The Dangerous Thief (Stolen Hearts #3)(27)

“Ready?” she asked.

He nodded and he hit the down arrow. “I, um, I need to tell you something.”

Well, that was never good. “Everything okay?”

“Toni wants you to do something.”

“I can do things. What does she need?”

“Can you get access to your father’s cell phone? You’d need two, maybe three minutes, with it and we’d have to know the password.”

“Doesn’t seem too hard.”

“And if you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”

“I should be able to—”

“And if you think it’s too risky, you don’t have to.”

She pursed her lips as she started to understand. “You don’t want me to?”

“I don’t want you to get caught.”

It was tempting to be insulted by that, but she had to admit that she wasn’t exactly qualified to be doing this. “I know how to be careful.”

“If you knew how to be careful, you wouldn’t be here with me right now.”

She didn’t know whether she should laugh or roll her eyes at that. “You’re not all bad, James. I think ending up with you might be on my list of smarter decisions.” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes and tried to see whether the compliment got to him, but he was just as stoic as always.

“Agree to disagree.”

All she could do was shrug. “Agree to disagree.”





The waiter set the seared tuna dish down in front of Willa and the medium-rare premium cut of steak in front of Jadon. Willa said a quick thanks, which she had to immediately repeat as the waiter filled up her wine glass. The dinner so far had been rather uneventful. Nothing like the awkwardness of the conference room interview earlier that morning.

As put off as she’d been by James and Toni showing up, it gave her a fair bit of comfort. She no longer felt as if she needed to worm her way into Jadon’s inner circle. Now all she had to worry about was getting to his phone. She was sure she could eventually, but she had her doubts about getting to it tonight.

Jadon would probably go to the bathroom eventually, but he’d also probably take his phone with him. Maybe she could arrange a spilled glass of wine or something so unexpected that he’d forget to bring the phone with him?

“How is the new guy working out?”

Willa stopped with a piece of tuna midway to her mouth. “New guy?”

“I hate to stick you with someone you don’t know, but the entire controls department is in an upheaval right now, especially since Forbes is gone.”

A piece of the tuna went down the wrong hole. Willa started to cough and cleared her throat. “I keep forgetting he got arrested,” she lied. After she’d gone to him and begged him for help in dealing with the horror of her father, she couldn’t be happier he was out of the picture. Matt Forbes was the one who had taught her that Jadon wasn’t the only corrupted one around her. Her entire life in Chicago was inundated with people who could kill at the blink of an eye. In Matt Forbes’s case, he tried to kill her in the blink of an eye when he realized she wasn’t loyal to Jadon.

If it weren’t for Melody and Adam, she never would’ve survived that day.

“Forbes made his own bed.” Jadon cut into his steak and took a bite.

She supposed she couldn’t judge her father too harshly considering she wasn’t feeling all that much empathy right now.

She was still trying to figure out how to isolate her father from his phone when she noticed a bit of commotion from the front of the restaurant. Of course, when she looked up front, she happened to meet James’s gaze. He was dutifully standing by the front door and keeping an eye on her from a distance. Knowing he was there was alternately a comfort and kept her on edge. But he wasn’t what drew her attention.

A man was speaking harshly to the hostess. Willa couldn’t hear what he was saying but considering she knew exactly who it was, she could guess. “Your lapdog is here,” she muttered before she took another bite of the perfectly cooked tuna. Stan White was her father’s right-hand man. Willa had never been able to stand him because he was such an obvious kiss ass, but Jadon happened to like that aspect about Stan.

Jadon turned around. “Why don’t you stay here, honey? I’ll be right back.”

She glanced at James, who gave a subtle shake of his head. But this was a distraction she could take advantage of. “You go on.” She waved her fork. “I will just stay here and enjoy this tuna by myself,” she said, adding a hint of a guilt trip. Except when she swung her fork with the last word, she hit the wine glass and sent it falling. The dark-red contents flowed right for Jadon.

He stumbled back as she shot up, moving her napkin to catch the flow before it got to Jadon while covering his phone. “Just go,” she snapped as though it was his fault the wine went falling. “I’ll sort this out.”

“I can—”

“No!” She looked up and signaled for the waiter to come over. “This is so embarrassing,” she muttered. “Just go. You’re drawing more attention to us.”

He didn’t protest any more as he got up and walked toward Stan. She moved her body to block the view of his phone and she thought about the instructions James had given her in the car on the way over. All she had to do was go to a website and download an app. Somehow this was all they needed to clone the phone.