Steal the Night (Thieves #5)(149)

I used the thumb of my right hand to knead my left palm. After the cramp stopped, I forced myself to try again. I gently scraped the pins of the lock.

“That’s it,” Neil said. He looked up at me. “I heard a click.”

It was a very quiet little lock. I let Neil move in close as I held the pin in place and turned the cylinder. Neil indicated the clicks and before I knew it, the doorknob turned in my hands.

“We’re in,” Neil called quietly to Trent, who joined us.

“What the hell kind of queen knows how to pick a lock?” the wolf asked as we entered Louis’s empty apartments.

“The same kind who knows how to crack a safe,” I replied.

Trent walked to the door of the office. “Okay, then, let’s see you get through this one.”

I laughed quietly. I had no intention of picking the lock to the office. I walked straight into the bedroom and opened the dresser drawer. Sure enough, arrogance and habit were a thief’s best friends.

“Want to charge some purchases to a soon-to-be dead guy?” I asked Neil, pulling out the numerous credit cards Louis had stashed in the drawer.

Neil went through the pile, shaking his head. “He has like four different aliases.”

I shrugged as I palmed the key to the office. “Did you think the bastard was legit? If he’d had long enough, I’m sure he planned to take me back to Dallas and have me sign over all of Dev’s assets to him. Vampires are almost all cons of some sort.”

I came out, smiling at Trent. “See, key. A good thief never breaks in when she could just waltz through like she owns the place.”

Trent closed the door behind us and watched through curious eyes as I pulled back the painting. I turned the dial and asked Trent the question I’d been longing to ask since I saw Dev pull him aside the night before. “So did you get a job offer last night?”

The big wolf blushed slightly. “Yeah.”

I turned the wheel to the left and the right, trying out the first combination. “What did he offer you?”

“He said once the king took over, he would need someone to head security for you and the children.” Trent went on to announce the high six figures Dev had offered along with free room and board.

Neil shook his head. “I would hold out for more. You don’t understand how much trouble Dev’s sons are going to be.”

I moved on to combination number two. “You would probably have to liaise with the police a lot. I should warn you about that. Dev and Declan got into a shitload of trouble during their youth. Dev could write a Zagat’s ratings system for jails across the Earth plane.” No luck. I reset the wheel and started dialing number three. “It would mean moving to Dallas. If you have a pack you’re close to, you should feel free to turn him down. I know how important family is to wolves.”

Trent shook his head. “Nah, that’s why I joined the Army. I needed to get away. I…had a mate. She died. I don’t particularly want to go back to Boston. I was thinking about heading to Colorado after this was done and joining McKenzie’s pack, but there’s a bunch of competition out there. I don’t know. I’m thinking about it.”

Three was my lucky number. The safe swung open and I sighed in satisfaction. “Well, just so you know, I expect that it will be a boring job. I intend to be very dull for a long time. I just want to be at home and raise my little hoodlums. Your most exciting job would probably be escorting the boys and me to ‘mommy and me’ classes.”

“Where the boys will aggressively pursue all the little girls and make their parents terribly uncomfortable,” Neil added.

I tried not to think about that. I peered into the safe. “Wow.”

“Wow?” Neil climbed onto the chair next to me. “Wow. That’s a lot of cash.”

The thief in me really wanted to pull out that cash. It must have been at least a hundred grand. It was Louis’s war chest. I wondered if Niles and Elof knew their boss had all that cash at his disposal when they were struggling.

“We’ll come back for it later,” I promised. “Three-way split.”

“Are you serious?” Trent asked.

If he was going to hang around, he should get used to how things worked. “Hey, you were a good lookout. On this crew we split the take evenly. Remember that in the future.”

He smiled, and it softened his face, making him look younger. “I’ll remember that, Your Highness.”

I pulled out the Blood Stone. “Hello. It’s nice to see you again.”

Neil retrieved the fake out of his pocket and replaced it carefully, having noted the way the original had been sitting. “I think that’s right.” He looked longingly at the cash. “Good-bye, lots of little Benjamins. Soon you’ll have a new home. I’m going to take such good care of you.”

I sighed because Neil would spend that cash as fast as we made it. It was his nature. “Let’s get out of here. I need to get back and look like someone who didn’t just crack a safe.”

Closing the door, I reset the dial and pushed the painting back into place. I glanced around the room and was satisfied that we hadn’t left a trace. I stashed the stone in the front pocket of my jeans. Daniel was coming. I only had to wait another few hours or so and my husband would be here. Both of them.