Conning for Keeps: A Novella

by Seleste deLaney

  Up and up and up. For a moment, she wondered why they hadn’t taken the elevator, but then it stopped mattering. This was better. She could leave Trevor a trail of breadcrumbs that stretched beyond the tiara.

  When Canalis finally turned down a hall—she’d lost count of what floor they were on—she slid the knife out of the tulle and nicked the corner of the wall as they turned. Down the hall, around the corner, and down the hall some more until they stopped in front of a heavy door on the end.

  “Here we are.”

  She eyed the wood in front of them, her fingers clutching the blade. If this was about to go as bad as Trevor seemed to think, maybe it’d be smarter to take care of Canalis here. Who knew what waited inside? “What’s behind door number one? Is it a library? Because you know, bitches love libraries.”

  His hand stayed on the doorknob, but he turned stiffly toward her, a glimmer of darkness dancing in his eyes. It hadn’t been there before, and Marissa wasn’t sure what it meant. Had she been found out?

  What was he waiting for? Back-up? Damn. She should have had Trevor put some sort of tracker on her. When they could have done that she didn’t know, but now it was too late. Keep playing the role. Keep up the bogus Valjean con until you don’t have a choice anymore. “Come on. Every castle needs a good…library.”

  As she said it, the truth hit her. This had nothing to do with passing the family business down to Frankie. Frankie who wanted to run away with his bride-to-be. The whole thing was part of her test. “And I’m pretty sure you have Evangeline lined up to take the crown. Don’t you? You found her somewhere and groomed her to take over for you. Frankie’s not going to be anything but a figurehead.”

  The poor guy had been nothing more than a mark who’d fallen completely for the con artist in front of him. Marissa tipped her head to the side, eyeing Canalis and waiting for a response. This was the reason for the test with Evangeline—to see if she could con another con artist. Dirty rat bastard. “So, did the romance happen before or after you found her and saw her potential? I’m guessing after. I figure she went for you first.”

  “Well played. She was too young for me since she’s twenty-two trying desperately to look thirty. You, on the other hand…” He combed his fingers through the waves of her hair and brushed them across her shoulder before tipping her chin up. She wanted to smack his slimy hand away and drive the blade into his heart, but she wasn’t in danger.

  This was merely one more step to endure so she could finish the mission. “I don’t care how old you are, because you’re smarter than she is. More beautiful, too. Not to mention, far, far better at your job. She might get to play princess with my son, but I’m very interested in you by my side. To that end”— He winked at her —“it is a library.”

  He pushed open the doors and led the way into the turret room. It was gorgeous and huge—as big as the dining room had been, though less filled with heavy furniture. Plush seating arranged around the middle, facing a dark cherry mantle over a stone fireplace where a blaze burned. But the walls…the walls were lined with books from floor to ceiling with a narrow walk halfway up to allow access to the higher shelves. She actually felt like Belle from Beauty and the Beast as she entered, gaping at everything.

  It wasn’t her dream. Despite the fireplace, this was different. For starters, it only had the one door. Once she stepped inside, she’d be trapped with only a single exit unless she actually wanted to brave the plunge from the windows.

  Distracted, she almost forgot to mark her passing, remembering at the last second to press the blade into the wood right below the knob.

  Of course, she was also trying to forget that Canalis had more or less propositioned her for sex…among other things. Queen of an empire. She’d be safe…from everyone but Canalis. And Evangeline. And herself.

  No, she’d rather die in this room than walk out of it like that. It’d be like being locked up again, only in a gilded cage this time. Strange how free her life with TRAIT felt in comparison.

  She didn’t know how she could do it and still protect the agency, but she couldn’t fall prey to this man. If part of her had actually wanted to at some point, now she knew it was nothing but a death sentence.

  “Marissa?” Canalis’s hand was on her elbow, and it took all her focus not to flinch from his touch.

