Steal the Light (Thieves #1)(51)

“Are you ready?” the attendant asks.

“You killed my husband,” an old woman cries, and her grandchildren huddle around her. They look at me with accusatory eyes. “He was all I had, and you let him die.”

“I’ll be right back,” Daniel says, and he smiles and runs off to die.

“It was your idea to have a kid,” my mother says as she takes a drag off her cigarette.

Daniel returns after three years with nothing in his eyes. I am his responsibility.

“Are you ready?”

Hell is a feeling. The rooms and landmarks are familiar, though there is not an ounce of comfort in them. There is only the certainty that I am nothing. The things I feel and do and the love I give means nothing. It is worthless. I am utterly alone.

This is the place for thieves.

I stand in that hallway at the bottom of the hospital, and I am ready because there is nothing else to be. This place is my home now.

The sheet is pulled back, and I understand.





There was a terrible pressure on my chest, and I fought to breathe.

“She’s back,” Sarah said. She was on her knees beside me. When had I gotten to the floor?

Neil sat back on his heels, his face flushed. He ran a hand through his hair and tears pierced his blue eyes. “I thought we lost you.”

Daniel was suddenly at my side, pressing Sarah out of the way. His hands moved across my body as though trying to find injuries.

And all I could think about was that place. It was deep inside me. I might have come back home, but Hell was inside me now. I would see it when I slept, know that it waited for me always. I shivered.

Daniel dragged me up and into his arms. “You’re cold.”

It was always cold in Hell. I had thought it would be hot, but I was shocked at how cold I’d been.

“The ambulance is on its way.” Dev ran back into the room. He took a long breath as he realized I was alive. “Thank god. Oh, Zoey, that was horrible.”

He couldn’t know what horrible was. I groaned a little as Daniel held me too tight. “Why do my ribs feel like someone jumped on them?”

“Because Neil pressed too hard,” Daniel accused.

Neil shook his head. “It’s CPR. I had to press on her chest. And I had to do it because you were way too freaked out. The next time you want to control the compressions, keep it together, buddy.”

Daniel cuddled me close. It was the most affection he’d shown me in years, but I just wanted to breathe. “I’m just saying you could have been gentler.”

Dev sank to his knees on the other side of me. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”

Daniel growled, a predatory sound.

Nope. I was so not all right. And I wasn’t about to tell them about it. I wanted to be alone, to process what had happened. “I’m fine. I don’t need an ambulance. Is Halfer gone?”

“He disappeared a couple of minutes ago,” Sarah said.

“I was only gone for a minute?” It seemed so much longer. It seemed like forever.

“You weren’t gone at all,” Dev told me. “Halfer held a hand out and then he disappeared. You stopped breathing.”

“You died,” Daniel sounded hollow. “You died. He killed you.”

“He didn’t kill me. I just had a bad reaction to him playing in my brain.” I pushed my way out of his arms. I had to be strong. I had a job to do. If I had learned one thing it was that I didn’t want to go back to that place. I wasn’t sure I could avoid it, but I was damn straight going to try. “I’m fine. I don’t need an ambulance.”

I needed to get to work. I allowed Dev to help me up.

I was ready. I was ready because I had to be.





“Hey, are you coming?”

Sarah’s voice pulled me out of myself for the fortieth time that day. I was slightly startled, and it took a moment to remember where I was. I was in the Greenley Hotel standing outside the Gilmore Suite. I was dressed in a maid’s uniform, and I was pushing the cart that contained all of our cleaning supplies. I was lost, my mind back in that terrible place Halfer showed me that night almost two weeks before.

I shook off the previous moment and got doggedly to work, pushing the cart toward the now open door.

“Sorry. I’m just tired. I can’t sleep at Daniel’s. It’s too quiet. Even when I have the TV on, it still seems too quiet. I wish he’d let me go home.”

“You know why he won’t.” I could hear the resignation in Sarah’s voice. She was letting it go for now.

Daniel considered my apartment unsafe. Since the night we called Halfer, there had been no further attempts to kidnap me. Halfer sent a cryptic message telling us not to expect any more trouble, but Daniel chose not to believe him. I couldn’t really blame Daniel. I didn’t trust Lucas Halfer either. So Daniel chose to hide me in the safest place he knew. That very night, over my father’s vigorous protests, he took me to his building and introduced me to the concierge as his companion.

That single word worked some sort of magic on all the men in the underground portion of the complex. Michael was deferential, and even the dude Danny thought was a serial killer gave me a wide berth. It was like someone tattooed “property of Daniel Donovan” across my ass and no one bothered to tell me.