by Bethany-Kris
“Another rule?” Cozen asked.
“No, a way of life.” Pearl looked to Cozen. “How long do you think it will take for you to pull this off?”
“Every heist is a little different. Sometimes, I can get one done quicker than others. It really all depends on what a mark does and how easily accessible the item is once I get into their life. I assume Ace approached me for a reason …”
“Yes,” Pearl murmured, “because our family is about to make major moves in the criminal world, and we cannot afford to cause more uproar elsewhere when we might need to return in that direction for help later.”
Huh.
“And so I am …?”
“The kind of thief that can apparently do a job very quietly,” Pearl said.
“I am,” Cozen agreed. “Like I was never even there to begin with.”
“Good. If you return it to me before the year is out, I will make sure you never need to even think about money for the rest of your life, Cozen. How much did your last job pay?”
“Three million.”
“Add two zeroes to the end of that, darling.”
“That’s a lot of money,” Cozen said quietly.
“It is change in our bank accounts.”
“Richer than the Queen, huh?”
Pearl smiled—old, bitter, and yet still beautiful. “Far richer than the Queen.”
“I’ll get the ring.”
She didn’t know how.
Not yet.
That was part of the job.
“Make sure of it. I have waited long enough to finally get it back. And to make sure it is the real ring, and not some fabricated piece, there is an A inscribed on the bottom of the ruby.”
Cozen straightened in the chair. “Doesn’t inscribing the jewel make it somewhat … well, worthless?”
“It may be worthless to everyone else, but not to an Astor.”
Huh.
Three hundred million for a ruby only valuable to someone with a particular surname.
This was going to be interesting.
“I noticed something,” Cozen hedged.
Pearl’s sharp gaze drifted back to her again. “And what was that?”
“Your great-grandson—Fourth—he doesn’t seem to think I am the right person for this job.”
“If this were up to him, you would not be the thief he picked for this job, no. He is more a … well, he would just go ahead and blow the side of Jett Griffin’s home off to get my ring back. And while I appreciate the sentiment, I know in the long run that it won’t do us any good.”
“He doesn’t think I can steal,” Cozen added.
Pearl lifted her brow. “Oh?”
“I can tell.”
With that said, Cozen moved the cardigan that had been keeping one of her hands, and her arm hidden from view. She opened up her palm, and showcased the items hidden inside.
A signet ring with a cursive A decorated by plumage. A diamond earring. And a Rolex watch incrusted with diamonds.
All it had taken for her to steal from Fourth was a distraction of his attention, and quick, soft movements of her hands and fingers. Did it take time and patience to learn how to thieve quickly, and without notice? Yes, but it also took talent.
A thief was nothing without talent.
She would not allow someone—not even an Astor—to slight her. No good thief could let something like that go.
Cozen set Fourth’s items in Pearl’s hands and quietly said, “Do be sure to tell Fourth that appearances are deceiving, and the next thief he insults might not be so kind as to return what they take. It’s a good lesson to learn when you’re dabbling in this business.”
Cozen stepped closer to the waiting town car. Her drive to the airstrip where she would be picked up by a private jet. Ace leaned against the back passenger door of the town car. They would be saying goodbye now, as his job in this whole thing was over.
He was the broker.
He made the deals.
Or he made them work.
Nothing more.
Cozen pressed the phone to her ear, and eyed the colors in the early morning sky. Miami was just as beautiful in the morning as it was at night.
“Hello?”
The voice on the other end of the phone was both comforting and familiar.
“Mama,” Cozen greeted.
Well, the closest thing Cozen had ever had to a mother seeing as how she moved from foster home to foster home for the majority of her childhood years. She would give up her very heartbeat for her.
“Zen, baby, where are you? I thought you would be home already.”
“A job came up,” Cozen said.
“Ah.”
Her mother didn’t even sound surprised.
“I need some information, though. Mostly on the target. Think you could help me?”
“We’ll all help,” her mother said. “More so with some of us than others. I know how you work, Cozen.”
Cozen smiled.
She hadn’t expected anything different.
After all, she learned from the best.
April 2nd, 2013
Sargon Makri didn’t know how to stay in one place for very long. It just wasn’t in his nature. His father, William, liked to blame it on Sargon’s Persian roots—the nomadic need to constantly move was just in his blood; he couldn’t help it.
The one good thing about constantly bouncing from place to place, and never quite settling for long in any one, was that Sargon made a lot of friends.
And a lot of enemies, too.
A hand came up to clap his cheek before he could dodge it—not that he would, being it was his boss of the moment. He had a lot of those, too, over the years. His life had never had one clear path or goal, but rather, many winding roads.
He never managed to stay on one side of the tracks, either. Not good, or bad. Rather, he straddled the line, and occasionally jumped back and forth depending on his preference or need at the moment.
Sargon sometimes wondered if that was because of his roots, too.
He knew it wasn’t.
Life made him this way.