  She needed to be done with this and out of here. The government didn’t need the painting. And neither did she; she already had closure on her past. Josh Marron had provided her that with her new life years ago, even if it had taken this debacle of a mission for her to figure it out. And she had Trevor. Maybe. If she managed to not screw that up.

  “Sorry, having a princess…er, queen moment.”

  Canalis smiled and moved closer. “For now, I’ve arranged for you to have a very nice apartment, but I’ll be sure to convert part of the house into a library for you if not having one would be a deal breaker. Of course, we still need to discuss what you’ll be doing for me.”

  “Of course.” She breathed a bit easier as he put some distance between them.

  He moved to a small desk near a window, opened a drawer there, and pulled out a Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm. She held her breath until he laid it on the desk in order to free a panel from the inside.

  “There’s a certain group of politicians who are making my life…difficult. I’ve heard whispers they’re trying to infiltrate the organization in order to bring me down.”

  This was it. He knew. He was going to pick up the damn gun and shoot her dead, and it’d be all over because she was cocky and stupid and…

  “I want you to get close to them—by whatever means necessary. Information for blackmail would be good, compromising photos better. Anything else I can leak that will put them into question would be greatly appreciated as well. Are you up for the task?”

  Wait. What?

  “I—uh…you want me to do what? Threaten them? Play whore for you?” The urge to bolt was replaced by the need to get the gun away from him…just in case. A handful of strides, and she joined him at the desk.

  “Not exactly, but we can discuss details later. In the meantime, I believe I have a promise to keep.” He fiddled in the drawer and, over the mantle, a section of shelving swung open.

  Marissa spun and collapsed against the edge of the desk, the gun inches from her hand but almost forgotten in the moment.

  There it was. Certain Laughter. The damn painting that had haunted her all this time. Canalis strode over and gazed up at it like it was the most beautiful thing in the world. With the desire in his eyes, she almost felt bad for the damn painting. Creeper mafia don is creepy.

  Not taking her eyes off the art, she reached behind her. There was still a play here that didn’t involve dead bodies, but she had to be smart—cautious. Discarding her knife for a second, she picked up the gun and thumbed the magazine release. The sound barely registered over the crackling fire.

  She eased a bobby pin from her hair and bent it over the top of the clip before sliding the whole thing back into place. Letting out a slow exhale, she replaced the gun on the desk. Odds were he wouldn’t check the magazine, and it would at least give her a few seconds if she needed them.

  With the blade back in her hand, she let her gaze return to the art. The painting was smaller than she’d anticipated, ornate frame included. It was less than a yard long and maybe two feet wide. No matting to keep it safe. No glass either. Weird.

  Without realizing she’d moved, she stood next to Canalis. Leaning against a leather armchair, she stared up at her dream and shuddered. Obsession, not dream, not anymore. Closure or not, she still needed the piece if she wanted to protect her job and prove to Trevor that she was one of the good guys. The government wanted it out of Canalis’s hands, and she had the ability to take it.

  Right now.

  She stashed the knife between the chair’s cushion and arm. “Can I hold it?”

  He shrugged and pulled one of the book ladders over, keeping it steady as she cl
imbed. “Be careful with it. I’d hate for you to cut yourself. You know where the name comes from, right?”

  “I know in Italian the title of the piece is Sicura Rido. Basically means the same thing—Sure I Laugh—which sounds stupider than Certain Laughter.”

  “Ah, but Sicura Rido doesn’t mean what people think. It’s an anagram. Rearrange the letters and it becomes Ira di Orcus, Wrath of Orcus. Orcus, god of the underworld and punisher of oath-breakers.”

  Standing atop the ladder, she turned and batted her eyelashes at him. “As far as you’re concerned, I’m honest as the day is long. So I’m not too worried.”

  “Perhaps you should still be cautious.”

  Snorting, she gripped the edges of the frame and lifted it off the hangers. “Nice try, but I only believe in the art, not the curse. So can we stop with the games now?”

  “Last time I checked, you didn’t need to believe in a gun for it to kill you.” Actual worry lined his face. Her eyes flicked to the semi-automatic on the desk, but then the truth hit her.

