by Shea Godfrey
Table of Contents
Synopsis
By the Author
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
About the Author
Books Available From Bold Strokes Books
King of Thieves
When a world-class thief runs into a bounty hunter just days before the biggest deal of her life, a payday to retire on becomes a game of cat and mouse that could change everything.
Cassandra Marinos, a thief who has never run from a challenge or met a painting she couldn’t steal, finds herself in a precarious position when in possession of not only a Rembrandt worth a small fortune, but a long-lost work of art worth untold millions. Bounty hunter Finnegan Starkweather finds herself in a unique position as well. While recovering a stolen Rembrandt would be a sweet bounty, settling an old score is worth even more. And while Finn is a brand new handsome distraction for Casey—despite the danger she represents—Finn has been looking for Casey for far longer than she’s been looking for revenge.
King of Thieves
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King of Thieves
© 2017 By Shea Godfrey. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13:978-1-63555-008-5
This Electronic Original is published by
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, NY 12185
First Edition: December 2017
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Ruth Sternglantz
Production Design: Stacia Seaman
Cover Design by Shea Godfrey
By the Author
Nightshade
Blackstone
King of Thieves
Acknowledgments
Thank you to you, the reader. I hope you like it, and I hope it provides you with a brief escape from whatever your worries may be. Thank you to Ruth Sternglantz for your infinite patience, and thank you to Sue Reese for being such an exceptional bluestocking.
This is dedicated to all of you who provide compassion, kindness, and the strength of a helping hand to those in need. The resistance against what’s happening in America now is not only the resistance of marches, protest signs, and voices raised in defiance of injustice and hatred, it is also the rebirth of equality, empathy, community, and free thinking. Your compassion gives aid and comfort to those who are most in need. Your kindness replaces fear with love. Your strength protects those most vulnerable in our society against the indifference and cruelty of power. #TheResistance
Chapter One
San Michele di Serino, Italy
Present day
The breeze moved like an animal within the leaves of the oak tree, familiar and certain of its path. There were a dozen other trees clustered upon the natural terrace of land, but for the moment, the wind had chosen only the tallest. Its lofty branches were heavy with foliage and the wind spiraled downward into the rich chaos.
Finnegan could almost feel the roots of the tree far beneath her feet, the ropy veins living proof of the last two hundred years. When she closed her eyes, she imagined she could hear it through the thick soles of her boots, a primitive pulse unlike any other.
The air smelled different here than anywhere else she had ever been. It was the earth itself, she’d been told once, the soil lavish with sorrow and the touch of God’s leisure, when the afternoon sun hit the hills just so. And it was Italy, after all, still caught within the fading embrace of summer. There was nothing else like it in the world.
She could taste only sadness at the moment, however, as she took another step closer to the stone that marked the grave. The words carved within the granite were a dark silhouette upon the surface and they held no structure within the darkness. The only purpose they served was to show that the smooth rock had been made uneven by an impossible truth.
Finn turned her head to the left just a bit as her muscles tensed.
“It is only me.”
She recognized him, though his whisper bore no mark of the rough, distinctive qualities it usually held. The echo of Italian was thick within his English, and her eyes found him within the shadows cast by the long clouds that passed beneath the moon.
“It’s too late for you, Papa Pietro,” Finn replied softly. She smiled, though; she couldn’t help it. “And too far from the house…How did you know I was here?”
“You think I don’t know when you are close? You think I am so rich in love, that one feels like another?”
“If you trip and break a hip, I’ll be pinched for sure.”
The old man laughed beneath his breath and moved closer to her. “I know this land better than any man ever will. I do not trip.” Finn caught sight of the cane he used, and a small push of anxiety warmed her chest. “I know all the stones here, as I knew the crown of my son’s head the day after he was born. Soft and warm beneath my hand. He smelled of peaches.”
Finn smiled, not expecting the words.
She turned away and looked past the grave that had drawn her halfway around the world. There were others, and from the corner of her eye she watched as the cane moved through the air. She followed where it pointed.
“He lies over there…and the brother of my heart is just there. It is his blood that runs through your veins.” The cane gestured to the right and then struck the ground as he took a small step for balance. “And his son there, your father. My mother and her people, beyond. My sisters and my brother Emilio, who was a great fisherman.” He was quiet for a time. “He looked like our mother.”
“Technically…” Finn teased in a gentle voice. It would pull him back and she knew it. “We aren’t actually related. You do remember that, right?”
