Chapter 9: Cruel Paradise: Chapter 9

I watch her face pale. I watch her lips part. I watch her knuckles turn white around the glass.

I watch all that and know that this gutsy young thief with luminous brown eyes that convey emotion like a silent movie star’s has skeletons in her closet that rival mine.

She might even have more, if that’s possible.

Swallowing, she moistens her lips. She clears her throat. Then she says, “What makes you say that?”

Her voice is shaky. For the first time since we met, she looks vulnerable.

That causes such a strong surge of protectiveness to flood through me, I have to take a moment to steady myself before I speak. “One of them didn’t recognize me.”

“How could you tell?”

“He thought I was your bodyguard.”

He sputtered it before he bled out from the bullet hole I’d put in his neck, cursing me for protecting “the girl.”

The interesting part was that his curses were in Serbian. I don’t have any Serbian enemies. I keep very careful lists.

Even more interesting is how still and pale Juliet has become, staring at me with wide, unblinking eyes.

Keeping my voice soft and low, I say, “If you tell me who you are, I can help you.”

“I’m no one of importance,” is her instant answer.

I’ve said those exact words to someone in the past, and it was a lie, too. “If you’re so unimportant, why the need for a fake name?”

“Sorry—Killian—but Juliet is my real name.”

Her eyes flash. Her tone is defiant. Every time she looks at me like that, with all that fire and fuck-you attitude, I want to push her down and pin her underneath me and kiss that smart mouth until she’s begging me to kiss her everywhere else.

“And Jameson? Is that your real last name?”

She presses her lips together and incinerates me with her stare.

“That’s what I thought.”

She stands abruptly, abandoning the whiskey glass on the countertop and wiping her palms on the front of her jeans. She announces, “I’m leaving,” and turns and heads toward the elevator doors, walking quickly with a stiff back and tense shoulders.

I let her go and pour myself another drink.

In a few minutes, she’s back. Seething. “The elevator’s locked.”

“Aye.”

“Open it.”

“No.”

Her voice rises. “I want you to let me go. Now.”

I study her. There’s an edge to her voice and a glint of panic in her eyes. It’s almost as if she thinks I’m…

When it dawns on me, I feel like a complete idiot for not realizing it sooner.

She’s afraid of being kidnapped.

Not raped, like I thought when she was freaking out in the taxi cab. Though that’s likely part of it, too. But mainly her anxiety seems to revolve around being taken—and held—against her will.

Fear of becoming a hostage is a very specific kind of fear. One ingrained by a specific kind of upbringing. And possibly a specific kind of training.

Her words come back to me again.

“Our fathers are all bad people. Very bad people. The kind who don’t care who they have to hurt to get what they want.”

I thought she meant drug dealers, perhaps, or some other kind of commonplace felon. Maybe even a soulless billionaire CEO. But added together with the acid disdain in her voice every time she calls me a gangster, and the unnatural calm she displayed during the car chase and gunfight, and her paranoia about becoming a victim of kidnapping—and, frankly, everything else—I think my little thief is the offspring of someone a tad worse than I thought.

Watching my expression, she demands, “What?”

“Juliet,” I say thoughtfully. “That’s an Italian name if I’ve ever heard one.”

“No. It’s English.”

“Not if it’s given to a girl born into an Italian family.”

As if she’s been slapped, her face turns white.

Bingo.

Something on my face makes her take a step back, shaking her head, her eyes wide.

“I won’t hurt you. There’s no need to try to run away.”

Her voice is strangled when she speaks. “Please let me go.”

I say firmly, “Juliet, I don’t care who your father is.”

She freezes in place as if turned to stone. The pulse in the side of her neck is flying.

Keeping my tone low and unthreatening, I say, “I won’t hold you against your will. I swear to you. But I need to find out who exactly was behind that attack and deal with him—or them—before you can go. For your own safety, as well as mine. All right?”

Her throat works. Her hands shake. I fight the urge to cross to her and take her into my arms and gesture to the corridor beyond the kitchen instead.

“There’s a guest room at the end of the hall. You can stay there. I won’t disturb you.”

When she doesn’t move, I add, “The door locks from the inside. The frame is reinforced with steel. No one can get in unless you let them in.”

“Are there cameras?”

“No.”

