp isn’t a problem.
It’s just as you always say, Rafe—if we don’t have trust, we don’t have anything. I’m asking you both to trust me.”
Rafe and Leif exchanged one of their looks, the ones that seemed to contain entire conversations that Mavis wasn’t privy to.
“We trust you,” Leif said after what felt like an eon.
Rafe gave a terse nod. “For now, we’ll stay put and see things through with Mayles, but if Arden Ryskamp so much as looks like he might become an issue . . .”
Mavis lifted her chin. “Then he’ll be my issue to contend with.”
“Good.” Rafe inclined his head toward his brother. “In that case, celebration is in order—Leif, open another bottle so we can properly celebrate the newly engaged Miss Delphinia Lindcourt.”
Leif obliged, grabbing another bottle from the ice bucket on the table. The pop of the cork was a dull sound in Mavis’s ears, her thoughts too jumbled to appreciate it. When Leif reached out to refill her glass, she shook her head and forced a yawn.
“I’m tired from tonight, and I’ve had far too much already.
The only way I want to celebrate is by taking this blasted gown off and crawling into my bed.
” She tugged at the bodice to no avail—the whalebone stays had been digging into her skin all evening, and the gown was so heavy that merely walking across the room was a chore.
Unbidden, the way Arden looked at her came to mind, his gaze heavy and hungry, as if even after five years, he remembered every inch of her and kept the memory close at hand.
She forced herself not to shiver at the thought as she made her way toward her bedroom, aware of Rafe watching her closely for any sign of weakness. No matter what Rafe said, she knew she would rather face a lifetime in a Garlin prison cell than let them see any weakness from her ever again.