The man who clapped his cheek filled his vision in front of the restaurant. Sargon closed the door of the black town car before giving his new boss the attention the man thought he deserved. It was not about respect why Sargon didn’t care to indulge the man, but about the fact he didn’t particularly like this guy.
“You good, Sargon?” Kale asked.
Kale Tompkins—small time coke smuggler, and big time gambler—had offered him a job two months ago when Sargon first rolled into New York. He’d overheard the man discussing an upcoming drug run he was taking down through Florida to get to the Keys.
Getting himself a new job was as easy as pointing out a safer route for Kale to take for the run. A route that didn’t include going through territory that didn’t belong to the guy. Things like that could get messy, and it wasn’t any fucking skin off Sargon’s back to speak up.
So, he got himself a job.
How long this job would last was another story. Maybe until he felt the restless need to get up and move again, or even once he became bored with his current surroundings.
It all depended …
Today, though, he was the muscle.
“I’m good,” Sargon told Kale.
Being small time in a world full of big times meant Kale didn’t have a lot of clout to back him up. A few men scattered between different jobs, or responsibilities. Certainly not enough to carve him out a respectful berth of space when it came to other people in the underground criminal world.
Sargon had been around all kinds of people in his lifetime.
Cartel leaders.
Cosa Nostra bosses.
Gun traffickers.
Thieves.
A Madame or two …
It took all fucking kinds of people to make this damn world go around, and Sargon was lucky—or unlucky—enough to have met quite a few of them over his twenty-eight years of life. He could
tell a man who had made his mark in the criminal world simply by taking five seconds to talk to him.
Kale Tompkins was small fish.
Small time.
But the guy paid well, and let Sargon do his own thing when it came to a job. He appreciated that, so he watched the guy’s back.
For the most part.
Sargon’s tenure as Kale’s man could end as easily as it begun, too. With something like a second job offer, or the dangling promise of something better.
“Looks like the subject of your meeting is already here,” Sargon noted.
He nodded at the front door of the restaurant, and Kale’s gaze followed. Behind the clear glass, a man stood waiting to open the door for them. He looked in their direction, and nodded before pressing the Bluetooth in his ear, and speaking something they couldn’t hear.
Sargon was decent at lip reading, though.
They’re here, boss.
“Gotta appreciate a fucker who doesn’t make a guy wait,” Kale muttered.
Despite the unbothered inflection in Kale’s tone, Sargon knew the guy was worried about this meet with Jett Griffin.
As he should be, Sargon supposed.
Small time coke smuggler.
Big time gambler.
Someone had come to collect a debt they took over for someone else, and Kale needed to somehow convince the guy to let him extend the payment deadline. Sargon didn’t see that happening. No one let a debt go unpaid for too long because it set a bad fucking example.
“Let’s go,” Kale said with a wave of his hand.
A bustling upper east side Manhattan restaurant greeted them, and so did a woman in a black dress with a botox smile.
“Kale Tompkins,” his boss said to the woman.
She looked over her tablet, and then glanced up with guarded eyes.
Bad sign.
Sargon took note.
“You’ll be dining in the private room with Mr. Griffin,” the woman said as she stepped out from behind her podium. Setting the tablet aside, and gesturing with one hand at the men, she added, “Follow me, please.”
Bad sign number two.
A private section meant no witnesses. Sargon didn’t like that, either.
Soon, the two men had been guided through the main floor of the restaurant, and situated closer to the back. The woman in black stepped forward to open the door of the private dining area, and then gave Kale a wide berth to move ahead of her.
“Enjoy your meal,” she said quietly.
She didn’t meet his gaze.
Bad sign number three.
“Kale—”
Sargon thought to warn the man that he didn’t think going into this meeting was a good idea just based on his own instincts. That shit had never let him down before, and he was not about to start ignoring it now.
Kale gave Sargon a look, and interrupted his warning with, “Just stay outside the door. It’ll be fine.”
Kale thought he could charm his way out of this. And sure, Sargon had seen the man do it before. He’d also seen him make a successful smuggle run, and then blow every bit of the profits made at an underground poker match instead of paying off his debt.
Bad news.
“Understood?” Kale asked.
Well …
“Suit yourself,” Sargon murmured, and he turned his back to the wall directly beside the door. “Can’t save you from yourself, man.”
Kale didn’t hear that last comment. He was already heading inside the private area. The woman closed the door behind him, and then shot Sargon a too-wide smile. Her blue eyes looked him over without shame.
Another time in his life, and he might have given her the time of day. Not now, though.
Her look said, I’m interested. He gave her a blank look in return. One that said, fuck off.
She fucked off.
Sargon waited for what he figured was going to be the inevitable outcome for Kale, but time continued to drag on. The thick door provided a bit of privacy for the meeting because he could only hear the occasional murmur sliding out from the crack at the bottom.
Across from Sargon rested a decorative mirror cut into six inch squares. He hadn’t noticed it before, but now his gaze was drawn to the man reflected back.
Him.
