by A G Stevens
“There’s no freedom out there for you, Liam, even if you can escape your little self-inflicted trap here,” Dawes said. “You’re on an island filled with my security team.”
Blaze’s eyes glinted. “So are you.”
Dawes lurched forward angrily, and Blaze crouched and coiled, readying for another round, when a gunshot rang out, followed by the sound of something solid shattering. Blaze fell to the floor, freed of his trap, and Dawes crouched and covered his head, not sure where the gunfire was coming from as shattered poly-plexithene rained down on them both.
Both Blaze and Dawes turned to look for Gabrielle, who both men had disregarded as they fought. But she wasn’t the one who’d fired the shot.
Helene Parrick stood at a distance, gun in hand. “This is what you do during a two-million-dollar gala—fight over a mask?”
“A fifteen-million-dollar mask, Mrs. Parrick,” Dawes said, standing slowly. “Yes. We fight to protect it from thieves like Mr. Keller.”
“So valuable it’s protected in a case made of a material that nothing can penetrate. As per Mr. Parrick’s instruction,” Blaze said. Dawes looked at the evidence and had to conclude that the goal hadn’t been accomplished.
“Except armor-piercing bullets,” Helene said coldly, holding the gun in the direction of all three now. “I figured we’d have a thief on the island eventually, with all the valuables we leave lying around here.”
Dawes had enough nerve to be offended by that, if only for the sake of concealing his true intentions from his boss’s wife. “We keep things very locked down around here, Mrs. Parrick. Your husband spares no expense; you should know that.”
“An insurance assessor was trying to pull an inside job and steal one of the greatest treasures Nicholas has ever acquired—do you consider that ‘locked down’?” Helene asked. “Is it pathetic that I have to be the one to get this situation under control—that an outsider could make his way to the very centerpiece of Nicholas’ collection under the so-called keen eyes of the sharpest security teams in the world?”
Dawes was silent.
“I have a dining room full of the richest, most powerful people on the planet, and you think I should have to stop and foil an attempted robbery of the very item they’ve come to see because your security team is incapable of actually securing the premises?”
It hadn’t gone unnoticed by Blaze that none of the other security detail had shown up in the treasure room. He knew this was Dawes’ doing, that he’d either kept from calling his team in once he discovered the breach, or he’d informed them not to come...that he had everything under control, in order to keep his plan in motion.
“Speaking of which...where is security, Dawes?” he asked, doing his best to call out Dawes and Gabrielle’s duplicity to Helene without saying it outright. “Shouldn’t you have signaled them by now?”
“Great question,” Helene noted, turning to Dawes. “Where exactly is security? Why haven’t your foot solders been notified to come running to investigate the outage?”
Dawes smiled, slowly and deliberately. “Hopefully because you let them know that everything was fine, and that there was no need for extra detail, and that you were just checking on the treasure room to make sure all the lighting and pyro had been fully shut down, and they’d have no reason to double-check the shutdown because you authorized me to do it for you. Am I close?”
Helene redirected the gun. It was aimed only at Blaze now. “You’re dead-on, Dawes.”
Gabrielle looked troubled and confused. “But how did you know he would shut down the security system?” she asked.
“I didn’t.” Helene shrugged. “But when you texted me that it had happened and that these two were having their pissing contest, I...improvised.”
Blaze had seen double-crosses before. He’d certainly perpetrated his fair share of them. But the double-cross he thought he’d caught Dawes and Gabrielle in was a bit more complicated than that. “So are you all in on this theft together, then?” he asked. “Not just the two of you running away together with the mask like I heard you discussing during the unveiling?”
He knew he’d revealed something Helene wasn’t aware of...it was visible in her raised brow and her clenched jaw. “Is that what you two were planning?” she asked. “Instead of stealing the mask for me, you were going to take it and run?”
Ah, Blaze thought. Now this is getting interesting...
