by Bethany-Kris
Cozen followed his gaze. “Damn.”
Walking the length of the east wing of the property was a man dressed entirely in black. Even his face was covered with a black bandana imprinted with the image of a skull. The crisscrossed belt around his chest showcased an assortment of weapons. In his hands, he kept a firm grip on an assault rifle.
“One of many,” Ace murmured. “And always assume one is looking at you—even if you are inside the house.”
“Noted.”
Cozen wondered if the Astors would keep a better eye on her because she was a known thief. Of course, she didn’t steal just to steal, and certainly not from a client. Sure, it was her job to steal, but there was the whole don’t bite the hand that feeds you thing, too.
It was never good to betray those you worked for. No thief wanted their last job to go sour in that kind of way because it was unlikely they would ever get another job.
Not that it mattered.
This would be her last one.
It had to be.
It wasn’t long before Cozen and Ace rounded the back of the east wing only to come face to face with another man dressed in black. He swung the assault rifle in his hand over his shoulder, and without saying a word, twirled a single finger at them.
“You should tell Fourth that his people need to start recognizing my face,” Ace bitched under his breath as the man patted him down. First his front, and then after a quick spin, his back, too. “Fucking ridiculous.”
The man in black came for Cozen next.
She cocked a brow at him. “Touch me, and I’ll use one of your pretty knives to bleed you out on this walkway. It’s a little dull with all the white marble—I’ll bet it’ll look far better with a bit of red on it, too.”
All she could see of the man’s face behind his skull bandana were his eyes. A flash of challenge and irritation answered her back, but he still didn’t speak. She thought he was going to test her threat out—a threat she would have followed through on—but someone else saved them.
A dark, low laugh echoed from around the terrace.
The man who came around the corner wore an amused grin on his handsome face, and yet, he still managed to look severe. As though his amusement could just as easily be replaced with violence. His straight, thick eyebrows gave him a disinterested expression. It was a bright contrast to the smugness of his grin. He couldn’t be any older than her, and if he was, then it wasn’t by very much.
Dark brown eyes looked Cozen over as the man dressed in black Armani came to stand beside the guard. He waved one finger—showing off a black Rolex incrusted with diamonds around the face—and the guard was gone without a word.
“Cozen, is it?” he asked.
“Who’s asking?”
The man smirked. “Fourth Astor. My great-grandmother has a fondness for white marble—please don’t ruin it for her.”
Cozen lifted a single brow. “I would appreciate your men keeping their distance, then.”
“Fine.” Fourth tipped his chin up, and looked her over with a keen eye. A look that felt almost … dismissive. “She’s not much to see, is she?”
Her back straightened. “I beg your pardon?”
Fourth waved a hand, saying, “Don’t take offence, Cozen. I mean, you’re certainly something to look at as a woman. As a thief, though … I don’t know, I can’t see it.”
“Well, you’re looking at it.”
And she didn’t appreciate being disregarded, either. In fact, Cozen took that as a challenge.
“How long have you been in this business?” Fourth asked.
“Long enough.”
“How many jobs?”
“More than you are old,” she returned.
Fourth’s gaze narrowed, and he took a step closer to Cozen. “And what makes you think a thief like you can handle a job like this?”
Easy.
“It’s the same as any other job, but with a different face on the mark, a new location, and something else to extract. Logistics come in to play later, as I’m sure you understand.”
Fourth passed Ace a look. “She certainly seems full of herself, doesn’t she?”
“She is right here, and she is confident, not arrogant.”
“Yes, well … we shall see.”
Cozen smiled.
Fine.
“You will need to be checked before you can greet anyone else. Astor house rules, sorry.”
“Why don’t you check me, Fourth?” Cozen offered, simpering him with a smile that all men liked to be dazzled by. “Instead of your scary man there with his big gun, I am sure you could do the job.”
Fourth’s gaze flashed with something Cozen didn’t recognize, but he didn’t seem to sense anything off in her words. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all as he came closer, and waved a hand for her to lift her arms.
Cozen did just that, and allowed Fourth to pat her down. He didn’t tell her to put her arms back up when she dropped them down after he finished patting down her back. He didn’t notice the way her hands lingered on his when he grabbed her waist to turn her around, and he didn’t feel her fingers slip into his pocket, either.
Finally, Fourth straightened, and nodded. “You’re fine.”
Cozen shifted the cardigan hanging over her arm, and reached out to brush an invisible piece of lint from Fourth’s shoulder before letting her hand move higher on his throat, and then back to his ear.
The man smiled at her.
And he thought she was arrogant.
“Shame that for such a handsome man, Fourth,” Cozen murmured, “your attitude is a little hard to bear.”
She kept her palm on his cheek, and her fingers at his ear.
Fourth shrugged. “As they say, nothing good comes easy.”
Cozen dropped her hand back to her side, and closed her fingers into a tight fist. “No one said anything about you being good, though. Sorry.”
“Cute.”
Ace clapped his hands together, bringing them back to the man who had been silent during their entire exchange. “Where’s your father, Fourth?”