  Holy shitburgers, he actually buys into the legend.

  That was a twist Marissa hadn’t expected.

  She set the painting on the floor, angling it toward him as the next steps in this dance revealed themselves. “No, but there is a school of thought in horror movies that if you don’t believe in the ghost, it can’t hurt you. The painting isn’t a gun, and I’d hazard to say it’s not even a ghost. It does have a certain haunted and tortured beauty, though.” She leaned against the side of the armchair.

  “That it does.” He stepped in front of her, his eyes hungry. “I should put it back before we get down to negotiations.”

  One chance.

  She knew that was all she had.

  She yanked the knife from its hiding place and wrapped her arms around him, the blade pressing against his jugular. “I don’t think that’s necessary. You see, it’s not going back on that wall, and this is pretty much the sum of our negotiations right here.”

  “You duplicitous bitch.” He tried to twist in her embrace, but she held the knife tight and blood welled in the shallow cut on his throat.

  “Uh uh uh. I might not believe in the curse, but you sure as hell do. All it’d take is a flick of my wrist, and it’s all over but the eulogies.” She could do it. Get out of here with her sanity and the painting. Go back to TRAIT and live the damn life she’d earned.

  Canalis didn’t move against her blade, but she caught his smile out of the corner of her eye. “You forgot one thing. Certain Laughter belongs to me. It offers me protection. You can’t kill me, and it certainly won’t.”

  Holy crap on a Rembrandt. His devotion to that piece of canvas knew no bounds.

  Her gaze flicked to the painting, and the urge to test his theory made her tighten her grip on the blade. Bluff time. “You don’t know much about mythology, do you? Items like that have built-in fail-safes. They can’t protect you against their own magic.” Then the trump card flashed in her mind. “Besides, it isn’t yours anymore.”

  “What?”

  “You willingly let me take it off the wall. I was the last person to hold it in my hands, not you.”

  His pulse jumped against her wrist. She could practically hear him sorting out the options in his head and realizing there weren’t nearly as many as he was used to.

  Marissa leaned forward to whisper in his ear, “The painting’s mine now, and here’s how this is going to work…”

  Locked. The damn doors were locked.

  No more playing it safe. Marissa was in there with Canalis and the stupid cursed painting. It was time for back up. Trevor pressed the emergency call button on his phone and leveled his Glock right below the handle. He was willing to call in reinforcements, but he sure as hell wasn’t waiting for them.

  The gunshot echoed down the hall and rang in his ears, but everything that mattered was behind these two pieces of wood. He raced toward it, bending low to ram his shoulder against the injured wood. The doors flew open, and he tucked into a ball, twisting up to one knee.

  “Goddamn it, Trevor!” Marissa screeched from an armchair to his left.

  But he had his gaze locked on Canalis and the gun in his hand. Before the man pulled the trigger, Trevor dove for cover behind the couch. “What the hell?”

  “I had him until you busted the damn door down!”

  Trevor cursed himself in every language he could think of. She’d told him to trust her—over and over again, she’d told him. “I thought he was going to kill you.”

  “More like offer me the keys to his personal Playboy mansion where I was supposed to be bunny number one.”

  He would beat the life out of Canalis with his bare hands.

  “I was going for the consolation prize of the painting before you barged in.”

  Canalis growled from behind the desk, “You two know you won’t get out of here alive. I have a dozen men in the building who are probably racing upstairs as we speak.”

  And there were at least a dozen agents storming after them. Along with a few hundred innocent bystanders. The faster they ended this standoff, the better. “Marissa, what are you working with over there?”

  “A five inch blade and a cursed painting. You?” The flippant tone in her voice did nothing to hide her nerves. She was a sitting duck against whatever gun Canalis had. The only thing protecting her was probably the damn artwork.

  Which meant it was up to him and whatever element of surprise he could cook up. He tensed his muscles, getting ready.

