Diamonds (Den of Thieves Book 1)

by Cosgrove, A. M.

  “Well whatever way you want to slice it dude, you have to deal with it before you get in over your head. We can’t save you if you do that.

  “Yeah I am not going to get in over my head. I have never in the past and I certainly don’t intend to start today.”

  “Good to hear, because our client is coming in this afternoon and she is going to want an update on our progress,” Jake said flipping open the computer and going back to his work.

  Chapter 4

  The rest of the morning and first half of the afternoon passed uneventfully. Sebastian managed to get a good chunk of the prep work done before his date with Daria that night. He knew he had to tread carefully with her but what he couldn’t understand was why she had him all flipped around to the point where other people who knew him were able to notice it.

  It was certainly a new situation for him. One he was going to have to step back out of before she could get too close to him. It would not do any good to have something getting in the way of his ultimate goal.

  He was lost in thought when the front door swung open and a tall brunette, older woman in heels stormed into the room.

  She stopped just short of Jake’s desk and crossed her arms.

  “Good afternoon Mrs. Sotir---” Jake started rising to his feet and extending his hand to shake hands with her.

  “Blakeman,” she huffed waving his hand away

  “I am sorry, Mrs. Blakeman. I am--” holding his hand out for a moment before slowly lowering it.

  Sebastian could see the blood start boiling just under the surface. Jake was an ex-police officer with the Lake City Police Department. He was not used to being treated with such a lack of respect.

  “I don’t care what you are. I want to know how close we are to getting back my necklace.” She switched her weight to her other foot, her arms still crossed. Sebastian was surprised she hadn’t started tapping her foot.

  “I understand ---” Jake started again as he stepped out from behind his desk.

  “Look Jeff--”

  “It’s Jake ma’am--”

  “Jake, Jeff, whatever it is. I don’t have a whole lot of time to stand around talking about things that have no interest to me nor bearing on my life.” Weight switched again to the other foot.

  “I know you are a busy woman, Mrs. Blakeman, but you have to understand we also have things to do as well and you are about an hour early for your appointment”

  “Well I am here now.”

  Sebastian watched as Jake took a deep breath. He could see that the other man was highly frustrated with being talked down to in the manner in which he found himself being spoken to.

  Grace chose that moment to come back from a late lunch and quickly surveyed the situation.

  "Mrs Blakeman, if you will just come with me and I will seat you in the meeting room and allow the guys to have a moment to get their things together for you," Grace said leading the way into the meeting room off the one side of the main room.

  Bonnie Blakeman followed although judging by the look on her face she was less than impressed with the way things were going.

  “Can I get you anything while you wait?” Grace asked stepping back out of the meeting room.

  Sebastian heard the older woman reply but he was too far away to make out exactly what she had said.

  Grace nodded.

  “No problem. The team will be right in with you,” and she closed the door behind her.

  Jake let out an audible groan.

  “This woman is going to drive me absolutely nuts before this is all over, you do know that right?” Jake looked directly at Sebastian.

  “I know she is but you are going to have to buy me some more time. It’s not as if I can just start asking about the necklace or anything. I mean seriously she might not even know it exists and if I start asking about it or anything even remotely related to it she is going to know that I am after it. There is no casual way to go about asking for it.”

  “You do what you gotta do buddy. I won’t mess with your process so long as you are going to produce results.” Jake held up his hand to silence Sebastian.

  “I have never not gotten the results we have been after. So there isn’t any need to worry about.”

  Jake stared at him for a moment but said nothing. Sebastian could see that he had a lot he wanted to say but that he had thought better of it for the moment. Which worked out well for Sebastian. He’d had just about enough of Jake’s opinions for one day.

  “I know what you are thinking Jake. Don’t worry. I have my head in the game. Whatever was going on earlier is over.”

  He was serious. He didn’t have any idea what had come over him in the last twenty-four hours but he sure as hell wasn’t going to allow it to interfere with the job he had to do.

  “I understand Seb, it happens to the best of us. All you have to do is say the word and someone else will step in to finish the job for you”

  “Not to me it doesn’t and while I appreciate the support I wont be backing away from this mission. It would only set us back by days or weeks even. Do you really want to have to deal with that in the meantime?” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of his meeting room.

  “You know as well as I do that clients like her are taxing on anyone’s nerves and I would rather the whole thing be over and done with sooner than later but not at the expense of failure.”