“Around the back with Pearl.” Fourth waved a hand. “Come, and we’ll sit with them.”
Cozen took in the immaculate estate as the three of them continued on the pathway. Ace chatted with Fourth just a few paces ahead. Something prickled at the back of her neck—she had never been very good at pretending like she could hold back her curiosity.
Maybe that was why she had a knack for stealing shiny, interesting things.
Who knew?
“Fourth is a strange name,” Cozen noted.
Fourth glanced over his shoulder. “And Cozen isn’t? Appropriate, though, considering the meaning.”
Cozen shrugged. “Do you think you’re the first to use that line, or what?”
The man barked out a laugh, and gave Ace a look. “Fuck, she’s a good one.”
“And her bark is just as bad as her bite,” Ace said shaking his head.
Fourth slowed in his walk a bit, allowing Cozen to catch up and walk in stride. “The name is actually Remington Valor Astor the Fourth.”
“How many Remingtons are still alive in your family?”
“Three at the moment. This is how we distinguish.”
Cozen nodded. “I see.”
“Care to share your story, too?”
She gave him a look. “About my name?”
“Mmm, exactly that.”
Cozen smiled sweetly, but then turned her gaze back on the pathway ahead of them. “There’s no story to tell, and not one that I know.”
“Pardon?”
“Even if it has a story, I don’t know it. Ask the woman who left me on the doorstep of a fire department in Vermont with nothing more than my name and age written on a card. And you know, if you find said woman, let me know her name. I have questions that need answers.”
Fourth didn’t reply.
No one ever did.
“Rem,” Ace said, thrusting his hands into the wa
iting grasp of a man whose black hair was peppered with white. The two shook hands with wide smiles, and glinting eyes. As though they had shared all kinds of stories and secrets with more yet to come. “How are you?”
“Quite well,” the older gentleman said before turning his gaze on Cozen. Dark eyes that looked her over, but quickly went to her face before he offered her a smile. “And you must be the thief.”
At least he had the decency to say it with more respect than Fourth had. Cozen was still a little sour over that.
Cozen simpered him with a smile. “I prefer my name, actually.”
“Yes. Cozen, right?”
“It is.”
“Remington,” the man said, moving closer with a hand out.
Cozen took the handshake, and then allowed him to kiss her knuckles before he dropped her hand. Normally she wouldn’t allow that kind of thing, but she was trying to simply get the details of her job at the moment, and nothing more. “The third, or the second?”
A grin lit up Remington’s face, and it spoke to his more youthful years. Before age had come in and wrote lines around his eyes, and left history on his face. She could definitely see the similarities between Fourth, and this man. Strong, square-cut jaws. Dark eyes. Black hair. She suspected he was Fourth’s father, and his next words confirmed it.
“Do I look old enough to be a second to you?” he asked, and then just as quickly added, “Actually, never mind. Don’t answer that question. I probably will not like the answer. My son gives me enough shit about my age as it is, don’t you, Fourth?”
Fourth shrugged as he dropped into a large outdoor sectional beside a quiet, old woman. Her dark eyes—matched by the father and son—looked Cozen over with little interest before she went back to petting the ball of white fur on her lap.
A Persian cat.
It did not look like a nice cat, really. In fact, when it saw that Cozen was looking at it, the Persian hissed and bared its sharp teeth.
Yikes.
“Someone has to keep you in line,” Fourth said.
The old woman had not looked away from Cozen yet. Her gaze would probably be unsettling to some, but Cozen was accustomed to people trying to figure her out. Like she was some kind of prize to be unwrapped if they could manage to get through her many layers.
“Tell me, girl,” the woman said, her wrinkles being all the more prominent as her gaze narrowed on Cozen. “Do you genuinely believe you are the best thief on this continent?”
Cozen didn’t even think about it. “I think I am one of the best, ma’am.”
“But not the best.”
“I was taught by the best. It would be incredibly rude of me to be so arrogant as to say I am better than them because they taught me. Isn’t that how it should work?”
“Grandmamma, be nice,” Remington told the woman as he slipped the cat from her lap, and put it to the ground. But not before the ball of white hell hissed and tried to bite the man on his arm. “There is a reason Ace suggested he take this job to Cozen.”
“She’ll get it done for you, Pearl,” Ace agreed. “Cozen is golden. Never had a failed job, yet.”
Wait.
This old woman was the one who called her for the job?
Seriously?
Damn.
It really did take all kinds of people to make the fucking world go around.
Fourth’s gaze slipped in Cozen’s direction, and with the narrowing of his eyes, she felt his disbelief about her presence make itself known once more. Although this time, he chose to keep it silent and not open his mouth.
Nonetheless, Cozen felt it.
She knew it.
Pearl peered up at Cozen with a slow smile. It was as though she could read Cozen’s mind, or maybe it was just the woman’s age who gave her insight to the people around her. Who knew what it was?
It was still unsettling.
“How old do you think I am, girl?” Pearl asked.
