Steal the Light (Thieves #1)(22)

Chapter Seven





“Jerk!” I muttered as I shoved an elbow into Daniel’s chest. I used every bit of force I could muster from the position I was in, but my hearty attempt at violence didn’t even illicit a groan.

Though I couldn’t really hurt him, Daniel took the hint and backed off. I turned around to face him. He stared at me with grim intensity.

“I started the night thinking I needed to save you from Dev, but it turns out Dev is the one who needs protecting.” I could hear the disappointment dripping from his quiet condemnation. “I didn’t realize we’d started stealing from our friends.”

“I’m not stealing from Dev.” It hurt that he would even think that about me. Whatever we’d become, I thought he knew me better than that.

“That’s not what it looks like from my perspective, Zoey. You stole his keycard, lied about your earring, and made damn sure the cameras didn’t catch you. I watched you the whole time. Did you think you could fool me? You haven’t been interested in basketball once in your life.”

“Not once,” I admitted. “I did lie about losing my earring, and I did steal the keycard, but let me tell you it wasn’t hard to make sure the cameras didn’t catch me. That was the easy part.”

Daniel stopped his lecture for a moment, and I could see the gears working in that brain of his as he searched for a logical reason for me to be up here rather than my need to commit a felony. “They’re about to get hit…”

“…by their security company,” I finished for him. I was satisfied by the slightly guilty look on his face. “I figured it out while I was talking to Albert, who knows I’m up here, by the way. Albert is Dev’s right-hand…man, so to speak. Speaking of which, how did you get up here? I had the keycard, so I was able to talk my way in. I seriously doubt the bouncer just let you come on up.”

Daniel waved off the thought. “The bouncer was easy. He was susceptible to certain mind tricks. He’s taking a nap in the alley.”

“Oh, Jedi mind tricks,” I said with sarcastic fervor. I wasn’t impressed by Daniel’s vampiric talents. I thought they were cheating, but they did come in handy every once and a while.

Daniel smiled faintly. “Something like that. So can we go back down now?”

I folded my arms over my chest. “I can’t. Albert doesn’t believe I can crack the safe. You should feel free to leave whenever you want to. I didn’t invite you up here. Come to think of it, I didn’t invite you to crash my date.”

“Would you believe it was a coincidence?”

“Not if God came down from the Heaven plane and told me himself.” I glanced around the room and noticed the lovely pastoral painting on the wall. A quick pull revealed the safe I was looking for. At least Dev had it bolted to the wall. That wouldn’t help him when it came to the security company, but it might deter the casual thief.

Daniel shrugged. He sank down into the chair behind the desk. It was obvious he wasn’t going anywhere until I went with him. “Fine. I went out and talked to Ingrid, and she mentioned Dev owned this club. It wasn’t hard to figure out he would take you here. And Ingrid told me to tell you she told you so, but I don’t know what that means.”

I put my hands on the safe, the metal cool under my fingers. I genuinely loved doing this. Safe cracking is an art form I became acquainted with at a young age. While other kids were learning about history and writing poems about frogs, I was studying the teachings of Harry C. Miller and his scientific approach to lock manipulation. My father spent hours teaching me to listen for the delicate sound of the notch on the drive cam sliding into place. It took time and infinite patience to expertly manipulate a lock, so I did it more for recreation than any professional purposes. During an actual job, it’s much simpler to just have Neil pull the door off and take what’s inside. I sighed. I didn’t have time today, either. As much as I loved the fine art of manipulation, it was always easiest to just know the combination. I let my hands drop and turned to the desk. I was pretty sure I would find what I needed there.

“What I’m trying to figure out is why you bothered to come here in the first place. I thought you wanted me to get out and date.” I shuffled through the papers on Dev’s desk.

“Not him,” Daniel said with a certainty that I found really annoying.

I also found it annoying when he turned over the calendar on the desk. There it was. 36-12-2. Why bother having the safe if you leave the combination lying around? I always asked myself this question and people constantly surprised me with their level of stupidity when it came to security.

Daniel echoed my frustrations. “Is that safe a Wentworth 2500? I’m betting it is because that’s a try-out combination. He didn’t even change the combination from the manufacturer setting. He deserves to get hit.”

“You don’t get to pick.” I wasn’t about to let him change the subject. I had spent the past years so lost in sadness and grief that the anger I felt was liberating. “You don’t get to choose who I date. I didn’t leave you. You left me. I don’t owe you anything. You don’t get to have a say in what I do with my life from here on out.”

“I didn’t leave you,” Daniel said quietly. “I died. I didn’t have a say in that either.”