  “I don’t fail.” Sebastian felt his blood pressure rising slowly. Jake needed to simmer down before Sebastian lost it on him.

  “Fine. Just get it done so we don’t have to deal with this anymore.”

  Sebastian nodded and started collecting his papers.

  “Just leave those for me. Don’t you have a date to get ready for tonight?”

  “But you need me to--” Sebastian started.

  “No, I need you to go and deal with your date tonight. I need you to get as close as you can to her tonight. The faster we move on this, the better off it will be for all of us. If you can get your hands on the necklace tonight, even better. But if not, if you can at least find out where it might be that would be great.”

  Sebastian couldn’t help but feel like he was somehow being left out. Not that he really wanted to be a part of a meeting that would include the lovely Bonnie Blakeman, but at the same time he felt as though he was deliberately being excluded from the meeting.

  It didn’t sit well with him but he nodded anyways. There wasn’t any point in arguing the point further. He had better things to do than argue over something so petty and small.

  “Hang in there, Seb,” Bo said giving Sebastian a pat on the back as he made his way by him on the way to the meeting room. “Jake is only doing this for your own good you know. “

  Sebastian didn’t care what the reasoning was. It was what it was and that was all it was to it. He grabbed his papers and headed out the front door into the afternoon sunshine.

  After running around picking up the things he was going to need, Sebastian picked out a crisp baby blue button down shit and loose fitting dark blue jeans for his date that evening.

  He looked in the mirror as he got ready to leave and briefly debated shaving the five o’clock shadow that peppered his chiseled jawline. He liked the rugged look it gave him and decided it should stay at least for the rest of the assignment.

  A quick double check to make sure he had indeed gotten everything on his list that he needed for the night.

  There was one big thing that he was having a hard time creating a realistic scenario with. How was he going to get Daria to talk about the necklace?

  From what he understood it was worth a small fortune. A choker style necklace with a stunning one hundred-carat oval shaped black diamond centerpiece and that the band was actually strands of set diamonds.

  But it was certainly not something he would expect Daria to wear on their first date and certainly not something he expected her to be willing to talk about freely. Firstly because she didn’t seem like the type to b
rag about the things she had. And then there was the small nagging feeling he had that she might not even know the dammed thing existed.

  He didn’t know how he was going to find the information he was after but he had always been good at thinking on the fly and tonight would be no different.

  A quick look at his watch told him that it was seven thirty and time for him to hit the road. He did not want to be late tonight of all the nights.

  He got in his car and started making his way across the city. Every stop light between his home and Daria’s made him more and more frustrated. He was not late but somehow the stopping and starting on the way was getting him worked up.

  Then it hit him. He was all worked up because he couldn’t wait to see her again.

  The thought had hit him so hard that he had not realized the light had turned green until the driver behind him laid on the horn.

  Focus on the road, Seb, he thought to himself, exhaling with a long sigh.

  He couldn't help wondering why he was feeling this way. It wasn't as if he had not been in a similar situation before but never had he found himself becoming emotionally involved with the woman he was after.

  It wasn’t like him at all and he started to wonder if maybe the guys were right and that he was not cut out for this job. That he would put the whole operation at risk because for whatever reason he was unable to distance his emotions from the job.

  He gave himself a mental shake. This was going to be no different than any other time. He didn’t have any other choice but to continue on. He would not admit defeat. But at the end of the day he knew there was something different about this woman.

  It was only a matter of whether he was in control of it or it was in control of him.

  The rest of the drive to Daria’s house passed in a blur and truth be told he remembered very little of it.

  He pulled into the driveway five minutes early.

  She was already waiting for him just outside the front door.

  "Hi," he smiled getting out of the car and coming around to greet her.

  "Hi." She smiled a stiff smile.

  "I am sorry I’m a bit early. I always try to be--"

  "You don’t have to apologize. I appreciate a man who is early." She reached for the car door but he got there first pulling it open for her.

  "My lady." He smiled again.

  She looked at him a moment. It seemed to Sebastian that it was almost as if she was trying to decide if he was being genuine or not.

  Growing up he had always been taught to respect others, women especially. Sebastian’s father would never hear of one of his son’s mistreating a woman.

  Which of course made it all the worse when he had been arrested for defrauding older women out of their fortunes. His father had practically disowned him after that.

