Knave (Masters of Manhattan #1)

by Jane Henry

  Knave

  Masters of Manhattan, Book One

  Jane Henry

  Maisy Archer

  Copyright © 2018 by Jane Henry and Maisy Archer

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  Thanks so much for reading Knave!

  Hustler (Masters of Manhattan, Book Two) - Chapter One

  About Jane Henry

  About Maisy Archer

  Other titles by Jane and Maisy

  Also by Jane Henry

  Prologue

  January 21st…

  The great thief Anson Daly, rattled by a piece of paper. Fucked up, but there it was. I stood across the street from the imposing limestone building and took the crumpled invitation from my back pocket to look at it again under the streetlight. Sure enough, 740 Park Avenue, 14th Floor, was embossed in bold, black letters on the third line of the invitation, exactly as it had been the last twenty times I’d looked at the damn thing. I was in the right place, but that was about the only thing I was sure of here.

  I pushed out a deep breath, letting the fog rise around my face in the cold, clear night air, and mentally rolled my eyes at myself. Maybe it was stupid, considering all I’d seen and done in my thirty-three years, but I swear I hadn’t been this keyed-up since I was a thirteen-year-old hustler, picking pockets at Central Park Zoo to pay my mom’s electric bill. Even my cold fingers were twitching in my pockets in a way they hadn’t done since I was a kid, and I clenched my hands into fists just to get myself steady. A safecracker with nervous trembles is like the punchline to a bad joke, Billy Morton used to sneer, right before he’d beat the nerves out of me.

  Not that Billy was in any position to be giving me advice or beatings these days. The self-appointed leader of the small-time idiots I used to run with back in the day was nabbed on grand larceny and sent down to Rikers nearly a dozen years ago, right about the time I was trading pocket-picking for far more advanced and lucrative endeavors. I’d probably fenced as much in the past year as Billy ever had in his entire miserable life. Still, the guy had a point, and I’d taken it to heart. Never show your weaknesses.

  I gritted my teeth as I raked my eyes over the second line of text. January 21st. 8 PM. I was early, but then punctuality was one of my few virtues, and I’d needed time for a little reconnaissance. My primary M.O., and the reason I’d never been caught stealing so much as a candy bar, was to never walk into a place without knowing all the exits.

  I looked up at the building again, silently cataloguing everything I’d noticed. Doorman on duty twenty-four-seven. First floor windows covered by original Art Deco iron scrollwork nearly impossible to remove unobtrusively. Multiple terraces on the top floors, so no chance of rappelling down in a straight shot. No subterranean access. If I wanted to crack a place like that, I’d have made it an inside job.

  A boisterous crowd of well-dressed people at least a decade younger than me moved down the street, and one of the men turned to look me up and down in a way that was deliberately mocking. My spine stiffened, knowing just what the guy saw in his quick appraisal—the deliberately messy black hair, sharp-hewn cheekbones, and stubbled chin I had inherited from my Irish bastard father, my lean muscled, broad shouldered body dressed in tidy, off-the-rack clothing, and the stench of the working class that never failed to attract rich, arrogant assholes like blood in shark infested water.

  But I knew just how to handle that.

  All the years of decent living in my sweet Williamsburg walk-up, my comfortable nest egg in the bank, and the ironclad backstory I’d forged for myself, faded away as I returned the stranger’s glare with a menacing stare of my own, letting the street thug known as Saint shine through my eyes for just a moment. The stranger’s gaze flared with alarm, and he hurried his group away down 71st Street.

  Typical.

  When they were a block away, I turned back to the building, stretching my tight muscles, and shoved the paper in my pocket. Young, wealthy pricks thought everything—everyone—had a price. Lenox Hill, the uppermost echelon of New York real estate, held nothing but memories for me, ghosts of my mother and my childhood that I locked up more tightly than any jewel or artwork in this entire neighborhood. I fucking hated being here. But the first line of the invitation had made ice pulse through my veins, and the choice to come had been an easy one.

  “Your mother’s death wasn’t an accident.”

  I had three high-profile merchandise requests to fill—two paintings that needed to be liberated from museums, and a religious icon which would be finding a new home with a collector who cared more about possessing the item than its provenance. Each job would take at least a month to plan and carry out, all of them needed to be started immediately, and they’d all fetch me a fuckton of money I could promptly donate to St. Sebastian’s Youth Center.

  Still, after a message like that, I’d dropped everything to come tonight.

  I crossed the street without allowing myself to think about it anymore, and then walked a few feet further, until I was standing beneath the understated black awning that read 740. The door opened, and a uniformed doorman doffed his cap solicitously as he stepped into the open doorway.

  “Can I help you sir?” the man asked, his voice lightly tinged with a Spanish accent.

  “Sí, por favor,” I replied, employing my unaccented Spanish and winning smile like the tools they were. “I’m here for a meeting on the fourteenth floor.” I took the invitation from my pocket once again and offered it to the doorman. He read it quickly and returned it, a sympathetic smile in his dark brown eyes.

