Tinsel In A Tangle

Dead silence. Even the rustling movements from whatever Pari was doing while they talked stopped.

“Pari.”

“Thinking.”

“And.”

“Shut it.”

“You like it.”

Pari clapped. “I fucking love it.”

They might have a delivery system for the theft of the Blue Hope, but they still didn’t have a scam to go with it, and a heist that big was a huge risk. It was going to take a lot of planning. They disconnected and Aria took another shower and flung herself into bed, where she stared at the ceiling for a while and then turned her pillow and stared at nothing some more.

There was a feeling inside her, and it wasn’t the rib ache of hunger or the dynamic explosion of laughter. It was quieter and heavier and uncomfortable. It might be anger, but what did she have to be angry about, especially tonight, on the occasion of her biggest professional achievement?

She’d had more than enough of angry. Had spent the last decade of her life angry: at her mother for quitting on her, at her father for doing the same, at Cleve fucking Jones for dirty double-crossing her, and at every person who’d taken one look at her and assumed they knew all about her. When she wore shoes she couldn’t walk in and giggled, she was stupid. When she wore denim and leather, she was low-class. When she shaved her head, she was dangerous. She was more than the sum of her appearances, but even her father, a master of disguise, hadn’t seen that.

And the only man who had, used it against her.

So yes, she was angry. Angry that she’d triumphed, that she’d proven herself a more than adequate heir to her father’s crooked empire when it no longer mattered and no one would care. Angry that other than Pari, who had Kristof to hold her tight at night, Aria had no one to share this moment with.

When she was eighteen, she’d imagined pulling off heists like this with a partner who’d share the risk and celebrate the genius, who’d never let her fear or regret or get drunk alone. Who’d feed her pie and run her a bubble bath and tell her how much he loved her. Instead that man was a rival, and she’d taken something he would’ve wanted and she felt satisfaction at that.

But right now, in the dark, with rain pattering against the window of yet another city she couldn’t call home, she’d have traded that professional pride, that up-yours delight, for a single hug in Cleve Jones’ strong, sure arms.

She was twenty-eight years old. She’d just pulled off one of the largest diamond heists in history, and tomorrow she’d spend up on clothes and shoes she didn’t need because she had no idea what else would fill the hollow space inside her.

She used the Egyptian cotton sheet to mop her eyes, and it was a long time before she slept.

Chapter Four

Cleve stared at the replay on his screen, his laughter loud enough to frighten his household staff into thinking he’d gone mad. He still couldn’t believe what he’d seen. But he didn’t have the breath to tell his housekeeper, cook, gardener and Brandon that he was watching comedy gold. They clustered around him voicing concern until he waved them off.

That poor dizzy girl with the lovely face, gorgeous legs and delicious little tits was hauled upright and dragged, bleeding, out of the room with one shoe still on so she lurched about like a drunk in the grip of Gus and Santino. The expression on Ajax’s face was enough to make Cleve choke up all over again, and that was nothing on the reactions of the photographer’s crew or the Greville’s staff.

Where Cleve saw the ridiculous, they saw horror, and in the best tradition of the theater they enacted their tragic revenge, tossing beautiful, hapless Melody out into the street with only her torn and broken costume for company.

His first instinct was to track her down and anonymously send her something precious and valuable as a reward for the best laugh he’d had in years.

“Tickled your fancy, eh, gov?” Brandon said, after he’d made himself useful and assured the staff their boss didn’t need saving.

“Everyone in that room should’ve been laughing. It’s a fucking diamond, can’t hurt it by dropping it. And they should’ve taken more care with that girl. She could’ve been badly hurt.” He knew she wasn’t, because Gus had added a note to his last encrypted message, but that wasn’t the point.

The point was, the last time he’d laughed like this it had been with Aria. The night of a rooftop raid that’d not quite gone according to plan. The professor had tasked him with snatching a priceless Babylonian statue of the demon Palazuzum, a ferocious figure with a scorpion’s body, feathered wings and legs, talons and two snake-like faces. Palazuzum was the king of evil winds and the bearer of sickness.

And that turned out to be prophetic.

It was a one-man job and Cleve was supposed to go alone, but Aria had cornered him on his way out and insisted on accompanying him. Her insistence came in the flavor of a promise to let him kiss her. And since that was his supreme objective in life, after staying alive and staying out of custody, he gave in and let her tag along.

The plan was to snatch the statue from the bedroom of an antiquities dealer, going in through the double doors of a Juliet balcony off the bedroom. Like all of the professor’s raids, it was simple and clean. Move swiftly, stay silent, be unexpected. In, out and away. The problem was the discovery that Palazuzum was indeed the king of evil winds.

It was an inconvenience that the antiquities dealer was in his bed rather than in another city where he was supposed to be. But the real problem was the man’s farts and the eye-watering stench that dated them.

He and Aria were three stories up, standing on the balcony in full view of the sleeping dealer should he wake. Cleve had eased open one of the double doors and could see Palazuzum, as expected, standing on the dresser under a glass dome, much like the demon was a cheese. The dome would be alarmed with a pressure sensor. Cleve would have to skirt the bed, disable the alarm, pocket the figurine and exit the way he’d come without waking the dealer.

It was no big deal. He’d done similar things before, more complicated things.