by Carter Blake
“Fair enough.” He shrugs, obviously not really caring all that much.
I walk to the door and open it, letting the rest of the team in.
Manticore simply nods and strolls in. Leviathan flies past me and darts into the kitchen, smiling when he sees Jackal sitting on the bar stool.
“Jackal! I hope you’ve got your watch strapped to your arm this time,” he teases. “Otherwise, she’s gonna swipe it again. Might not give it back.”
He smirks and glances around, then looks to me when he sees no one else.
“Where’s she at? And what’s for dinner? I’m starving!”
I roll my eyes and close the door, walking back into the kitchen to grab my glass.
“She’s gone, she’s not coming back. I’ll order something. And we can finalize things for tomorrow. Nothing’s changed really.”
I walk off so that it’s clear that I’m done talking about it, and I sit down on the couch in the living room.
I sit down and immediately feel something jabbing into my back. I reach my hand down into the cushion and pull out a nail file.
Christ, did she do this on purpose? Leave little reminders of her all over the place to remind me I fucked up?
I grumble and toss it into a plant pot. Out of sight, out of mind.
“Auntie!” I holler.
She comes sauntering into the living room where I’m sitting and smiles.
“What can I do for you?”
“Can you order something for us, please? Preferably not too spicy. Dinner plans have changed. We’ll need something else.”
She squints at me, clearly realizing that something is wrong, but she won’t say anything in front of the team. She simply nods and walks out into the office to make a call.
Manticore joins Jackal at the bar, and they start discussing logistics for tomorrow. Leviathan slides over next to me on the couch. He props his feet up on the coffee table and sighs, looking over at me with a shrug.
“What’s going on, Griff?”
His tone isn’t accusatory or nosy, and he seems to genuinely care about what happened between Kalista and me and not just what’s happening tomorrow.
“We had a disagreement of sorts.”
He looks at me and scowls. “A disagreement? When people have a ‘disagreement,’ it usually doesn’t end with one of them leaving for good. You seemed to really like this one.”
“I did really like her. I do really like her,” I confess, taking another swill from my glass.
He straightens himself abruptly and throws his arms up in the air. Then, he gives me a bewildered look, shaking his head.
“Then, what the hell are you doing? Go after her!”
I scoff at him and shake my head in disagreement, muttering, “Right, whole lot of good that will do.”
“Oh, come off it! I saw how you guys looked at each other. Made me hopeful for my own future, it did. You like her, she likes you. You’re not even gonna bother trying?”
A sigh escapes my lips as I consider it. But then what would I do when I find her? She’s not going to want to come back after what I did.
“It’s better off this way. No distractions.”
“Well,” he begins as he puts his feet back up, “I think you’re being a dolt.”
“A what?!” I scoff.
“A dolt! An idiot! A dummy! You’ve got a great woman; so what if you did something stupid? It was bound to happen sooner or later. It’s you. But that doesn’t mean you can’t fix it.”
Can’t he take a hint?
“Let it go, it’s done.”
My tone is stern, and it draws the attention of Jackal, who strolls over, probably thinking he should step in before things get too heated.
“Forget about her. Have another drink, and think about how great it’s going to be to walk out of there tomorrow with this.”
With one hand, he places his tablet down on the table in front of me, pointing at the plans for tomorrow and the pieces in the museum. The other hand passes me my bottle of Dalmore 62.
I nod and pour myself nearly a full glass of scotch, focusing on tomorrow’s task.
We’ll pull off the heist, get our profit, and be out of the country before anyone knows it’s even gone.
I take a deep breath as the others talk among themselves and stick my hand in my pocket, pulling out a little scrap of paper with a note scrawled on it.
Fuck, who am I kidding?
Sure, I’m going to pull off the heist of my life, but what’s the point if the person I want to share it with is gone?
Chapter 33
Griffin
I don’t know if the others can tell.
But something’s not right.
I had felt it from the moment I woke up. Even though nothing has changed—I execute my morning rituals like I’ve done for years now—there’s something in the air. It’s electric and tense; it sits heavily on my chest, and I know exactly what it is.
It’s Kalista.
It’s her smile; it’s her laugh. It’s the way she was so eager to learn. It’s the fact that I had finally found a woman who could match me in every fucking way.
It’s the memory of her body under me, of her lips.
And I had sent her away.
No, worse.
I made her want to leave.
Good fucking job, Griffin. Ever the gentleman.
I look in the mirror, and I see the memory of her face. How hurt Kalista had been, when I all but told her she was another payday for me. The fire and ice in those eyes still burn deep in my chest.
I’ve got to talk to her. If she can ever bare to see me again, I need to talk to her. To tell her that I fucked up, and that doesn’t happen often—but I did definitely fuck up. I want her by my side here in Marrakesh, and I want her by my side for every other heist to come.
But it’s too late now.
I’ve got to focus on the job ahead. I might want Kalista by my side today, but Jackal, Leviathan, and the Manticore all need me to be there. They need my head in the game, and I’ve never been known to disappoint.