  “Ah, of course. Mr. Daly, yes? I’m Edgar Rivera.” He held out his hand, and I shook it reflexively. “I believe you’re the last to arrive. Elevator’s that way,” Edgar continued, pointing down the open corridor. “I’ll phone up and let them know you’re coming.”

  I frowned. I’d pretty much counted on this being a private meeting, rather than some kind of party.

  What the hell was I walking into?

  I stepped into the elevator and noted that there were no buttons, only a slot for a keycard. Odd. Before I could step out to consult Edgar, though, a disembodied voice came over the microphone inside the elevator.

  “Cleared for the penthouse.”

  Well, fuck me.

  The doors slid closed without a whisper, and if not for the way my stomach swooped, I wouldn’t have even noticed the car ascending. It was mere seconds later that the doors slid open, just as noiselessly as they’d shut, and I stepped out into a white marble foyer.

  Did people actually live here?

  I had visited many, many a wealthy home in my day. Back during one of my mom’s sober periods, she’d been a nanny to the rich and famous, and I’d spent most of my time rubbing elbows with stuck-up asses who lived in places like this. But if I’d thought their homes were opulent, they were nothing compared to this.

  The ceiling was two stories high, and I swear to God, decorated like the Sistine Chapel, right down to the angelic murals painted on the ceiling. The entire floor was covered in white marble thinly veined with gray. The walls were covered with gold-framed portraits
done by famous artists, and… Holy shit! Was that an actual Turner on the wall? I’d never seen a privately held one before.

  Before I could step more than a few feet from the elevator, a man appeared in my peripheral vision. He was tall, broad, and imposing in a way that the tuxedo he wore couldn’t hide, with hard, blue eyes and blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. Like a butler and Jean-Claude Van Damme all rolled into one.

  “Jesus Christ. You should know better than to sneak up on people,” I said, and I couldn’t help my scowl. I didn’t like being off my game, and I hated not knowing what I was walking into, but that wasn’t this guy’s fault. I held out my hand. “I’m Anson Daly.”

  He didn’t take it. He remained as silent as the elevator, and with approximately as much personality. Instead he motioned with his arm like a game show host, indicating that I should step through the doorway to my right.

  I shook my head.

  His total lack of communication pissed me off. “Look, Lurch,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere until I get some answers.” I pulled the invitation from my pocket and brandished it at him. “Who owns this place? What’s going on here?”

  Not a muscle twitched in the robot-man’s face.

  “You’d have better luck asking the furniture.”

  I swiveled my head and found another man leaning in the doorway of the room where Lurch had directed me. He was a ginger—dark auburn hair, fair and freckled face, clear blue eyes—and he was maybe four inches taller than my own five-foot-ten. He held a glass of red wine in his hand, and when I frowned at him, he grinned and stepped forward.

  “Our friend here is extremely hospitable.” He nodded at Lurch, and then at the wine in his own hand. “But not particularly forthcoming on the details.” His voice turned momentarily harder, but he gave a friendly smile as he held out his hand. “Ethan Warner.”

  I found myself shaking his hand almost against my will, like he was a snake charmer or something. “Daly.”

  Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “Saint Daly?”

  I blinked. I definitely hadn’t come here tonight expecting anyone who’d know me by that name. “Call me Anson. Or Daly. I don’t go by Saint much anymore.”

  He nodded affably enough. “Alright then. Too bad, though. From what I’ve heard, I think I might have liked Saint.”

  “No,” I challenged. “You really wouldn’t.” Saint was a street kid, and I was much more than that now.

  His eyebrows went up, but he didn’t say a word because Lurch made a motion with his hands that we were clearly supposed to move into the room where Ethan had been.

  Ethan sighed and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Apparently, our fate awaits us in here,” he said wryly. “Give our friend your coat and come meet the others.”

  I shrugged out of my wool overcoat and reluctantly passed it to Lurch, watching as he took it down the hallway that likely led to the kitchen, and then to the servants’ area of the apartment—the area where I would have felt far more comfortable. “Others?” I asked.

  Ethan nodded and ushered me into what was clearly a library, like something out of an old movie. Floor-to-ceiling dark wood bookcases lined three walls, cut around the windows that faced 71st Street and the doorway back into the hall. An enormous stone fireplace, like the kind of thing I’d expect to see in some English hunting lodge, dominated the fourth wall, with a roaring fire crackling merrily in it. An enormous mahogany desk stood at the back of the room, and a large cluster of leather sofas and club chairs sat directly in front of the door.

  Three men had arranged themselves around the furniture in various states of discomfort, and Ethan introduced me to them one by one.

  “The brooding blond in the bespoke suit doing his Lord of the Manor impression is Xavier Malone. You may have seen him in the society pages? No?” Ethan laughed when I scowled. “Well, he’s kind of a big deal.”

  The blond in question was hunched in the leather armchair facing the door, elbows resting on his knees, contemplating the brandy snifter in his hands as though it held the secrets of the universe. He glanced up briefly to roll his eyes at Ethan, and to acknowledge me with a nod, but otherwise didn’t move or speak.

