The Beautiful Thief (Stolen Hearts #2)(2)
“Eeesh,” said Toni, the disgust evident on her face. “Does she know?”
“Yes and no. The signs are all there but she hasn’t admitted it to herself.”
Toni nodded slowly. “So are you here to support your friend? Or are you here because Mom was murdered in front of you?”
Melody kept her gaze trained on the ceiling, but every single muscle in her body went tense at the reminder of what had happened. The ring of the shot in her ears. The silhouette of a body hitting the ground. The strong arms around her pulling her away so she couldn’t even say good-bye....
She sat up and turned to Toni. “Leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere until—”
“Have you found Sterling yet?” Sterling was the one who was truly the ringleader. He was the one who had forced Stranger to take desperate measures. He was the one who employed the man who shot Isobel. Just one of the three men currently at the top of Melody’s list.
The list of men she’d been thinking about ever since that night. The ones she’d fantasized about killing. Rehashing what she’d say if she ever saw them again. Rehearsing the way she’d make sure they never hurt anyone ever again.
Sterling was at the top. One of the most powerful criminal minds in the world. Rich, dangerous, and, according to all accounts, partly psychotic. Then there was Baldie. She didn’t have a name. Didn’t have a picture. All she had was his image burned into her mind.
When she’d been taken by Sterling and Stranger’s men, she’d had two guards. They never told her their names, so she’d given each a nickname that only she knew. Baldie, for obvious reasons, and Blondie. Baldie had seemed to be the nicer of the two. He’d seemed to feel bad about her treatment and had been more gentle with her.
But he was the one who shot her mother right in the face. He was the one who had coldly told Stranger that Sterling ordered no survivors.
The third man on her list was Blondie. It was a slightly ironic name. Yes, he was blond, but somehow the hair color denoted a fairer nature that this man didn’t possess. His short hair and rough goatee hid handsome features, but when he spoke, he spat out orders. When he grabbed her, it was as though she was an object and not a person.
Yet he was the one who was the reason for her escape. After Isobel had been murdered, Blondie was the one who had thrown her into the elevator to freedom and warned her never to come back.
But that one nice act wouldn’t be enough to save him. Guilty by his own actions and guilty by association, Melody would make sure he got his too. But first of all, she’d need real names. So she’d start with the one name they did have. Jonathan Sterling.
“He’s not an easy man to track down,” said Toni carefully.
Too carefully, which made Melody suspicious. “He’s not easy, but you’re a genius who can get anything she wants as long as there’s Wi-Fi. What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that Sterling knows that. I don’t know how, but he hasn’t touched a single email account, phone, or bank that he is related to. I’m monitoring everything, and I’m sure that he’s going to make a mistake eventually. It might just take a while.”
“We can’t wait any longer! We need to—”
“Bum out in your friend’s basement while sleeping all hours of the day?” completed Toni.
“Get off my back,” said Melody firmly. “What the hell am I supposed to do? Get my own lair beneath a convenience store, like you? You’re not exactly the model of appropriate social behavior.”
Toni set her hands on her hips and glared down at Melody. It was obvious they were sisters. Even though their older sister, Jennifer, was tall and lean, Toni and Melody were both average height, around five foot seven. Melody had always liked the red in her hair and kept it natural, but Toni had been bleaching her brown locks since they were teens. Except for the slightly visible roots, no one would ever know she wasn’t a natural blonde.
They might have the same pert nose and brown eyes, but that was where the similarities ended. Toni had always been rebellious, taking after their mother. Nothing made Toni happier than when she was breaking a rule or a law.
Melody had been the odd one out in her family. Although her mother and two sisters had always seamlessly stepped into the role of criminal, Melody had always looked around herself and craved the life she’d been denied. The life of someone who paid taxes. Whose only fear when the red and blue lights appeared behind them while driving was a speeding ticket.
And what had her quest for normalcy gotten her? A practically estranged family, a good-for-nothing ex-husband, and the knowledge that now she didn’t really belong anywhere. Yep. Thoughts like this were why she’d spent the last two weeks sleeping.
“There’s a space between retreating into yourself and going on a revenge mission. Get up. Get dressed. I’ll take you out for a drink.”
Melody sat up as something hit her. “He’s not online.”
Toni looked at her as if she’d just blew a fuse. “Sterling? That’s what I said.”
“If he’s not online, then we have to look offline.”
“I don’t think you get how this whole Internet thing works.”
“No, Sterling isn’t like Stranger. He’s not going to disappear on some desert island and cut off all communication. He’s still going to run his businesses. So maybe we should focus on the business. Who is he working with that he would contact? Maybe they’ll be less careful.”