The Cocky Thief (Stolen Hearts #1)(37)

That split second was what had him sticking around. It was easy to say that he was there on a mission of vengeance and that was all he cared about, but Catherine was still with him. Catherine would never sit back while someone, innocent or not, suffered. In fact, that was why she was gone in the first place.

The rush of happy memories was quickly replaced with a burning anger that he was all too familiar with. He reached out and grabbed Isobel’s arm. “What do you think you’re doing?” he bit out in a low whisper.

She glanced down where he held her arm and then back at his face, her disapproval evident. “I’m looking for Toni.”

“In the soda section?”

She rolled her eyes. “Obviously not there. But she sent us these coordinates for a reason. I’m betting she’s going to let us know where she is any minute now.” She pointed to a spot behind him.

Scott looked over his shoulder to the camera that was aimed directly at them.

“That little guy has been following my every move since I walked in.”

Right then, the door on the far end of the refrigerator popped open.

“And there she is,” said Isobel triumphantly as she went right for the door.

Scott cursed under his breath and followed her through. He wanted to have a hand on his gun and ready, but he knew the camera was on him, so he didn’t want to telegraph where his one and only weapon was.

The door led directly to some stairs and he was only on the first one when he heard the door slam shut behind him. And now they were trapped with the person who may or may not be Isobel’s daughter. It wasn’t as if Toni was all that uncommon of a name. It could be some fat dude smoking a joint and laughing at the two suckers dumb enough to go to random coordinates sent by a stranger.

Except he knew he was wrong the second they got to the basement. This wasn’t the lair of some loner computer nerd. The walls were a light purple and the soft glow of the lights kept it from feeling like a basement.

The feminine touches were nice, but there was one very obvious reason for this place. The far wall was dominated by computers. There were eight different monitors, four mounted and four resting on the desk that ran the length of the wall.

And then someone stepped out from the shadows and leaned against the desk. Definitely not a guy and definitely not fat.

Considering he’d seen Jennifer and Isobel, he didn’t know why he expected Toni to be any different. Even though her hair was a bright blonde, she had the same grace and confident expression that the rest of her family seemed to be blessed with. She wore a baby-blue tank top and tight black leggings, letting him know that even down here she’d been keeping up with her workout routine. There were women on the force who weren’t nearly as fit as this girl was. Not in a bulky, steroid, protein shake kind of way. The kind of fit that had his eyes going right to her—

“Why are you here?” she asked without any formal greeting. He didn’t know what happened between Isobel and Toni, but there must’ve been a reason Isobel had no way of contacting her.

She also hadn’t asked who he was. Strange that a woman as small as her, no matter how fit, didn’t care about strange men coming into her super-secret underground lair.

“Melody is missing. We’re hoping you can help.”

Toni’s face fell. “That son of a bitch. I knew he was going to pull something shady. Where is Ben now?”

Scott had picked up enough to know they were talking about Melody’s ex-husband. “This isn’t about that. She’s been taken by Greg Stranger and Jonathan Sterling. They were getting out of San Francisco after pulling one over on them.”

Toni’s brows drew together. “No, Mel was out of the game. She wouldn’t be pulling any jobs.”

Scott looked at Isobel and waited for her to fill in the blanks.

“She was out of the game, but you know as well as I do that the normal life was killing her. I was bringing her back into the light.”

Toni scoffed. “Are you shitting me? You were half the reason she got out in the first place!”

Scott stepped between the two women. “It doesn’t matter why she was there. The important part is that she’s missing now and in danger.” He looked over at Toni. “Now from the looks of this setup,” he motioned to the wall of computers, “we’re going to need you to get her back.”

Toni eyed him up and down. “You’d be lucky to have my help, but who the hell are you?”

“I’m Scott Hart. I’m just here to help.”

“He was running another job at the same time. Now we’re all working together to get Mel back. It’s a long story but he’s trustworthy for the most part. Come on, Toni. This is for family.”

She scoffed. “Don’t you tell me about family responsibility. Especially not after the stunt you just pulled with Mel. Was she wearing her necklace?”

Isobel frowned. “Necklace?”

“The silver heart pendant. I gave it to her as a safety measure in case Ben got any ideas.”

“How is a necklace a safety measure?”

“It is when it has a GPS tracker in it.” She turned around and slid into her computer chair even as her fingers moved rapidly over the keys of the keyboard.

“You always have something up your sleeve, don’t you?” said Isobel, half reproaching and half approvingly.