Prisoner (Criminals & Captives #1)(88)

She hated how good it still felt.

Macy wore a designer gown Angel didn’t recognize—a slinky silver affair that popped against her skin. Angel used to know all of Macy’s clothes, but of course her old friends would have moved ahead without her. At least Macy’s hair was still the same, shorn close and dyed white-blonde, all in kinky little nubs the size of thimbles. Some bejeweled.

“Should we be worrying about this guy?” Nothing escaped Macy’s notice. “He looks too brainy for Borgola security, don’t you think? But if he wants a go with you, he’d come over and request it.”

Angel tried to keep her face neutral. “Yeah, I don’t know.”

“Oh my God.” Macy smiled. “You think he’s hot.”

“Don’t,” Angel said.

“Doot doot doot,” Macy made a radar sound. “We have detected a bad boyfriend.”

“Stop it,” Angel said.

“Dangerously self-destructive man at oh-four-hundred hours. Angel, start your engines.”

“It’s not funny. At all.”

They used to joke about it back in the day—if they wanted to know if a guy was troubled or self-destructive in some way, they just needed to check if Angel thought he was hot.

Bad boyfriend radar, they called it.

Because if Angel was attracted to a guy, it meant he was probably wounded or feral, a doomed thug with a hurricane for a heart. It meant that she could love him, but never save him.

Which was why she didn’t date men she was attracted to anymore, a policy that made for a shitty sex life, but the new and reformed Angel was all about avoiding trouble. Anyway, she rarely met her type anymore. You had to come to parties like this to meet the really bad guys.

So yeah, this one looked all brainy and in control, but Angel knew better; no man fooled her bad boyfriend radar. It was as if she could feel men like this. She wondered cynically how far this guy had gotten along on his yellow brick road of self-destruction.

Not that she needed to care.

“It’s a problem if he’s security,” Macy said.

“He’s not a problem.”

Macy smiled. “So says the Jane Goodall of the self-destructive man.”

“Not funny.”

Yelps and screams sounded from the direction of the pool. Macy shot Angel a dark gaze. “Tell me you’re not just a little happy about ripping off this dirtbag. Tell me your adrenaline isn’t pumping.”

“My adrenaline is pumping to see Aunt Aggie safe.”

“Yeah, we’re all here for Aunt Aggie. Doesn’t mean you have to lie to yourself about the thrill of the job. The rush of it,” Macy whispered. “The cool motherf*cking weight of a stolen rock in your palm…”

“I like sleeping at night,” Angel snapped. “Feeling good about myself.”

Macy simply watched the pool. Angel wondered if her old friend heard the lie in that. Because Angel didn’t feel good about herself, that was the horrible truth of it. Working a straight job hadn’t made her feel any better than being a rich jewel thief had. Five years she’d spent making amends, and she still felt stained, somehow.

“I like feeling good about myself,” she repeated pathetically, as if saying it twice would make it come true. Did her friend hear how pathetic she was?

Macy turned to her. “I feel good about you.”

Angel snorted, as though amused, but really, she wanted to cry. She missed her girl gang so bad it burned.

And Macy was right, too—Angel couldn’t wait to melt into the shadows and do her thing, unlocking what nobody else could. Her friends had no idea how much she missed it. And yes, yes, yes, she wanted that guy in the corner with a kind of fever.

Do this job and get out, she told herself.

White Jenny walked up and put her arms around Angel and Macy. “Still just two guards circling the grounds. Twelve to fifteen minute intervals going out there.” White Jenny had creamy white skin and blonde-white hair; she was a pale and voluptuous milkmaid compared to Angel and Macy. They were all trying to look like whores, but White Jenny came by it naturally. She always had, ever since middle school, when the three of them had become best friends, three smart, precocious poor girls, united by dreams of a life beyond the hardscrabble housing development around the Willow Farms Poultry plant.

Jenny and Macy discussed the external security. Angel snuck a look at the guy again and her heart thalumped when she locked onto his gray eyes; they looked icy and blazing at the same time, like pain mixed with fire. Her skin felt hot, and she looked away. He galvanized her. There was no other word for it.

“That guard noticed something with Angel. I don’t like it,” Macy said.

“How could he suspect us of anything?” White Jenny complained. “We haven’t even done anything yet.”

Angel studied the lime at the bottom of her drink. She looked up to find her old friends both staring at her. Waiting. “Yeah, yeah,” she sighed. “Fine. I’ll go talk to him.”

If they’d drawn the attention of security, they had to make sure the interest was sexual. Which required talking to the guy.

“Angel?” White Jenny said. “Give the signal if you need rescuing. We got your back, honey.” Jenny had always been the motherly one. These girls had once been her life.

Angel turned and smiled at the guy. He didn’t smile back, he just stared, cool and hard. She turned back to her posse with that melty feeling again. He’d just engaged her. They were in a dance now.