I pat myself down before I leave the apartment, making sure that I’ve got everything. Our rendezvous point is a little family-run café near the museum, where we’ll go over the plan one last time and probably get a coffee whilst we scope out the scene.
The plan’s flawless, but it never hurts to be sure.
I take a taxi to the café; the Manticore is bringing our get-away car—not that we should have to drive fast to get away from the police. If everything goes according to plan, we’ll just walk out the back door without anyone in the museum noticing until they check their inventory for the night. By that point, we’ll all be long gone.
But it never hurts to keep a fast car and a driver with nerves of steel on hand, just in case everything doesn’t go according to plan.
When I get there, the Manticore is already sitting, sipping at an Americano, and Jackal is at the counter, paying for his tea—Earl Grey, one sugar and the barest splash of milk. If he can, he’ll take a biscuit, but I doubt we’ll find a plain old Rich Tea in a place like Marrakesh.
I order mint tea. It’s practically the national drink, and it doesn’t hurt anyone to get into the right mindset of a country or city when you’re going to steal from them.
We sit around the table, sipping in silence for a moment. I’m watching the busy streets, waiting for the Leviathan’s familiar crop of ginger hair to part through the headscarves and hats. But he has yet to appear.
“Has anyone heard from Levi yet?”
“Not a peep,” Jackal says.
Manticore’s jaw clenches, and he blows on his coffee. This isn’t normal; it’s unsettling. Manticore’s already on edge.
“Where is he?” Manticore hisses, and Jackal and I both shrug.
“Maybe he just slept in?” Jackal suggests.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Leviathan wouldn’t. Not on a heist day,” Manticore snaps, and he places down his cup with an audible cl
atter.
“Maybe the traffic is just shit. It’s not the end of the world, Manticore,” I say, but the former spy shakes his head.
I understand it, though. In his line of work, I wouldn’t be surprised if something like this was the first sign of the cover being blown and the whole job going to shit around you.
But maybe he’s right. First, Kalista, now, Leviathan?
Our team members seem to be dropping like flies. I know the first one was my fault, but I can’t remember saying anything to Leviathan that might make him want to fuck off back to his parents.
“Oh, look,” Jackal says, pointing to and nodding his head at other side of the road, “there he is.”
And there he is indeed. Leviathan is all but running through the crowds—even though none of us have seen him run for anything in years. His face is as red as his hair, and his laptop satchel is swinging wildly at his side.
“At least, we won’t be too waylaid. It never takes him long to drink an espresso,” Jackal quips to diffuse the tension.
But Manticore has already stood up from his seat, his eyes surveying every angle, scanning over shop fronts to find the threat and, failing that, an exit strategy.
“Guys!” Leviathan pants as he comes into range. I kick out a chair for him, and immediately he collapses into it. “Guys, guys! It’s Kali, it’s Phoenix.”
My heart leaps into my throat, and I grip at the flimsy linen tablecloth until my knuckles turn white.
“What’s happened, Leviathan?” Jackal asks; he can sense my rising anger, and yet he remains calm.
Good, one of us needs to.
“So, I was keeping an ear on chatrooms and a tap on the phone we gave her and the one on her father. You know, so it’ll ping whenever someone mentions her name or something to do with her—”
“Get to the point, Levi,” I interject, leaning toward him slightly.
“Right! Yeah, so...” he begins, then pauses and looks at me. “She’s been kidnapped. For real. On the way to the airport last night.”
The taste of blood seeps into my mouth as I clench my jaw, biting my lower lip in the process. I jump to my feet, and Leviathan and Jackal stand with me.
“That’s not all, Griff. I’ve been keeping an eye on her father, too—Mr. Von Knopf,” Leviathan explains, looking over his shoulders to check that no one else is listening.
They’re not, and we know that this café has no security cameras. No one will know we were here.
“He’s taken out the ransom money.”
“Yeah, of course, he has,” I say. “She’s his daughter.”
“No, but Gryphon,” Leviathan continues, “he took it out of his account before the ransom demands were made. As though he knew what they were going to ask for. Down to the last penny.”
Everything begins to make sense now: the repeat attempts at kidnapping; how the kidnappers knew we were in Barcelona—right after we saw Kali’s father at the auction; why a public campaign to get his daughter back hasn’t been launched; how the kidnappers could get past Kalista’s extensive team of bodyguards in the first place.
It’s an inside job.
It’s him.
It’s her father.
“And I did some further digging,” Leviathan says, touching my arm to get me to sit back down.
I do, and I’m grateful for the aluminum chair that stopped me from falling on my arse.
“What’s worse is that Mr. von Knopf is in deep with the debt collectors, and the ransom money is equal to everything he owes—with interest.”
“Do you know who’s holding her, Levi?” Jackal asks as my mind ticks over the possibilities of what comes next.
Do we continue the heist? If we don’t do it now, we’ll never get another opportunity like this.