She licks her lips, shifting her weight from foot to foot, trying to decide whether or not to believe me.

“There’s also a gun in the nightstand. It’s loaded.” I add mildly, “Judging by how you held that rifle, I’m guessing you’re familiar with firearms.”

She narrows her eyes at me. She’s probably wishing she had a gun in hand right now.

Then she squares her shoulders and takes a deep breath. “How long do you think it will take you to find out what you need to know?”

“A few hours, at most.”

She blinks. I hope it’s because she’s impressed.

“So I could…maybe just…relax for a while until you’re done?”

I incline my head, watching her try to maintain her composure and fight against the urge to run screaming to the front door. Except there is no front door, which she’s already well aware of.

I take a few steps toward her. When she backs up, startled, I stop and hold up a hand, feeling pained. “Please. Trust me.”

Her laugh is small and dry. “Can you appreciate how crazy that request sounds, coming from you?”

“I did save your life.”

“Oh. Yeah.” She looks sheepish for a moment, then glances down at her feet. “Sorry. And, um…thank you.”

Fuck, she’s adorable. “You’re welcome. Anytime.”

She glances up from her feet, her mouth quirked. She studies me from under lowered brows for a moment, then sighs and throws her hands in the air.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Fine. I’ll stay here for a few hours. I don’t want to believe you’ll keep your word, but I do. Mostly. Against my better judgment.”

Then she props her hands on her hips and sends me her signature glare. “So don’t screw it up, okay?”

I say solemnly, “I’d rather die than disappoint you.”

It was an attempt at dry humor, but I surprise myself by meaning it.

She rolls her eyes. “Let’s hope that won’t be necessary.”

She turns on her heel and stalks off through the kitchen, toward the guest room down the hall. I hear a door slam and smile.

Then I take a plastic Ziploc bag from a drawer, put my hand inside it, pick up her whiskey glass with the same hand and pour the contents into the sink, and head whistling to my office to discover who my beautiful thief really is.

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“No.”

“C’mon, Killian. Seriously. You’re joking.”

“I’m not, Declan. I’m telling you the truth.”

“Really?”

“Aye. Fingerprints don’t lie.”

Silence crackles on the other end of the line for a moment, then I hear a low, disbelieving laugh. “Well, fuck. What are the odds?”

“Approximately seven billion to one.”

“Christ on a cracker. Antonio Moretti’s daughter?” More laughter. “That’s some serious shit right there.”

I say drily, “You don’t say?”

“So what’s your next move?”

“Good question.”

I gaze at the FBI report on my computer screen, my state of shock having only recently dulled to a more manageable amazement.

It isn’t every day I discover that the most interesting and attractive woman I’ve ever met is none other than the only child of the head of an infamous New York Italian crime family.

A man so vicious his breath is probably toxic.

A man whom, inconveniently, has been trying to kill me for quite some time.

“You think he set her up on the job?”

The diaper theft, Declan means. “No. I can’t find any evidence of contact between her and her father.”

I don’t tell him that her mother was killed in a car bomb explosion when Juliet was a child. I have a feeling that’s not something she’d want me to share. I also don’t share her years of homeschooling or her intensely sheltered lifestyle before she was sent away at thirteen to a boarding school in Vermont for the children of the ultra-rich. It seems her rebellious streak kicked in then, because as soon as she left her father’s household, she got into near constant trouble.

Immediately after graduating at eighteen, she was arrested for shoplifting. The charges were dropped—daddy’s influence, no doubt—but whoever was in charge of daddy’s security team neglected to scrub her fingerprints from the police database.

A mistake I’d never make, but a lucky one for me.

After her arrest, the FBI file ends. They don’t have her alias listed, or any current known address. Neither does Interpol or the NSA, and they know everyone. Which means she did an excellent job of covering her tracks.

Which means she’s even more impressive than I thought she was.

“Huh. So why she’d target you for the diaper job, then?”

My lips lift into a smile. “Apparently, she and her two sidekicks only steal from bad guys. Somehow, I ended up on their list.”

After a moment of silence, Declan says, “That explains it.”

“What?”

“Why you like her.”

“I don’t follow.”

“She’s a do-gooder. That’s your particular brand of Kryptonite.”

“How the hell would you know? You haven’t seen me with a woman since I took over for Liam.”