Cozen pressed her lips together. It was not nice to guess a woman’s age, and certainly not a woman whose face looked like weathered, pale leather. “I would say you have lived long enough to know it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to answer that question, Mrs. Astor.”
Pearl smiled. “You would be right. I am ninety-five. I have outlived my husband, three of my children, and six dogs. I am on my fourth Persian cat at the moment—you saw her. I call her Sweetness.”
“She did not look very sweet.”
“Because she isn’t. I like to surprise people.”
“You’re older than the Queen of England.”
Pearl nodded. “And richer than the bitch, too, darling.”
Cozen smiled widely, unable to stop herself. Laughter lit up the estate from the men. None of them seemed particularly surprised by Pearl’s quick wit.
She learned something in that moment.
Age meant nothing.
“Shoo,” Pearl said to the gathered men. She flicked a jewel-covered hand. “Leave us alone for a while.”
“Grandmamma,” Remington started to say.
“Oh, go, Rem. I can do this myself.”
Fourth and Ace were already pushing out of their chairs without needed to be told. Pearl and Remington the Third passed another look between one another before the man followed behind his son, and the broker he called in for this deal.
Or rather, the broker Pearl called in.
“Sit,” the old woman said, gesturing at the seat across from hers.
Cozen sat. “I hear you need a thief.”
Pearl tapped a weathered finger against the side of her cheek. “I have needed one for two decades, darling.”
“And you’re only now calling one in?”
“I gave her the chance to return it.”
“Her?”
Pearl sighed, leaned forward, and snatched up a yellow folder on the glass table in front of the sectional. Flipping it open, the old woman perused the contents of the folder before seemingly settling on one.
“Her,” Pearl said, turning a photo over to show Cozen. The woman in the photograph was beautiful for her age. A dark haired, and brown-eyed beauty who looked to be closer to Remington’s age. In her fifties, or so. “My granddaughter.”
Cozen’s brow furrowed. “She looks like—”
“She is Rem’s sister—was.”
“Was.”
Pearl cleared her throat, and set the photo aside on the seat. “She died four months ago. Cancer in her blood, or so we were told. We only know what we hear through the grapevine, as she made her choices, and we were forced to make ours.”
“What choices were those?”
The old woman’s eyes hardened. “I will let you in on a little secret about the Astors, Cozen. We have rules—many rules. One of them is to never let our name fall. We never hand it over, and we never give it up.”
“And she did that?”
Pearl waved jeweled fingers as if to dismiss the question. “She married Jett Griffin.”
“I don’t understand how that breaks the rule you mentioned.”
“She took his name.”
Cozen straightened a bit on the chair. “Really? Your family takes it that far?”
“Beyond, actually,” Pearl murmured. “Even a woman’s children must keep the family name. Her children didn’t have our name, either. She knew the rules, and what would happen. I hadn’t seen her in almost two decades before she died. No one in our family had.”
Cozen’s gaze traveled to the photograph again as Pearl started flipping through the folder’s contents. “Do you regret not closing the distance?”
“Astors burn bridges. We do not fix them.”
Well, then …
Pearl flipped over another photograph, and handed it to Cozen. She took it, and quickly found herself entranced by the beautiful square-cut ruby set atop a woven gold band. The ruby was at least fifteen carats in size. It did not look like anything remotely close to a modern piece.
“My great-grandmother brought that ring o
ver from Germany,” Pearl said, her gaze traveling to the nasty white cat waddling its way back to their spot. “It has been through a great deal—seen more than most. Wars, and immigration. Poverty, and wealth. It was once sold by my great-grandmother to pay for her husband’s court charges, and used again as bribery a few decades later by my grandmother when her husband found himself in trouble with the law.”
“It has great history.”
To say the least …
Cozen wanted to physically get her hands on the actual piece just to touch it.
“My mother chose to give Anabelle the ruby as a piece to pass on. It’s not uncommon in our family to take pieces of our history, and give them to another Astor to keep it moving through the generations.”
Cozen nodded. “Sure. I take it, you want this ring back, now.”
“I wanted it back the day Anabelle married Jett. I wanted it back before then. She knew the rules.”
The cold hardness in Pearl’s old voice took Cozen by surprise. She glanced up from the photograph to find Pearl’s hissy cat had climbed back into the woman’s lap. The Persian all but glared with its strange ice-blue eyes in Cozen’s direction.
“She’s dead, though,” Cozen pointed out.
“Jett—her husband—still has the ring.”
Cozen’s brow lifted. “And how do you know this?”
“He taunted us with it when we asked to have it returned.”
“Taunted you,” she echoed.
“Yes, with some pretty little thing he paid to have on his arm during a charity event he knew Rem and his wife would be attending with Fourth. It was quite a show. Lucky my great-grandson didn’t slice his throat right then and there.”
Pearl sighed heavily, and waved a hand again. “Fourth and his father handled it well, at the time. I cannot say I would have done the same.”
“It’s never good to make a scene.”
“Mmm, no.” Pearl’s lips flattened into a grim line. “I want my family’s property returned. Everything that belongs to the Astors must come back to the Astors.”