“Of course, I do.” Leviathan sighs and, somehow in the Moroccan sun, grows paler. “She was taken by Tartarus. The Tartarus.”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” the Manticore chimes in suddenly. He snaps his head from the streets around us, then back to Leviathan. “Well, of course, Daddy Von Knopf would only want the best in kidnapping for his little princess. Anything to make it believable.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Tartarus is known for being the best and meanest in mercenary work. Lost count how many times they’ve tried to recruit me—but they’re also known for their cruelty. It’s no coincidence they take their name from a prison for titans,” Manticore explains. He downs the rest of his coffee and looks to the Leviathan.
“She’s not been with them too long, but it looks like her father is going to leave her there for a little while. To make it look believable to the press or whatever.”
“He’s going to put her through that?” Manticore asks.
The disbelief in his voice is unsettling. He knows more than he’s telling us, but I know he’s trying to protect me. Trying to stop me from flying off the handle and doing anything rash.
I can’t believe it.
I almost want to be sick. Kalista deserves the goddamn world and yet the man she thought she could trust the most has turned around and done this to her? My hands tremble with rage as I sip my tea and consider what to do next.
This heist is one-of-a-kind.
But so is Kalista.
Chapter 34
Kalista
“Alors, que devons-nous faire avec elle?” a rough, husky voice says from behind me.
I think.
Thanks to the black blindfold ripping into my temples, I can’t see.
But I can feel and hear all too well.
With no sight, the rest of my senses are heightened, making me severely and frustratingly sensitive to my surroundings.
There is a chill in the air and a metallic smell that pinches my skin and leaves a bitter taste on my tongue.
It’s unnerving, and it sends my mind racing.
Where in the hell am I?
Who took me?
Who is that guy?
What did he say?
So, what do we do with her?
My heart frantically pounds. It’s heavier and harder each passing second.
In seconds, my breathing becomes erratic.
The sudden spike of adrenaline and awareness leaves me feeling faint, dizzy, and scared as hell.
But after hearing that voice—whoever it is—I have the urge to ask questions. And to scream.
Not just from fear and in order to get help, but so that I can know more about my situation. It makes me very attune to my vulnerability and relative danger at this moment.
I could scream and cry out for help, but what would they do in response?
Do they want to kill me?
I know nothing of my situation.
So I stay quiet, until I know what I should do next.
And then it goes silent.
It’s an eerie silence that makes my stomach clench—and not in the fun way.
Only my heavy pants fill the space.
I turn my ear to each direction.
I’m hoping that I’ll be able to decipher something—anything—at this point that would help put me at some sort of ease.
I quickly become self-conscious and nervous about my breathing—and how they are reacting to it.
I hear some shuffling of shoes and hushed murmurs in the distance.
“Stronzo!” a man yells, and I jump unexpectedly.
I instinctively turn towards it.
Is that Italian?
They’re speaking Italian. But they weren’t before—that was French.
I hold on to that fact. It’s something I can recognize and understand.
And it’s information that begins to fill the gaps I’ve been anxiously falling into.
Though my body is overwhelmed with my frenzied senses, I feel oddly calm because of this small fact.
I silently thank my parents for sending me to the finest boarding schools.
I haven’t had to call upon my Italian or French in a while—at least not as
much as I have with Griff.
With him, I was able to speak in any language I wanted to, and he’d understand.
He probably doesn’t even know I’m here, bound in the way he seemed to like and enjoy.
Though this is hardly as enjoyable
Even if he did know, I doubt he would care.
He was clear—he’s done with me.
And with me dead, or at least kidnapped and taken far away from him, it’s one of the easiest ways to get rid of me.
Albeit, it’s a bit dramatic.
But wait, what if this is Griff?
What if his friends are playing a ridiculously terrible game with me?
Maybe this is his way of teaching me how to be a thief, like him.
This is all just a test for me, and the gentlemen are forcing me to prove I’m worthy to be a part of the club.
Perhaps, everything he did was all a ruse to get me here, tied up to a chair, with nothing to fight with other than the lessons he taught me.
It sounds plausible, and definitely something they would do to newbies.
It’d be like the hazing phase of a pledge, except a lot more serious and frightening.
A phone rings, and I’m immediately pulled from my thoughts.
A man—possibly the same one from before—answers on the first ring.
“Ici,” he says eagerly.
Here—now we’re back to French.
I file that with the other information I’ve compiled so far, which admittedly isn’t much, but it’s still something.
It eases me a little bit more.
It makes me feel like I can beat this game—if that’s what this is.
I can finally steady my breath knowing I have a hidden card in my pocket, a game-changer of sorts—well, hopefully.
And with that sense of security, I refocus my attention.
I need to take advantage of the senses I do have and put them to use—I can hear what they’re saying and feel their presence.
With that, I can assess their motives and plans.
This game is unlike any I’ve played before.
And it’s not quite as pleasurable as Griff’s past ones.
Maybe this isn’t Griff.
