Stolen Love (Beauty in the Stolen 3)

“She had a fling with Ruben who told her about me and Wolfe and how I ended up at the lodge in Zim. Ruben said I was a snitch. I don’t know if she believed him, but she didn’t like my presence. The night I went to the shebeen, she told me she’d been in love with you since she was barely old enough to be considered a teenager.”

He curses under his breath. “Danai has always been headstrong, but I never thought she’d be vindictive.”

“She blamed me for your apparent rejection.”

“Son of a bitch.” His lips curl. “If she hadn’t left already, I’d kill her with my bare hands.”

“I knew if you found out Wolfe was in town, there’d be bloodshed. He asked me to meet him because he wanted me to testify against you, but I’d found out something earlier that day, something that proved he set you up by killing Nick.”

He stares at me in disbelief. “The bank manager?”

“When Wolfe interrogated me, he showed me a photo of the robbers that was taken by a security camera on the morning of Nick’s murder. The image was of three guys wearing Phantom masks. I’d scrunched up the photo and only realized I still had it in my hand when I’d already left the station. I dropped it in my bag without thinking. I discovered it again by chance and noticed the cufflink the killer wore. It had a Special Investigations Unit logo. I asked Garai to let me use the computer in your office and looked it up. Only three people had been rewarded with those cufflinks for outstanding service, and one of them was Wolfe. He was the only one of the three who had the same height and build as you. Neither of the other two could’ve passed as a Phantom robber.”

“Jesus, Cas.” He gapes at me. “You walked into a meeting alone to blackmail a SIU agent, a corrupt agent. He could’ve fucking killed you.”

“I told him I’d made copies of that photo and they’d be sent to the authorities and his superior if anything happened to me, you, or anyone close to you.”

The long side of his hair falls over his face as he shakes his head. “I can’t believe he fell for it.”

“He couldn’t take a risk. I showed him a copy.”

“Where’s the original?”

“I hid it on the property at the lodge.”

Admiration lights in his eyes. “Clever girl.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you about Wolfe, because I knew you’d go after him. I didn’t want you to turn into a cop killer. I thought we’d be safer if I blackmailed Wolfe in secret. When I came back from blackmailing Wolfe into disappearing from our lives forever, you ordered me into that boat.”

He takes my hand again. “Not to kill you. I’d never kill you, no matter what you do. Not even if you ratted on me. I only wanted to know what the hell was going on.”

The touch, after all this time, feels awkward. Perhaps too much water has flowed under the bridge. I pull free my hand. “Ruben had someone on my tail, didn’t he? There was a man who looked like a bus driver at the hotel. He followed me there from the lodge. I think he took a photo of Wolfe and me.”

He gnashes his teeth. “That’s correct.”

Bitterness rises in my chest. “Where is Ruben?” Now that Ian is no longer my number one priority, Ruben has moved up on my revenge list.

His eyes grow cold. “Dead.”

I take a moment to process that. Strangely, I don’t feel satisfaction or the joy of justice. I just feel … nothing. “How?”

His tone remains level even as his lips thin. “I cut his throat, ripped out his windpipe, and fed him to the crocodiles.”

I’ve grown more or less immune to violence in my quest for revenge, but the graphic image the description calls up sends a shiver through me. “Is that why the gang split up?”

“After you died—” He swallows again. “After you left, everything fell apart.”

“What about Leon?”

“He hung around for a while but eventually decided to go his own way.”

“Where is he now?”

“Here in Joburg, working as an app developer.”

I can’t help but smile. “App developer?”

“Yeah, I know.” He gives me a crooked smile in return. “Don’t worry. It’s criminal stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Like an app that uses Bluetooth, 3D printing, and laser technology to scan a keyhole and cut a key.”

“I suppose that will come in handy when you want to break into people’s apartments.”

How he broke into my private space isn’t a pleasant memory. Hiding my face behind the mug, I pop the pills in my mouth and swallow them with the lukewarm tea.

“Don’t do that,” he says in a soft voice.

Feigning ignorance, I ask, “Do what?”

“Feel bad about what’s happened in the past.”