  Sebastian really couldn’t blame him. He wasn’t proud of what he had done in the past but he had served his time and now was doing what was right and just. It was what kept him going. Although his father may never realize how far Sebastian had come in his rehabilitation, Sebastian knew he was actually doing good with the skills that he had.

  At least he thought he was.

  He looked into Daria’s eyes and for a split second he actually wondered if in fact he was doing the right thing.

  As she got into the car he said a silent pray that he was. For the first time in a really long time he doubted what he was doing and that scared him.

  Daria admitted that she was impressed with the fact that Peter had shown up early. Had he been a minute late she would have called the whole thing off. If there was one thing she couldn’t stand it was people who were late. If things happened that was one thing but at least you call and let the people who are waiting on you know that you are going to be late. You do not keep them waiting.

  And given that he hadn’t called she had expected him to be on time.

  She watched as they drove through the suburbs around Lake City and out into the outskirts.

  "Where are we going?" she asked. "I thought you said that you were going to take me out for a drink."

  Peter smiled.

  "Well?" she demanded. She didn’t like the idea of being alone in a car with a strange man that she had just only met the night before and they were now headed out into the darkness of the country and away from any help she might need.

  "We are going for drinks. But I am not the sort who just does drinks."

  "And just what is that supposed to mean?"

  "I like to make sure that my date enjoys herself."

  "Peter, I said drinks. Not a date."

  Peter just smiled which only irritated her more.

  "This is not a date, Peter. Do you hear me?" Daria felt her temper rising along with her alarm.

  She had no idea where she was going and in the pit of her stomach she felt a building sense of dread.

  What if he wanted to harm her? Or kill her? Or maybe he was kidnapping her and was going to hold her for ransom.

  She cursed her stupid foolish mind for allowing herself to be put in this situation.

  Just then Peter pulled off the highway and onto an unpaved side road.

  She looked around for anything that she could use as a marker to figure out where she was if she needed to call for help.

  "I demand to know where we are going Peter." The anger was quickly fading and fear was slowly replacing it.

  Where was he taking her?

  "Daria, don’t worry please; I have no interest in harming you. I told you earlier that I felt bad about bringing those memories about your mother up and that I was going to make it up to you and I mean to do just that."

  "Well why are you taking me out into the country? There are plenty of perfectly good places in the city you could have taken me to instead of dragging me out here."

  The sun was starting to set and darkness was falling.

  "I know but again it’s like I said. I like to make sure that my guests have a good time."

  "I would have had a perfectly good time in the city."

  "Yes you might have. But it is also something that you do on a regular basis. I figured that I could do something different for you. To make it up to you." Peter smiled and parked the car.

  "Sure you did," she said peering out of the windshield.

  The headlights shone into the darkness and she could see that they were at the edge of a cliff.

  She got out of the car and walked to the edge before she stopped.

  In front of her the whole city was lighting up in the falling darkness. It was as if a swarm of tiny fireflies were starting to light up the night sky. In the distance the sun had just about set on the horizon.

  It was a breathtaking view to say the least.

  "Peter it’s ---" She turned around

  "Beautiful?" Peter was walking from the car towards her. In one hand was a bottle of wine, two glasses in the other and a blanket was tossed casually over his shoulder.

  She smiled.

  "Yes."

  He handed her the glasses and the bottle of wine so he could lay the blanket out.

  Daria sat down as he took the bottle from her hands. He quickly produced a corkscrew from his pocket and deftly opened the bottle before pouring them both a glass.

  "How do you know about this place?" she asked looking back out over Lake City.

  "I used to come here a lot when I was younger," he said softly, almost as if he was remembering some moment in his past.

  "Did you bring all of your girlfriends up here?" She laughed before taking a sip of the wine he had given her. It was delicious.

  "Oh God! No! I didn’t mean that. I mean I might have but not for what you are thinking."

  "Oh really and what am I thinking?" she teased before she could stop herself.

  It was too soon to blame her jab on the wine so she had to ask herself what the hell she was doing. Was she really going to flirt with this man because he had brought her to this beautiful look out? He was going to have to do better
than that.

  "No actually I came up here to think about things. I could find peace here when things got a little too hectic in the city."

  "Oh." She looked at him as he stared off into the distance. There was a part of her that felt sorry for him. He had known his mother for a good chunk of his childhood. Enough that he knew what there was to miss.