“No, Mrs. Parrick,” Dawes lied. “We were executing the plan as you instructed. Weren’t we Gabrielle?”
Gabrielle looked at Dawes, her own brow troubled and tense. “I’m sorry, Dawes,” she said. Then her spine straightened, and she exhaled heavily. “But I was executing the plan as Helene and I had decided. Not you.”
Dawes was visibly confused. “I don’t understand.”
Gabrielle crossed the room and stood by Helene. “Can I tell him?”
Helene shrugged. “If you want. It won’t matter for much longer.”
Gabrielle’s naïve act fell away. “We needed you in on the plan, because you would be the only one who could override the double-security on the treasure room once the guests were at the gala. And once we had the mask, well...we’d report it as stolen and file our claim with Davenport-Frasier. As we’d intended.” She looked at Helene longingly, and Helene caressed her cheek. “And we were going to escape this life together.”
“Her?” Dawes said, incredulous. “You were doing this with her?”
Gabrielle leaned into Helene’s embrace and kissed her thumb. “Yes. With her. And for her.”
“Sorry I was so rough with you at the party last night, dear,” Helene said.
“You know I love it when you’re forceful with me,” Gabrielle said, smiling.
Blaze loved a good twist. Even he hadn’t seen this coming.
“But that isn’t what we’d intended, Gabrielle,” Dawes said pleadingly. “We were going to...” He halted.
“You were going to what, Dawes?” Helene said. “Sell the mask on the black market, try to make fifteen million dollars, and whisk Gabi off to start a whole new life somewhere far, far away—like Bali, say? As if that wouldn’t be detected...as if Nicholas and I wouldn’t find out? You really believed that was a possibility for you?”
Dawes looked at Gabrielle as the depth of her duplicity was finally dawning on him. “It was never going to happen, was it?”
Gabrielle sighed. “No, Dawes. It wasn’t. You were needed, and you served.”
Dawes glanced disgustedly at Blaze. “And what about him? Did you work him into your plans, too?”
“Not for a second,” Helene said. “He was just a fortunate accident. And when you have one of those, you don’t let it slip away. All he was supposed to do was assess the mask so we could file the claim once it was stolen. But his greed will work to the advantage of our greed, I guess. And our escape. If all of that means you rewrite your narrative to read that Gabrielle found the insurance assessor and the head of security conspiring to steal Thunderhead from the Parricks, and that she had to eliminate both threats in order to keep it from happening, well...”
Dawes laughed nervously. “You wouldn’t do that. There are cameras recording it...all...” He remembered too late how untrue that was.
Blaze watched on, astounded as the web unraveled.
Gabrielle took the gun from Helene. “No. There aren’t.” She raised the gun and fired at Dawes, aiming for the point of his throat that his Kevlar vest didn’t cover. Then she fired a single shot, and made her mark without error. Dawes neck exploded. He fell backward, clutching his throat as he bled out onto the floor. A crimson pool grew like the outpouring of a human sacrifice at the base of the tower than held the thunder god’s head.
Or at least what everyone in the room still believed was the thunder god’s head.
Only Blaze knew the ultimate truth.
T H I R T E E N
“Jesus, Gabi,” Helene said. “Did you have to go for his throat?”
“Yes, I did,” Gabrielle said heavily. “That was part of the plan too, wasn’t it?”
Her troubled moments with Blaze made more sense now. But her coldness was unexpected.
Helene watched the pool around Dawes grow. “God, that’s disgusting. I wish I would’ve brought a drink with me.”
Gabrielle eyed Blaze and held the gun on him now. “Well, brace yourself. We have one more to take care of before we’re finished.” She took the mask in her hand and passed it to Helene.
Helene looked at it straight on. “This has to be one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen. And you wanted to steal it out from under us, Liam.”