The old man stepped close on her left. She was taller than he was, but it still felt as if she looked up. “The heart’s blood is different—you know this.”
Finn tried to see his eyes in the darkness.
“You are close
, then?”
“Yes.”
“You would still see justice done?”
Finn said nothing.
“Good. Revenge is better. I have stood where you stand. I know what I’m saying. They took everything from me…but I made them pay.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Finn acknowledged.
“Then you should not have risked coming here. They will kill you if they see you.”
Finn’s eyes returned to the gravestone.
“You received your package?”
Finn smiled, surprised. “Yes, thank you.”
“It must be a woman.”
She tried not to laugh. “What would you know?” Her tone was filled with affection, for she knew damn well that he knew everything.
“I know enough.” His response was amused.
Finn watched the shadows slide across the cold granite. She heard him move, and then she closed her eyes as the warmth of his fingers brushed in a fleeting manner across her cheek.
“Is she wild and beautiful?” His voice was filled with respect, for the size of the gesture she would make had not been lost upon him.
The darkness that clung to the headstone began to swim and sway, no match for the tears that filled her eyes. For just a few seconds the moon slid free of the clouds, and she could read the marker, its elegant swirl of letters pushing the air from her lungs.
“Is she?”
Finn remembered the words he had once spoken. Find a woman who is wild and beautiful, with a will that will match your own. Her voice was a ghost. “Yes.”
“Then don’t fuck it up.”
Finn laughed. She hadn’t seen that one coming. She met his shadowed gaze as she wiped at her eyes. “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that? I’m pretty sure no one would complain when you don’t show up for dinner. All I need is a rock and a shovel.”
The old man laughed in return, his frail shoulders going back. He took a breath and spoke in a happy rush of Italian.
Finn turned to him at last and lowered her head. He slipped a gentle hand into her thick dark hair and claimed a generous handful. “I miss you, too,” she whispered.
Near Bergerac, the Dordogne, France
Cassandra Marinos shut her suitcase and threaded the lock through the holes in the tabs of the main zipper. She knew that, at best, such a paltry attempt at security would only prevent her things from flying free down the runway. As for keeping them safe from human mischief, she had no illusions.
She dragged the bag from her bed and it dropped to the carpet as she glanced about the shadows of her bedroom. The suitcase followed her down the long, wide hallway until she reached the main room.
The curtains were closed and the shadows were thick as they swarmed upward in the fading light of the early evening.
Her bookshelves were in order and the furniture was covered. Janine would stop by every other day to make sure all was well, and that the alarms were working properly. And to use the pool if it gets hot enough, she thought with a wry smile at her beloved housekeeper’s expense, and drink my wine. She’d left several bottles of a rather lovely Spanish wine on the kitchen table, and she had no doubt they would be gone when she returned. The expansive kitchen swept away into the darkness of the dining room beyond, and for a moment, she thought she saw a shadow of movement.
Her gaze skipped to the fireplace on the opposite wall.
The urn sat at the center of the carved mantelpiece, surrounded by framed photos she could not make out from where she stood, and a few tokens she could not bear to hide away.
The ceramic vase was rich with colors that had lost their names without the light, but she knew every dense turn of paint as it moved, intense eddies of midnight blue that washed over indigo. There were greens and splashes of gold as well, like swirling stars that might jump free and land upon the stones of the hearth with a hiss.
Casey set the suitcase up and walked to the fireplace, her hand lifting as she neared.
The brushstrokes beneath her fingertips were like Braille, and she closed her eyes as she read the memories. They raced across the insides of her eyelids like words spoken too fast.
“One last adventure,” she whispered, and her palm moved like a breeze across the smooth curve of the urn. Her throat was tight and she wiped at her eyes as she turned away.
She retrieved her suitcase and checked for her tickets and passport before she set the alarms, and then she closed the door behind her.
Chapter Two
Baia Mare, Romania
May 1986
The .45 caliber semiautomatic looked expensive and shiny against the faded and beat-up surface of the kitchen table. It was silver plated with red maple wood stocks, and scrollwork that wound down the barrel. The smooth etch was either a dragon, or flames, or both—Asher James couldn’t tell. He didn’t think it mattered, though, since neither flames nor a dragon would do him in. A bullet from the clip inside the gaudy weapon might make a mess of him, but the weapon itself did not impress him.