  “He seems so much more charming when they talk about him on Entertainment Daily News,” Ethan confided in a joking whisper loud enough to carry. He turned to the man on the far end of the leather sofa. “This is Walker… er, what was it again?”

  “Smith,” the man said, his voice deep and laced with a Spanish accent. “Walker Smith.” The name struck me as amusing, as the man looked like anything but a nondescript Smith. Dark, roguish hair hung on his forehead, his skin was a deep tan, despite it being the dead of winter, and his dark eyes danced like he was laughing at a joke only he could hear. He was sitting with one ankle crossed over his knee, his foot tapped the ground energetically, and when he stood to shake my hand, I swear he bounced out of the chair. But when I grasped his hand in response, I was surprised at just how firm and steady his grip was.

  “And this here is Mr. Jamison,” Ethan said, pointing to the only other man in the room. I did a double-take when I turned to see the man seated on the opposite sofa. His neck was one enormous muscle, thick as a tree trunk, his head was completely bald, and his chest was twice as broad as mine. He was easily six-foot-seven. When he stood to reach over the coffee table and shake my hand, my gaze traveled up… and up some more, but my instinctive wariness calmed when he spoke in a calm, gentle bass.

  “Caelan Jamison. Pleased to meet you.”

  I nodded as I shook his hand, and then turned back to Ethan, who’d claimed the chair with its back to the door.

  “You seem to be the man with the answers,” I told him. “What the hell are we all doing here?”

  “Believe it or not, we haven’t quite figured that out beyond the fact that we were all invited. The butler won’t tell us a damn thing.” His voice hardened as he looked at each of us in turn, but he smiled affably as he pointed me to a sideboard next to the door. “Help yourself to a drink.”

  “No, thanks,” I said, taking the seat on the opposite end of the sofa from Walker Whoeverhewas, since it was closest to me… and closest to the door. “I don’t drink.”

  Ethan’s eyebrows raised, and I had the feeling he was filing away this bit of information about me, but he only said, “Suit yourself,” and sat back to drink his wine.

  The room grew quiet, and anticipation hummed beneath my skin. I fucking hated waiting around, especially when I didn’t know what I was waiting for. I perched on the edge of my seat and clenched my jaw, trying to calm my nerves.

  It didn’t work.

  The silence in the room became oppressive, and I eyed the doorway. How badly did I really want to stay here? This was fucking ridiculous, and I had a million other things to do. Then I thought of my mother—her sad smile and the demons in her eyes.

  If there was any possible explanation for my mother’s death last year besides the opiate overdose listed on the coroner’s report, there was zero chance that I wouldn’t look for it, no matter how twitchy it made me.

  When the clock chimed the quarter hour, all of us looked up, startled. And then, as if this were some prearranged signal, the door to the foyer slid closed.

  My gut clenched with something like dread. It was spooky as hell, and even under normal circumstances, enclosed spaces are the cat burglar’s mortal enemy. But before I had time to do more than feel my heart rate pick up, the television mounted above the fireplace flickered to life, playing a video that would change my life.

  One

  Six months later…

  Manhattan

  “3, 2, 1… And, security systems are down,” Walker said, his voice with its lilting accent magnified over the tiny communication device in my ear, so that it sounded like he was sitting right next to me. “Daly, you’re up.”

  No shit. I rolled my eyes as I employed the tiny laser cutting tool to make a hole in the glass window just large enough for me to slip through. Dangl
ing from a cable four stories above the ground in the middle of a bright, moonlit night was not the best time to start contemplating your life choices, but it seemed to happen every time I worked with these guys; which was to say, twenty-four-seven for the past six months.

  “I’m in,” I whispered, pushing the suction holder I’d clamped to the freshly-cut glass disk and reaching my arm into the cooler, drier air of the office. With practiced ease, I levered myself headfirst through the hole, twisting to land lightly on my feet. I set the now useless glass gently on the floor, removed the rappelling cable that tethered me to the roof, and stood silently in the empty office, taking a second to get my bearings, to let my eyes adjust to the relative darkness, and to let my body, sweating from the humid night outside, cool for a second.

  “Daly, report.” As always, Xavier’s cool, imperious voice drove me bonkers.

  “Report,” I muttered. “Because I’m your freakin’ minion, X.” The comm device, created by Walker to detect the slightest sound, obviously caught my words, but other than Caelan’s reproachful sigh, nobody replied.

  Six months, the five of us had been living and working together, and I couldn’t say it had made much difference in my attitude. I still preferred to work alone, and it still bugged the crap out of me that I had four other voices in my head while I was on a job, but I had no one to blame for the situation but myself. I’d answered the invitation that January night, after all, and I’d agreed to stay even after Eugenia Carmichael’s videotaped last will and testament had thrown my life into a tailspin.

  “Office is empty,” I said, after a beat or two of silence where I glanced around the empty surfaces of the desk and bookcase behind me. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been working here. I was able to cut the window in a low visibility location. No direct views from inside or outside, thanks to the Rosenberg building next door being under renovation. Ethan’s intel was good.”