Blaze was crouched and calm. “Ugly, but incredibly valuable,” he played along. He could feel his pulse rising and his adrenaline starting to churn as he waited for them to shoot him like they did Dawes. Would they go for the head, he wondered, or the heart? Would Gabrielle do it herself or give the gun to Helene? And what would he need to do in order to distract them enough to attempt his escape? If he could get close enough, he could take them out. But shots had been fired, and certainly someone from Parrick’s security team would be on their way to investigate. All of this passed through his brain in a matter of seconds, and led Blaze’s thoughts back to a single idea: how many betrayals would be perpetrated on Nicholas Parrick in the course of one evening?
“So you two are a team, then?” Blaze said as he began stoking the fire.
Helene gazed at Gabrielle. “You could say that, yes.”
“And you planned this little theft to claim a little bit of insurance money for yourselves?”
“Fifteen million dollars is nothing to sneeze at,” Gabrielle asserted.
Blaze stood a little taller, knowing she was unaware of Parrick’s inflated appraisal. “It is when compared to the billions that Helene and Nicholas are worth.”
Helene’s eyes widened. “Oh damn. The insurance man is catching on.”
“Catching on?” Gabrielle asked.
“Yes, Gabi,” Helene said. She took the gun from Gabrielle’s hand but kept the aim on Blaze’s chest. “He’s solving the whole puzzle.”
“Why would you want another fifteen million?” Blaze asked. “With all you have already, why would you want that?”
“We don’t,” Helene confessed. “But we do want another five hundred million.”
Blaze tried to contain his surprise.
“We what?” Gabrielle’s confusion was all too clear.
“Not we as in you and me, hon,” Helene said. “We, as in me and Nick.”
“But we were supposed to take the money and leave the island,” Gabrielle reminded her. “It was going to be your escape from this prison of paradise, as you call it.”
“No, Gabi,” Helene says. “That’s what you and Dawes were supposed to do. You and I were supposed to catch Dawes, then stop him, then Nick and I were supposed to stop you.”
“I don’t understand.” Gabrielle’s confusion was genuine.
Blaze thought it was time to step in and explain things for her. “She used you like you both used Dawes.”
Helene smiled and nodded. “And like Nick and I are going to use you now, Liam.”
Gabrielle’s eyes filled with the same sort of troubling sheen that Blaze had seen at the cocktail party the previous day. “You can’t be serious.”
“Entirely, love,” Helene said coldly.
“But we...” Gabrielle’s eyes shifted to Blaze and she halted, as if she were reluctant to call out her deeper connection with Helene in front of him.
“Yes, my dear. We were lovers.” Helene shook the gun in Blaze’s direction. “So were Liam and I.” Then she tipped it toward the curtains. “Right over there, in fact. You both were a very good time, in your own ways.”
“You can’t possibly be this heartless, Helene,” Gabrielle pleaded.
“If you knew what was at stake, Gabi,” Helene said calmly, slowly, “you’d know just how possible it is. And how necessary.” Then Helene aimed Dawes’ gun at Gabrielle’s chest and pulled the trigger without warning.
Blaze was no stranger to seeing this sort of violence. But the fleet casualness with which Helene carried it out made him flinch.
“I had no intention of exposing you to all of this ugliness, Liam,” Helene said softly, redirecting the gun at him again as Gabrielle fell to the floor, bleeding out slowly. “I had no idea you’d pull something like this at all.” She cradled the mask against her hip. “I am incredibly impressed.”
“Are you?” Blaze asked.
“Oh yes,” Helene confirmed. “More than just being a spirited lover, you are a spirited man all the way around to attempt pulling off a theft of this magnitude using ‘mild-mannered insurance assessor’ as a cover.”
Blaze contemplated how much of a revelation he should make. Surely she had no idea of his true identity, even if she was toying with him like this. “And how do you know I’m not really an insurance assessor?”
