Til heist do us part, p.7
'Til Heist Do Us Part, page 7
“Jack—” I didn’t get a chance to finish what I was going to say because Jack cupped the back of my neck and kissed me. His lips were soft and sweet, and his heart thudded strong and steady beneath my palms. I slid my hands over his shoulders, drawing him closer. He deepened the kiss and I lost myself in the sheer heat of him, the chemistry that had sparked the first night we met returning in a tidal wave of desire.
“This had better be part of the plan to get information from your contact,” I warned him, “because if it turns out to be a gratuitous make-out session, you’re going to be in bigger trouble than you are with the boss of mob bosses.”
“It’s everything,” he said softly and lowered his mouth to mine. This time his kiss was pure seduction. My lips parted on a groan, and he slipped his tongue inside, sending a shiver of arousal down my spine. His body was against mine, hard and lean. With no more thoughts of resisting, I curved my arms around his shoulders and closed my eyes, drowning in sensation.
“Look at me when I kiss you,” Jack said quietly as he wound his hand through my hair and then tugged my head back to ravage my mouth. I could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and when I opened my eyes, I saw his desire smolder into a passion that matched my own.
It had been too long, and we were so damn good together. “Jack, I missed—”
“You’ve got some nerve showing up here after all these years,” a woman’s voice interrupted, sharp and biting.
I startled, and suddenly Jack was gone, leaving me bereft. I blinked to clear my vision and took in the tall redhead beside us. Dressed in all black, she wore a strappy camisole, skintight jeans, and four-inch heels covered in silver studs.
“And picking up some skank in my bar?” She looked me up and down before giving a sniff of disdain.
“Jesus, Eva,” Jack bit out. “Not now.”
Stunned, I managed to blurt out, “I’m not a—”
“Shut it.” She shot me an angry look. “This is between me and the bastard who walked out on me. No breakup conversation. No good-bye. No nothing. One day he’s there, making promises, and then he’s gone.” Without any warning, Eva slapped Jack across the face. His head turned slightly in the direction of the blow, but he didn’t move.
“I’ve waited a long time for that.” She gestured to someone behind me. “Get him out of here. And the skank, too. They’re not welcome.”
Two bouncers in tight black polo shirts, their biceps bulging beneath ribbed sleeves, grabbed Jack by the shoulders and shoved him toward the door. A third bouncer gestured for me to follow and I grabbed my stuff and hurried after them.
By the time I was able to push my way through the crowd that had gathered outside, one of the bouncers had Jack pinned up against the brick wall. For a moment, I thought it almost seemed like their conversation was more friendly than heated, but then he drove his fist into Jack’s stomach. Jack doubled over from the blow, but before he could straighten up, the second bouncer joined the fray, and for the next few minutes the air was charged with the sounds of knuckles connecting with bone, flesh thudding into flesh.
I had just messaged Emma for a getaway pickup when I realized Jack was up again and not just holding his own but doing some serious damage. The first bouncer hit the ground, clutching his stomach, while the second struggled to keep his footing after Jack’s fist connected with his jaw.
I had never seen Jack fight, and I couldn’t help but be impressed with his skills. He moved with a grace that belied his muscular build, every punch landing with precision and power. He was like a completely different person, his movements fluid and calculated, delivered with a raw, animalistic energy that stirred up feelings I didn’t want to admit. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, the way he moved, the way he breathed, the way his muscles flexed…
“Jack, stop playing with your food,” Emma shouted through the window of her sparkly blue Bolt, pulling me out of my haze of lust. “We have to go.”
Jack dropped both bouncers to the ground in a flurry of punches, and a few minutes later we were in the back seat and purring away.
“Are we moving?” Jack swiveled around to watch the bouncers.
“It’s only got two hundred horsepower,” Emma said. “And I forgot to charge it this morning. We’re doing our best. The sarcasm is not appreciated.”
“Maybe I should get out and push.”
“Another outing. Another ex.” I handed him a wad of tissues. “How many of them are out there? Is it even worth trying again to contact your illegal-passport-making friend if your old girlfriends are going to be crawling out of the woodwork to slap and kiss and who knows what with you?”
“It had to be done,” Jack said. “I had to let my contact know that I’d finally settled down with a serious girl and I wasn’t interested in anything or anyone else.”
“It was a setup?” My heart skipped a beat. “She isn’t an ex?”
“She is an ex,” he said. “The slap was real. I was a different person before I met you.”
“You didn’t get to talk to your contact,” I pointed out. “The whole thing was a bust.”
“I did talk to him,” Jack said. “He was the big guy who hauled me out of the bar, and he didn’t have good news. He can get the fake passports, but he said if that’s what we plan to do, we need to leave right away in case Angelini gets wind of our plan. Apparently, he has connections everywhere.”
“I can’t leave my family,” I protested. “My parents are here, my brother and his wife, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, third cousins…We have to find the necklace. I’m not running away unless there is no other option.”
My phone buzzed with a message from Chloe. The bad news just kept rolling in.
“Chloe just found out that the necklace isn’t at the museum in India.” I leaned my head against the window with a heavy sigh. “Someone stole it last week.”
