The Dangerous Thief (Stolen Hearts #3)(47)

She nodded before she realized that he probably couldn’t see her. Though if Toni was around, who knew what things she’d tapped into? “We lost a lot in the blast but we still have access to your dad’s phone. He is leaving the house in fifteen minutes so that will be your window. We’re outside the building, so we can let you know when he’s coming back. There might be video in the apartment, so if you’re going to do a search, you only get one chance.”

There might be someone listening to her but that didn’t mean she couldn’t talk to herself. “We, we, we, we,” she said in a singsong voice.

“Me, Jennifer, Austin, and Toni,” he said, obviously understanding what she meant.

She hadn’t been talking super loud and it had picked it up. That was impressive and terrifying at the same time.

The next fifteen minutes went by achingly slow, but at least the nausea was gone. Not gone enough that she could eat the Chinese food, but she had doubts about eating any food that came complete with earbud. So this time when a knock came on her door she jumped up, a bit of adrenaline already coming. It was strange to know things ahead of time. Her father was going to let her know that he was leaving. And then she’d have as much time as she needed. Something Jules hadn’t had.

She pulled open the door to see her father once more. “Hi, Daddy.” Once again she refrained from acting too happy. She didn’t need to pretend to be happy about a damn thing tonight.

“I have to run out to take care of a few things tonight. I hate to leave you alone.”

“Really, it’s okay. I don’t think I’ll be good company tonight.”

“We have a problem,” said James in her ear.

“You don’t have to be good company but I can’t in good conscience leave you on your own.”

“Daddy, I’m—”

The intercom button sounded through the apartment and Willa realized what the problem was. “Did you send a bodyguard?”

“No. That seemed too cold and impersonal. I wanted someone you knew.”

For the love of God, he better not say—

“Stan is going to be here for a bit.”

“That’s going to be a pain,” she said to both Jadon and James.

“I know you two don’t always get along—”

“He can’t stand me, Daddy.”

“But I can’t leave you alone.”

“If you’re so worried about me, don’t leave me with some geriatric misogynist.”

“I’m not the one worried about you, hun. I know you just got swept in my mess, but there are others who are asking questions. Questions about how close you were to the explosion.”

“Someone fired a rocket launcher into my building, Daddy! I didn’t have anything to do with—”

He held up a hand to silence her. “I believe you. And I’m going to talk to Sterling. I’ll let him know there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Let him go,” said James in her ear. “We’ll figure this out.”

“Fine, go,” she said. “I’ll just ignore Stan and imagine him getting hit by an asteroid.”

“That a girl.” Jadon reached to pat her on the arm and Willa couldn’t help herself as she flinched away from him. Maybe she ruined the image of being a dutiful daughter, but she just wasn’t as good at this espionage thing as she wanted to be.

He winced before he turned and left. She poked her head out into the hallway. A few moments later, Stan White was in the apartment; he looked down the hall at her and smiled. Well, the nausea was back.

“I need to get rid of him.”

“We’re working on something,” said James.

Working on something.... She started to go through a list of ways to get Stan out of the apartment.

“Does he have any family?” asked James. “We can fake an emergency and tell him a kid is in the hospital. Lying, of course.”

“He doesn’t even like his kids.” She fell back into her room and sighed. The only things Stan cared about were his money and his.... Oh. She needed to talk to James and if anyone was listening, they would just have to hear her. “Austin is supposed to be a really good thief, right?”

“The best,” said Austin.

“Think you can get into a Maserati?”





“What are the chances that all those people got hurt and you got out unscathed?” said Stan. He sat in her father’s armchair, probably having a blast pretending this was his apartment.

Willa leaned against the brown granite countertop of the bar in her father’s den and tried to tune out what Stan was saying. Just a few more minutes....

“I mean, really. Just imagine God in heaven looking down at all of us like ants. He saw that missile go flying into your building, looked at you and said ‘That one. That’s the one I want to save. All the others can burn, but I want to save that one.’ He must really be having an off day.”

“Thanks for the beautiful words,” she said dryly as she dropped a few cubes of ice into a crystal glass and then filled it with tap water.

“Come on. You know you want a real drink.”

She could tell from Stan’s calculating, beady little eyes that he was annoyed he couldn’t get a rise out of her. It was easy to get defensive and bite back when she felt alone and cornered, but at the moment, she had all the invisible people in her head to get her through this.