“Because where would you go after you’ve stolen the mask in the middle of a gala during your assessment week? Back to Davenport-Frasier? That seems unlikely. Into some sort of underground life as an extremely wealthy ghost? Possible. For all I know, this sort of thing is already a career for you.” She walked toward him. “It lights your fuse, perhaps...the excitement of infiltrating a fortress like this, and stealing out from under Nicholas Parrick the one thing he values more than everything else he has.” She was practically nose to nose with him now.
“Are we talking about the mask now,” he asked, “or you?”
Helene raised the gun again and pressed the barrel into his chest. “Maybe both. Maybe you crave adrenaline...maybe you love the thrill.”
Blaze couldn’t help letting a little of his truer nature out. “I’m no Gabrielle, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I mean, I lured her in. And I lured you in. You’re all working for me, in a way.”
He exhaled gruffly. “Maybe you understand me better than I care to admit,” he said, playing coy.
“I’m certain I do,” Helene replied.
“I had you—had you—literally feet away from here,” he said, forceful yet calm. “And I had the mask within reach. I’ve dipped my hands in all the treasures that Nicholas Parrick can claim as his. If you don’t think that sets every nerve in me on fire, then...” His voice was all gravel, deep and seductive, and he wondered if any of this would work to distract her, if he was actually appealing to her ego as much as he was buying himself time and drawing her close, dropping her defenses by playing to her selfish desires.
“But there’s no time for us to repeat our encounter, Liam,” Helene said, her eyes tracing the shape of his face as she spoke on heavy breath. “You see, I have to protect the mask from the collusion between my trusted assistant, Nicholas’s head of security, and the insurance assessor they promised to pay off to help steal the mask.”
“Clever.”
Helen smiled. “Thank you. I’m thinking on my feet here.”
“And you’ve done all of this with Nick’s knowledge?” Blaze asked. “With his approval?”
Helene laughed. “No. He did it with my approval.”
“What the bloody hell is this mess?” Parrick’s voice boomed through the space. “You have two dead bodies for my team to dispose of now?”
Helene stepped back and pressed the barrel of the gun into Blaze’s ribs. “Give me a second. There’ll be another one.”
“There were supposed to be zero, Helene.” Nick stepped from the shadows. “And how did you get entangled in all of this, Liam?”
Helene answered before Blaze had a chance to. “He was here stealing Thunderhead when Gabi and Dawes came in to do the deed.”
“Couldn’t keep your hands to yourself, could you?” Parrick laughed. “I admire your spirit, if not your technique.”
Helene’s eye gleamed. “I admire both, actually.”
“Oh god, Helene,” Parrick said, knowing exactly what she meant. “Control
yourself, please. Your little tryst was all in a day’s work.”
Blaze saw things just a little more clearly then. “So you and I were...”
“A way to get the maximum assessment on the mask, yes,” Parrick said. “Helene tends to get a little wrapped up in her projects, let’s say.”
“You used all three of us—me, Gabrielle, Dawes—to pull off the theft of something you already own?”
“Seems complicated and unnecessary, doesn’t it?” Parrick said.
Blaze was baiting him, hoping to learn more about the enterprise behind the con. “Entirely.”
“Well,” Parrick said, “I suppose I can share something with you before your impending death, something that might set your soul at ease before you shuffle off this mortal coil, since my head of security killed you and your accomplice Gabrielle when he found you both trying to steal Thunderhead, just as you delivered a fatal shot to him as well...that’s the conclusion the security team will come to, in case you were wondering.”
Blaze could hardly keep all their stories straight.
“We aren’t stealing the mask, Liam,” Parrick told him. “We’re taking it underground.”
Should I tell him I know the mask was stolen from its original owner before it came into his possession? Blaze wondered. He decided in an instant that it was best to play clueless and leave as little of his hand showing as possible. Ego wouldn’t serve here. “So why the elaborate ruse? Why set these two up just to kill them when you could just make the mask disappear whenever you wanted to?”
Parrick drew closer to Blaze, while Helene kept the gun trained on him. “The eyes of heaven are watching, Liam. We must show them our sacrifice.”