“I say we just keep driving,” Emma said. “My vote is for Canada, but I’m also open to Mexico if you prefer sand to snow. I’m easy. At least that’s what the guys used to say.”
“That’s not fair to everyone else,” I said. “Angelini has all our names on his list. We’ll be leaving them to take the fall.”
“We are in a kill-or-be-killed situation,” Emma said. “I, for one, don’t want to wind up on the wrong side.”
“There is only one side and we’re all on it together. We have four weeks less a few days. More than enough time to figure something out. I’ve got a celebration of life to run tomorrow, but we can meet up on Monday evening and make a plan.”
I tried to sound upbeat, but we had no leads on the necklace and no way of getting the cash to cover the exorbitant rate of interest. And even if we did somehow pull it all off, what about Jack? There was no way I could hand him over to the mob. “Together” didn’t mean that one of us would wind up dead.
Eight
“It was a beautiful service,” Simone said, sipping her champagne in the vast back garden of Martha’s family’s Lake Forest mansion. “And this celebration of life is so much fun. You’ve really outdone yourself.”
“It was a first for us,” Chloe said brightly. “We’ve never done a circus-themed celebration of life.”
Chloe helped me with weekend events and we’d been up since five a.m. making sure everything was perfect, from the red-and-white-striped marquee to the authentic center ring complete with clowns, jugglers, fire-eaters, and trained poodles. I’d been worried that the festive party would be too much of a shock after the funeral, but event companies had to be flexible, even if the client’s demands were a little extreme, and even if the event planner had other things on her mind. The charade with Jack had brought back a myriad of feelings I didn’t want to admit, from the pain of his absence to the warmth of his kiss, and the terrible choice that loomed on the horizon.
“The magician was a great idea,” she continued. “He pulled a coin out of my ear, and he guessed the card I had in my hand.”
Her words pulled me away from bad thoughts and into the moment. “I didn’t hire a magician.”
Simone frowned. “Maybe he’s a guest.”
“I’ll go and find him and check the situation out,” Chloe said. “We wouldn’t want people’s wallets and jewelry to disappear.”
“When do I get to meet your friends to talk about the missing necklace?” Simone asked after Chloe had gone. “It’s so exciting. My friend Moira thinks I should dress in black and wear a mask, so I’m not recognized if we have to engage in any nefarious deeds. I’ve got a pair of Prada nappa leather gloves that fit over my nails and will ensure I don’t leave fingerprints behind. They’re as soft as butter.”
“As of right now, the necklace isn’t where we thought it was,” I told her. “Someone stole it before we could get to it. We’re meeting tomorrow to try and figure out what to do.” I wanted to keep Simone’s involvement to a minimum. It was totally unfair that Angelini would include her when all she’d done was make an innocent introduction to help a new friend.
“I just love a good mystery,” Simone said. “There was an unfortunate incident on our street when I was young, and a homicide detective came out to investigate. I was fascinated by his work, and he was kind enough to let me follow him around and answer my questions. For the longest time afterward, I wanted to become a detective, but my father was appalled. No one in our family has ever worked. It just isn’t done.”
“That’s very cool, Simone. You never mentioned an interest in criminal investigation before.”
“It was a long time ago,” she said. “My father made me study art history in college. He thought it would be more useful in our social circle. He introduced me to Richard the day after I graduated. I was surprised my father even knew him and even more surprised he was considering him as a son-in-law. Richard isn’t one of us. He’s a self-made tech billionaire. Very new money. We went out for dinner twice, and then he proposed.”
“That was fast. Was it love at first sight?” I’d definitely felt a spark the first time I met Jack, even though he was holding me hostage in the bushes.
She gave a resigned sigh and shrugged. “It wasn’t about love. My grandfather and my father lost most of the family fortune in bad investments and they needed Richard’s money. They pushed me into the marriage as a way of saving the estate and the family name. Richard needed someone to guide him through high society and manage all the charity work and social events that go with having wealth. Our marriage made sense. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy helping people, but this world I live in can be stifling at times. Sometimes I just want to do something reckless, something that makes me feel alive.”
I understood that feeling. I hadn’t felt truly alive until Jack had walked into my life and turned it upside down. “Our current situation should make you feel alive, at least until we’re dead,” I said dryly.
Simone laughed. “So funny, darling. Only bad guys wind up dead, and that’s not us.”
After Simone had left to find her friend, I wandered around the reception making sure that the waiters were keeping glasses filled, the trays of food were full and fresh, and the circus performers were entertaining the guests. In the end, I didn’t have to hunt down the magician. He found me just as I caught up with Chloe near the photo booth.
“Ladies.” He removed his top hat and gave a deep bow. “Magic Mike at your service.”
Tall and muscular with cold, hard eyes and a grim smile, the magician wore a black suit and mottled green tie. His neck was fully inked with skulls and roses on one side and fanged snakes and thorn-covered ladders on the other. His white collared shirt was open to display three heavy gold chains that glinted in the sunlight along with the five gold hoops that pierced his left earlobe. Menace dripped from his every pore.