It wasn’t often he stared into a mirror. Not for too long, anyway. Sometimes, he didn’t recognize the golden-skinned, brown-eyed, black-haired man looking back at him. Sometimes, he was too busy being someone else to remember where he came from.
Scrubbing a hand down his jaw, Sargon watched the man in the mirror mimic the action. He kept a short, well-trimmed beard, but he liked a clean throat. His throat needed a shave, according to the reflection.
His mother liked to tell Sargon that he looked like his father. That he’d taken the strong, prominent jaw, russet eyes, and thick, straight brows from his dad. His nose, and lips came from his mother, though.
For all purposes, on paper it looked as though Sargon was adopted by his parents, although that was just their way of muddying a paper trail so that they could not be found. They changed their clearly un-American names to something more fitting of the country they decided to run and hide in, and it was here in America that Sargon was born.
Although, if anyone looked for his parents, it would simply appear on paper as though they died shortly after coming to the States from Iran.
Sargon’s gaze drifted to the mirror again, and the man staring back at him. Seeing his reflection reminded him of his mother and father, and that he missed them. That tug deep in his heart was painful in that way.
This was why he didn’t like mirrors.
Sargon straightened a bit when the man in black from the front of the restaurant appeared at the end of the hallway. The guy pressed his finger to the Bluetooth in his ear, and nodded once as his gaze traveled to Sargon.
“Easy to handle,” he heard the man say. “No worries—it’ll be done before you are.”
A thump echoed from inside the private room, followed by a loud pop. The kind of sound a bullet made going through a shitty homemade silencer.
Yeah, he knew this was going to go bad. Kale should have kept the fuck up with the program when Sargon tried to voice his concerns. Look at them now.
Shit.
Sargon glanced up at the ceiling, and wondered why nothing in his fucking life could be easy. The man in black strolled closer in his direction, while Sargon slid his hand into the pocket of his slacks. In a sheath he kept hidden in the pocket, he wrapped his fingers around the curved handle of the Obsidian. It was protected for now in its cocoon of leather. At least, until he brought it out to play.
He didn’t like guns.
Heavy fucking things.
A knife was far easier.
An Obsidian blade was the best.
“Sorry to tell you, man,” the guy started to say, “but your boss isn’t going to be needing your services anymore.”
Sargon looked to the right at the guy. “That so?”
The man’s jacket opened a bit—a purposeful move—to showcase the gun resting at the guy’s hip. He gave Sargon a pointed look, and then nodded down the hall.
“I think you should probably come with me, and let’s not make it a fucking hassle, all right?”
Sargon lifted one thick brow. “I think not, no.”
“No?”
“I don’t stutter.”
Or repeat himself.
A haughtiness flashed in the guy’s eyes which just made Sargon roll his own. Everybody working for anybody in this world all thought they were some kind of hot shit. As though they were the very best, and the only one made for the job.
This guy wasn’t different.
“You got it, fucker,” the guy muttered.
The man reached for his gun.
Sargon slipped the blade from the leather sheath.
This was exactly why he preferred knives to any other kind of weapon. Jett Griffin’s man barely even had time to yank his gun from the
holster before Sargon was already reacting. The guy took his gaze away from Sargon for a half of a second, at most, and he signed his death warrant with the action.
Spinning away from the wall, Sargon’s Obsidian blade struck out with a simple flick of his arm. First, he nicked the guy up under his jaw, and then a second slice under his ear.
The cuts were so fast, and so incredibly clean, that the man didn’t even feel it until the blood was already starting to pour down onto the collar of his shirt. It was painful spots, though, and with a single touch of his fingers to the cuts, the fool hissed.
His eyes flashed with rage when they met Sargon’s.
Too late.
He reached for Sargon, and grabbed his forearm. Sargon let him, but only long enough to grab the man by his forearm, too, and yank him forward.
Off-balance, the man stumbled.
He was spun around, and smashed into the wall before he had even gotten a chance to say a thing, or blink, for that matter. Paintings on the wall shuddered from the impact.
Sargon rolled his eyes upward, and cursed in his head. He likely just notified the fucking idiots inside the private area that something was happening out in the hallway. That wasn’t a problem he needed, to be honest.
He didn’t need to be causing himself problems in New York. That was not a part of his deal at the moment.
“You’re going to fucking die,” the guy said.
Sargon pressed the edge of the Obsidian blade against the lower portion of the back of the guy’s neck. Right against his spine. “I was going to just finish this.”
“You cocksucker—”
“I like pussy, actually.”
The guy raged and spluttered on. Sargon simply continued to hold him against the wall with his blade driving into his skin. Already, the sharp edge had sliced paper thin lines over the man’s flesh, and if he kept struggling like he was, it would only get worse.
“What are you doing to my man?”
The new voice made Sargon look to the side. He didn’t need to be told who he was looking at. Jett Griffin, a fifty-something with his distinguished features, and salt and pepper hair, was a rather common sight in New York.
A broker for all things underground, and black market.
He was a business man.
Both legal, and illegal.