Mockingbird (A Stepbrother Romance #2)(29)
I can read between lines. I can figure out implications. It's right there, he's trying to tell me but he won't say it. This is the last job, if we don't do this there won't be any more. I'm not an idiot. He's been threatened. Somebody is going to take us out if we don't do this. Somebody wants that painting, bad. What I can't figure is why.
Look, we're criminals. We work with other criminals, it's the nature of the beast. Thing is, we're not working with gangbangers and cartels and hitmen, but we work with people unscrupulous enough to buy stolen goods.
Most of the things we lift go to known fences my father has a working relationship with. It's a whole network of trust. People don't threaten to send us to sleep with the fishes if we fail a job, it's more a matter of reputation. We've never failed one anyway, and I've never seen him so on edge.
Could somebody be holding something over him?
I grab my bokken and head out to the back yard, and start stretching before I move through the forms. Exercise will get my blood moving, clear my head and loosen me up. Stretches first, to protect my joints and ligaments, then the forms. I move slowly through them at first, and no matter how many times I swing through an imaginary opponent, my grim thoughts won't leave me. I pick up speed, and the pieces keep swirling around me, no matter how I try to focus and banish them. I stumble and stop, stick the point of my practice sword in the ground and breathe hard, wipe the sweat out of my eyes.
What the hell is going on here?
It goes back to that meeting after the heiress job. We've never met with a buyer that fast, and after stealing something like that I would expect us to go through known channels. Usually things like that are auctioned, even. Usually he'd show me the proceeds of the job, we'd have a joking argument about my cut and I'd get a sizable envelope of cash for playing my part, but it's never come up again.
The meeting was off, too. I know in movies these sorts of things are always high dramatic, but meeting in the middle of the night? That's not how it's done. I've been a tag-a-long on enough of these drops and meetings with fences to tell you that if you didn't know it was illegal you'd think it was a regular business meeting. No trades of goods for suitcases of cash under restaurant tables, no chase scenes, nothing like that. This is a business. A dangerous, morally questionable business.
The choice of target is bothering me too. I take up the sword again and force myself to swing slowly through the motions, focusing on precision and silky smooth movement, but I keep getting distracted. Veronica the heiress isn't going to miss a necklace. Yeah, it was a family heirloom but I sincerely doubt it meant anything to her. Most of the time we steal from people who don't really need what we're taking, the super-rich, or from institutions, and art usually isn't on the list. A necklace is a necklace, but this is different.
It feels personal. The painting may not belong to Diana's mother, but losing it is going to hurt her, I think. From what I can see she is very invested in this museum collection. I need more information.
Winded, I sit on the back step and rest my practice sword on my legs, and lean on it. At some point I will begin practicing with live steel, but I don't know that I'm ready for that. Even just working through the forms I could still cut the shit out of myself. That would be a hell of a way to go. There aren't any answers in the back yard, and I don't think another excursion will help. I lean back against the step.
I can't get Diana out of my head. Her smile is like a drug, every glimpse a hit and I'm growing addicted. It's been too long since I saw her last, and now I don't know if I can ever see her again. How can I do this to her? She's not some airheaded heiress or rich f*cker, she's… just a girl. Yet so much more than that. Innocence is a rare thing to experience for somebody like me. Selfless, too, she's selfless. I don't need a dossier to tell me how she feels about that Lucas, and there she was marching into that party to pull her friend out of the fire. I'm sure she'd have gone if I was there or not, no matter the outcome. That's bold.
A light touch. A light touch would work. I just have to get close to her, not befriend her. If we're not too close, she'll get over it, right? She has a long life ahead of her.
What do I have? More of this?
The money and danger and sex is great, but I can't stop myself from thinking about what Dad said about the jewels losing their sparkle. I've never seen him really upset about anything before, and I've certainly never seen him broken up about my mother, but he looked like he was going to break down yesterday. What has he gotten us into?
I bend the practice sword 'blade' in my hands a little, feel the resistance of the wooden strips. We're stronger together, he told me once. A practice sword made of a single piece would eventually crack and snap. The bokken is made of many thin pieces, brittle and weak on their own but stronger when bound together, each passing the shock of a blow to the others so none of them carry it alone. That's what we are, he told me, two pieces bound together in strength, better together than apart, but we're only two pieces and if he breaks it'll be just me, and I'm starting to feel how brittle I really am.
Diana. I want her. Not like I've never desired a woman before, but this is different. It feels different. It's like it's more than just her body, and she has a hell of a body. When I look at her I see something I've never seen before, an end to this.