  Marissa blurted out, “I also have an idea…”

  But it was too late, Trevor had launched himself over the couch, rolling toward Canalis. He never made it. The gunshot deafened him to everything but the agony burning through his shoulder as he staggered back toward Marissa and the stupid painting he recognized from the night Delray died. The Glock tumbled from his grip and went spinning.

  No. No! No!

  The blazing log scorched her fingers, but she held it tight to the painting.

  Too much of the blood from her knife had soaked into the rug. She tried cutting the painting with the blade, but she didn’t believe in the stupid curse…until Trevor’s blood had hit the side of her face and the painting. One minute, it had been there, crimson dripping down the lines of the woman’s face, and then it was gone, like the canvas sucked it up.

  Suddenly it didn’t matter if she believed or not. If there was the slightest chance it was true, she had to put a stop to it. The man she loved had bled on the damn painting, and she refused to let it be his death sentence.

  Screw the art. It was not worth more to her than Trevor.

  The intensity of the heat had her instincts screaming to drop the log, and she had to dig her nails into the wood to keep from letting go. Her pink nail polish curled and smoked, but no matter how the flames licked it, the painting refused to light. “Damn you to Hell!” she screamed, plunging the wood into the center of the piece, right over the spot where Trevor’s blood had been.

  A scream erupted from the other side of the room as the canvas caught at last. Canalis rushed her, but her bobby pin had done its job—inhibiting the magazine’s ability to feed into the gun.

  Canalis pulled the trigger over and over as he raced toward her and was still trying to fire the empty weapon when he stopped two feet away. He tossed it and grabbed her by the neck, squeezing and pushing her to her knees. The log fell from her grip. “You’ll pay for that.”

  She clawed at Canalis’s hands, arms, face…anything she could reach, but he just pressed his fingers into her skin, cutting off the air to her lungs. Frantic, she searched for an idea. Toward the door, Trevor struggled to reach his gun, but he’d never make it. The damn thing had gone spinning, and he’d bleed out before he crawled to it.

  She’d known when she started this con she had to do it on her own. That meant getting them out of it alive now, too. The lack of oxygen made focusing impossible, and snippets of the weekend flashed through her brain like
a manic slide show as darkness danced at the edges of her vision.

  Trevor’s body on hers.

  Evangeline’s evil smile.

  The ring slipping onto her finger.

  Canalis threatening her by pressing the corkscrew into her gut.

  Leaving the trail of breadcrumbs for Trevor to find her.

  The knife!

  The blackness closed in, and she blindly searched the space around her. It had to be close, but her eyes were already rolling back. She’d lose consciousness in a second, and it would be all over. She’d failed. TRAIT. Trevor. Herself. Everyone.

  They’d both die before she told him she chose him, that she would always choose him.

  “This is what happens to people who don’t know their place, Marissa. Traitors go straight to hell.”

  With his last words, her numbing fingers hit something that wasn’t rug or wood. She caught the metal with her fingernails and dragged it close enough to grab. Then, gathering strength she’d been sure she didn’t have left, Marissa shoved her hands between his wrists and forced them wide, breaking his grip. Without fear, without remorse, she plunged the blade into his gut and yanked it to the left, blood spraying and spattering over the painting.

  It didn’t soak in like Trevor’s had. It didn’t need to. Terror shone on Leo Canalis’s face and kept him immobile. No matter. In seconds, he’d be dead.

  “You first,” she croaked.

  As quickly as she could manage, she crawled to Trevor, wincing as she heard the body fall behind them. As long as the man in front of her lived, she would feel nothing for Canalis. She’d done what she had to.

  “Nice work, baby girl,” Trevor grunted, his fingers half a yard from his Glock. She grabbed it and dragged it to them. “Though I kind of wanted to take the bastard out myself.”

  Still alive. Still alive…

  “He shot you.” She wadded up her dress, pressing it against his shoulder, but the tulle was useless. Blood kept seeping through. He couldn’t die. Couldn’t. Her heart pounded in her ears as impending loss squeezed her heart in a death grip.