“He told me.”

I grit my teeth. This should be interesting. Annoying, but interesting. “What exactly did he say?”

“That the only time you’ve ever lowered your guard in your life was for a woman who was so in love with someone else, she died to save him.”

“She didn’t die,” I say through a clenched jaw. “And I saved him.”

I can’t see it, but I know right now he’s blowing smoke rings and waving a hand dismissively in the air. “Details. The point is, she was a do-gooder. Selfless. Generous. This one’s the same.”

“She’s a thief.”

“A philanthropist thief,” he corrects, sounding smug. “Who only steals from bad guys and donates the take to charity. I mean, if that’s not the definition of a do-gooder, I don’t know what is.”

When I stay silent too long, Declan says, “I know you’re sitting there trying to figure out how to argue with me, which is a problem because you also know that I’m right.”

“Actually, I was just picturing your slow and painful death by poisoning.”

“Psh. Poison’s a woman’s weapon. You’d just shoot me point-blank in the face.”

“A tempting thought. I’m hanging up now.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me you’re glad I survived our little run-in with the Serbians?”

I deadpan, “I’m thrilled,” and jab my finger against the End button on my phone.

He calls me back five seconds later. “Got a call from my buddy at the department. Feds are at the scene now.”

“Good. Have them give me everything they’ve got as soon as they’ve got it.”

He mimics a pirate’s accent. “Aye, aye, captain.”

“Declan?”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t ever say that again.”

“You don’t like it? It originated as a British Royal Navy nautical term meaning ‘Yes, I will do as you command.’ As opposed to the more generic ‘I understand’ in response to an order, which doesn’t implicitly connote obedience. Because, you know, the military’s real big on obedience.”

“I do know. I was in the military.”

His tone turns thoughtful. “That’s right. I always forget. Probably because I can’t picture you taking orders from anyone. I bet you got disciplined constantly, right?”

I mutter, “I should’ve shot you on sight,” and hang up on him again.

I sit thinking for several long moments. When my stomach grumbles, I realize I haven’t eaten anything for hours. I head to the kitchen to get something to eat, but stop in the living room, my ear cocked.

I hear the sound again. It’s a low thump, like a blow against a wall.

It’s coming from the corridor that leads to the guest room where Juliet is.

A few seconds later, I’m applying my knuckles firmly to the door of her room.

There’s a pause before she opens up. A pause in which I find it surprisingly difficult not to start pounding my fist on the wood and shouting. Then the handle turns, the door swings wide, and there she is.

Red-faced, disheveled, and breathing hard.

Behind her, the room is a wreck.

I let my gaze wander around the overturned furniture, the artwork hanging askew on the walls, the bed stripped of sheets. A nightstand has been dragged underneath an air vent on the ceiling on one side of the room. The window coverings lie in a crumpled pile on the floor.

I fold my arms over my chest, lean my shoulder against the wall, and say mildly, “I see you’ve been redecorating.”

“I was looking for cameras.”

“And trying to find a way out.”

“Yes.”

“There isn’t one.”

“I discovered that. Thank you.”

We stare at each other. She’s so lovely with the color high in her cheeks and her eyes ablaze with anger. I want to reach out and stroke her face, but know I’d only get slapped for the effort.

“You said you believed I’d keep my word.”

“I said I mostly believed you’d keep your word. And you can’t blame me for having my doubts about your veracity.” After a pause, she adds, “I’m sorry if that’s insulting. I don’t mean to insult you.” She closes her eyes, sighs, and mutters, “I can’t believe I’m apologizing.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, though.”

She opens her eyes and gazes at me with her brows drawn together, like I’m a frustrating puzzle she half wants to solve and half wants to set on fire and throw into the street.

“Are you hungry? I was just going to get something to eat.”

Ignoring that, she demands, “Did you find out anything yet? Can I leave?”

Ouch.

I say softly, “I want you to trust me.”

“And I want a unicorn pony. So here we are.”

I have to bite my lower lip to keep from laughing, because I know it would only enrage her more. “I’ll work on that. In the meantime, I’ll feed you.”

I turn around and walk away, feeling her gaze on my back as I go, trying to quell the dark, powerful surge of desire that moves through me when I hear her footstep on the marble and realize she’s following.