The words that were spoken as Asher stared across the table were foreign to him, but they sounded vaguely insulting, nonetheless. He recognized the words pistol and thief in Croatian, but that was all.
“In English, if you please,” Asher responded. He struck a match upon the surface of the table and lifted it to his hand-rolled cigarette. He suspected his companion didn’t speak French, so he didn’t bother asking.
The young man smiled as his left hand dropped slowly to the table. His fingertips tapped lightly, but an inch or two from the weapon. “You like my gun, yes?”
Asher picked a piece of tobacco from his tongue with his thumb and ring finger. “Yes, it’s very pretty.” His eyes narrowed against the smoke. “Where is Ketrin?”
The young man tossed his head to the side and smoothed back his long black hair at the same time. He wore stiff dark blue Levi’s and black boots laced up tight. He did not, however, wear a shirt. The reason for that was a show of strength, and while Asher recognized the Madonna and Child tattooed upon his chest, the tiger’s head, the Tao, and the dagger that started on one side of his neck and came out the other, Asher didn’t care.
“You’re dealing with me now, Mister Ash, Ash, Asher. I am Pavel, and I speak for Ketrin. Ketrin does not track with a common thief.”
Asher let out a small chuckle of surprise and searched behind the pale young man.
The woman in the kitchen wore a sleeveless paisley dress that had seen better days, her blond hair pulled back from her face in a severe ponytail. She had quick eyes and a strong face, and though she was thin and pale, she appeared to be full of grit. She couldn’t have been more than thirty years old. “Does he speak for Ketrin?”
The woman eyed Pavel and gave a sniff of amusement before she stepped back to the stove. Her arms were covered with bruises.
Pavel slammed his fist against the table and leaned forward. “You don’t speak to her! You don’t speak to Magda.”
Asher gave another soft laugh. “I speak to you, right?”
“That’s right.”
“So you’re the one who deals with common thieves, yes?”
The young man stared at him for several moments and then he sat back in his chair. “Whatever you think, you are not knowing anything.” He made a face with his lips pursed out.
Asher took a long drag on his cigarette and considered his options. It didn’t take him long, however, for there was only one path to what he wanted.
Pavel said, “Ketrin trusts me, I am his own bl—”
The cigarette hit Pavel in the face, just beneath his left eye. It exploded in a spray of sparks and burning tobacco, and Asher filled his right hand with dark, greasy hair as Pavel flinched up with a hiss of surprise. He cracked Pavel’s head repeatedly against the table until blood ran from his nose and he stopped his shouting.
Asher stepped back and Pavel was pulled unconscious from his seat, his upper body limp against Asher’s leg. The weight of the flaming dragon .45 was heavier
than Asher thought it would be. Pavel was not. “Put it on the stove, please.”
Magda stared down the barrel of Asher’s newly acquired weapon, and then met his eyes.
“Why do you think I am here, in the middle of fucking nowhere, Magda, asking for Ketrin in the last place on earth he should be?”
She lowered the cast-iron pan, slowly and deliberately. Her eyes hadn’t lied. She was quick, and she was smart. “Because he asked you to come.” Her voice was also rather lovely, and Asher favored her with a smile. He turned his hips to the right and swung Pavel by the hair.
The young man landed unconscious at her feet. “If he has been unkind to you, tell Ketrin that I grabbed the pan and hit him with it.”
Magda’s eyes filled with subtle suspicion.
“If he asks me, I will say that I did,” Asher offered. “Take your swing.”
“Why?” Magda demanded, her right hand still holding tight to the handle of the pan.
“Where I come from, you treat a woman with respect.”
Magda’s grip eased slowly as she let go of the pan, but she said nothing.
Asher lowered the gun to his side. “Where is Ketrin?”
“There is a barn, round back of the house.”
“Thank you, Magda.”
They looked at one another.
“You’re not going to hit him?”
“If I hit Pavel with my good cooking pan,” Magda answered, “the wound will be filled with bacon grease, and he will know that it was I who hit him.”
Asher tried not to smile. It was a good answer. “Fair enough.”
Asher tucked the gun beneath the waist of his pants and turned away from her. He moved from the open kitchen and through the front room, eyeing the huge console television that sat near the fireplace. The screen door creaked when he pushed it open, and as he took the front steps, he moved his newly acquired weapon to the small of his back. He aired out his brown leather suit jacket with a snap and ran his hands through his hair, smoothing it back.