Perfect Scoundrels (Heist Society #3)(62)

“We heard already,” Uncle Felix said, with a shake of his head. “Tough break, sweetheart, but don’t worry. We’re on it.”

“They’re going to tip the FBI to watch the bank. We can’t hit the bank.” Kat was repeating herself but she didn’t know how to stop. She couldn’t have run this con if her life depended on it. And in a way, Kat knew, it did.

Uncle Eddie stood by his stove. He said nothing and heard everything, and not for the first time in Kat’s life, she would have given anything to know what he was thinking. But he just ladled soup into a bowl and pulled off a chunk of fresh bread and placed the meal before her.

She felt six years old again, safe and warm, sitting at the grown-ups’ table with the men who had raised her. Family. Kat was among her family, and Hale was out in the cold. When Felix reached to butter her bread, Kat felt her eyes go moist, and she couldn’t take it anymore. She pushed out of her chair and stepped toward the door.

“Hey, kiddo,” Uncle Sal said. “Where ya going?”

Kat had to stop and look at them all. They were older, wiser. Crankier. At some point in the past dozen or so years, the hairlines had become a little thinner and the middles a little thicker. Her whole life, the men at that table had been teaching, guiding, protecting her at every step along the way. They were there to do it again, no matter what the consequences. It was time, Kat felt, to return the favor.

“I’m going to end it.”

No one asked what she was doing. Not a soul told her not to go. It was her job, her con, her call. So the next step, they all knew, was hers.

“Katarina.” Uncle Eddie’s voice stopped her at the door. “I’ll be here when you get back.”





When Kat walked out of the subway station, it was just starting to rain. The cold wind stung her skin. Fat drops clung to her lashes, water running down her cheeks with every blink until she had no idea whether or not she might be crying. She walked on, instinct and intuition guiding her steps until she found the building and went inside, as if there were never any doubt that she belonged.

The lock was easy enough to handle. The security code she already knew. So the hard part, as always, was the waiting. She sat silently in the dark, the Manhattan shadows looming all around her. And when the door began to open, she wasn’t even a little bit afraid. After all, she was perfectly accustomed to being inside a man’s world and in way over her head.

Kat flipped on the light and watched the man throw his hands up to shield his eyes as she said, “Did I scare you? Oh, I hope I didn’t scare you.…”

Garrett didn’t say anything, but the rise and fall of his chest was more than answer enough.

“Mr. Garrett!” A burly man appeared in the doorway behind him, and in a flash was moving in Kat’s direction. “Hands up,” he told her.

“Easy, big guy,” Kat said. “Mr. Garrett and I are old friends, isn’t that right?”

“Do you know her?” the goon asked, and Kat watched Garrett consider the question. Did he know her? Did anyone, really?

Then he waved the goon away and said, “She’s okay. I think. But you might want to…check her or something.”

“Hands up,” the goon told her again.

“Really, you’re going to need to buy me dinner first,” Kat said, but she went ahead and raised her hands and let the goon pat her down.

“She’s clean,” the man told his boss, then stepped back and stood at attention.

Garrett nodded, comfortable with the power that comes from hired muscle and an underage target. Kat knew just how powerless she was supposed to be in that moment. She felt it in every one of her underaged, undersized bones. But she couldn’t bring herself to tremble. She knew too well what she had to do.

“You hired a bodyguard, Mr. Garrett.” She threw her hands to her chest and sounded especially girlie when she told him, “All for little ol’ me. I’m flattered.”

“Come, Kat. Surely you know that a man in my position requires some additional…insurance,” he said, then studied her. “Why are you smiling?”

“No reason.” Kat shrugged. “Your type of bad never really understands how to protect yourself against my type of bad. That’s all.”

“You are a talented girl,” he said.

“You’re not the first man to tell me that.” She looked the attorney up and down. “The other guy was scarier. But at least he didn’t pretend he wasn’t a killer.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do. You didn’t pull a trigger, but Hazel is dead because of you, and I know it. And I’m not the only one.”

“So…” Garrett walked into the small kitchen, opened a bottle, and poured himself a drink. “You’re here to…what? Warn me? Make a deal? Ask for a cut?”

“No, thank you.”

“I have no problem with you or your family, Miss Bishop. This was never about your family.”

“Hale is my family.”

Garrett gave a sickly sweet smile and put the cap back on the bottle. “That’s nice. But as I was saying, it’s not about you. Your father and your uncle and…whoever those other people are…they aren’t a part of this. I have nothing against you and yours. The good people at Interpol, however—I can’t speak for them.”