“I was just looking for you,” Chloe said. “Are you with the entertainment company? Or are you a guest?”
“Neither.” The magician reached out and pulled a coin from behind my ear. He placed it in my hand. “We have a mutual friend who is concerned that Simi wasn’t paying attention when he paid her a visit.”
I felt the blood drain from my face, and I looked around to make sure no one could overhear us. Why had Angelini sent one of his men here? Did he have a gun? Were the guests at risk? Was he going to shoot me in cold blood? My insurance policy didn’t cover massacre by magician.
“I was paying attention,” I said. “I got the message.”
“If you got the message, you wouldn’t be running around trying to buy fake passports in West Englewood.”
Oh God. We were followed. Bile rose in my throat as he pulled a second coin from my ear and added it to the first in my palm.
“He has to understand that from my point of view, the whole thing seems a bit crazy,” I persisted. “I’m just an ordinary woman. I run an event-planning business. I don’t get involved in this kind of stuff.”
“Apparently you do.” He pulled a third coin from behind my ear and dropped it in my palm. His voice dropped to a low growl. “He gave you four weeks. If I were you, I’d stop wasting time trying to run from your problems and get busy trying to solve them.”
“It’s gone,” Chloe blurted out. “The necklace was in a museum in India, and someone stole it. We have no idea where it is.”
“Our mutual acquaintance thought you’d come up with more excuses, so he’s provided another incentive.” The magician held up his phone and showed me a picture that made my stomach heave. Cristian—I only knew it was him because he had on the same green Save the Whales T-shirt he’d worn on Friday when he walked out on us—was chained to a chair in a dimly lit room. His face was badly swollen and covered in blood. He had two black eyes and a bloody lip, and his shirt was torn, revealing deep gashes on his chest.
My breath left me in a rush. Chloe gasped out loud.
“Let him go,” she whispered. “Please. He didn’t participate in the heist. At least not the first part. He walked out when he found out about the—”
“Shh.” I grabbed her arm, nodding at Simone, who was walking toward us, a furrow in her brow.
“You involve the police; he dies.” The magician’s face morphed into a mask of menace. “Find the necklace or our mutual friend will gut you all like fish.” He tucked away his phone just as Simone joined us on the grass.
“Simi?” She looked from me to the magician and back to me. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes.” I forced a smile and dabbed the moisture from my eyes. “We were just marveling at the magician’s tricks.”
With a flourish, the magician produced another coin and added it to my collection. “That makes four,” he said. “It’s a lucky number, or unlucky if you waste any more time.”
Simone studied him for a long moment and then put her arm around my waist. “I’ll have to tear you away. I want to introduce you and Chloe to my friend Moira. She’s dying to meet you both.”
“Of course.” I shot one last pleading glance over my shoulder at the magician, who slowly drew a finger across his throat.
“He’s a bad guy, isn’t he?” Simone whispered. “I saw the tattoos, and of course your face looked like death. Should I get the security guards to escort him out?”
“He came to deliver a message from Tony Angelini. I don’t think he’s going to stick around. I just don’t understand how he got in. Everyone was vetted and I have security at the door.”
Simone introduced us to Moira. By the time we’d finished our conversation, the magician had disappeared.
“This situation just gets worse and worse.” I swiped two glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter after Simone had gone to see Moira out. I handed one to Chloe and downed my drink in two big gulps to the tinny sound of “Entry of the Gladiators” played by one of the clowns on a toy piano. “If someone did rat us out to the mob…”
“You’re going to kill them,” Chloe said firmly.
“No.”
“You’re going to beat them to a pulp?”
“Babe…” I stared at her, aghast. Chloe was a sunshine-and-flowers kind of person. She loved floral dresses, romance novels, and tall, dark, and handsome men with tortured souls. During our last heist, she’d discovered she also had a tough side, but she was still cottage-core inside.
Chloe gave my arm an affectionate squeeze. “Don’t worry. Whatever you want to do—kidnapping, beating, torture, even murder—I’ll be right there with a shovel.”
Nine
“What do you mean, ‘It’s just Cristian’?” I stared at the crew in shock. Everyone had shown up for the emergency meeting at Rose’s garage, but no one seemed to care that Cristian had been kidnapped and tortured by the mob.
“He walked out on us,” Emma said from her perch on one of our heist-planning tables. “And that wasn’t the first time. Whenever the chips are down, Cristian goes running.”
“He came back during our last heist,” I protested. “He helped Jack and me escape from Joseph Angelini’s study.”
“I say he got what was coming to him.” Gage leaned back so far in his chair I thought it might tip over.
“No one deserves to be tortured by the mob.” Chloe shot him a glare. “What if it was me they kidnapped?”
“Then they’d already be dead.” He dropped his chair forward with a bang. “Their friends would be dead. Their families would be dead. Their houses would be burned to the ground, and every trace of their existence would be wiped off the earth.”
“How about we put that kind of passion into saving Cristian,” I suggested. “He may not have been the best of us, but he is still one of us. We can’t leave him in the hands of the mob.”
