The Cocky Thief (Stolen Hearts #1)(55)
She stopped a few feet away and for a few moments, she didn’t say anything. She just stared at him as though she was waiting to see what his next move was. Then she broke the awkward silence. “When’s the next funeral?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Word on the street is that Austin Miles is dead. There’s an army of computer nerds who have avenged his death by draining the bank accounts of Stranger’s most lucrative clients.”
“According to the recent deposit into my checking account—my private checking account, by the way—I think your sister was a part of that.” And based off the size of the deposit, he was willing to bet that all of Stranger’s clients were dead broke by now.
Her expression was still cold and unchanging. “Why did you do it?”
“Stranger is a dick. I wanted to hurt him, so I told Toni to pull the trigger.”
She shook her head. “No. If you wanted to hurt him, there are a thousand ways you could’ve done it. Now you don’t have anything. Your name, your reputation—it’s all done.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, Jen. I didn’t like the guy. I wanted him to suffer.”
“I just— I don’t want you to have done it for me.”
“What?”
“You spent years and probably risked your life countless times to build your name. Now you have to give it all up and I don’t want that to be my fault.”
Austin rubbed at the bridge of his nose and then ran his hand through his hair. “Stranger brought this all on himself. None of this is your fault.”
“Tell me then. Tell me you didn’t do this for me. I can’t leave you thinking I screwed up your entire life.”
“Thinking you... No. You didn’t screw up my life.”
Jennifer’s brow was so furrowed much that her head had to be pounding, so Austin finally decided to cut the bullshit. She was about to leave forever. Why not tell her exactly what he was thinking? “Hell yes, I did it for you. If it would make you happy, I’d go after presidents, dictators, and emperors. From now on, anyone who causes you even a stress headache is going to be on my shit list. So when we found out what happened to Isobel and you leaned on me for comfort, yes—from that moment, I knew that Stranger was going down. And if you don’t want to leave me thinking you screwed up my life then, for the love of God, don’t leave me.” Austin waited for her to laugh, slap him, or tell him how impossible it would be for them to have anything together.
But all he got was more silence.
“Jennifer, I—”
“What would we even do?”
“What?”
“Together. If we gave this a chance... Would we go on dates? Long walks on the beach? Maybe the two of us are just too strange for a relationship.”
For the first time that day, he seemed to let go of the weight that had been pressing down on him ever since they took down Stranger and let out a loud and long laugh. “Oh, Jen. I know exactly what we would do.”
(Sometime in the not too distant future)
“We’re not having this conversation right now,” snapped Jennifer into the phone as she paced in front of the doorway at the edge of the lavish ballroom.
Her heels clacked against the floor as she paced. She was well aware of the eyes that darted to her as her voice became more and more elevated. “I told you that it doesn’t matter how much you beg. We’re over and nothing is ever going to change that! And if you ever call me again—”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the door behind her pop open and she gave one more, “This is over and it’s never going to start again,” before she slipped through the open door.
“We have sixty seconds before the cameras are back on.” Austin took her hand and they both ran through the hall until they reached the service elevator.
She turned and looked for any sign of someone following them, but so far the coast was clear. “You were able to plant the bug in the security cameras?”
“Yeah, about that...” Austin crouched down as he pulled the wiring for the access pad on the service elevator. He went silent as his hands deftly used a wire stripper to expose some of the copper; he touched it to another wire, allowing the elevator doors to open.
“About that?” repeated Jennifer, trying to get the whole story.
“The EMP didn’t work. I had to improvise.”
“How did you improvise to shut down the cameras?”
“I unplugged them,” he said with a half-smile as the elevator started to climb up.
“You unplugged them?” she asked skeptically.
“The dime-a-dozen security guys were all too distracted with the crazy lady on her cell phone.” He winked.
“The son of a bitch left exactly two sips of milk in the carton. Did he expect me to take that lying down?”
“I love that you get into character, but I told you a hundred times that I was sorry about that. And you were arguing with a dead phone.”
“Hell hath no fury like a woman who suddenly had to eat dry cereal for breakfast.”
Austin turned on her and advanced, pushing Jennifer into the back corner. “If memory serves, I made it up to you later that morning.” He leaned in closer. “Twice.”