Chapter 13
Ian
“What did you do?” I ask Cas as I park the truck.
I didn’t dare speak before for the fear of losing my cool and steering us off the road. If she put her life in danger—fuck. I can’t even think about it. Dragging my hands over my head, I turn in my seat and face her.
“I’d say Olga is back at the store by now,” she says. “Maybe she has a spare key for Mint’s office door, maybe not. Either way, it shouldn’t take her more than a minute to call for help.” She motions at my phone that lies in the console. “Check your hacker app.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
She regards me quietly, chewing her lip.
“What did you do, Cas?”
Sighing, she lifts her ass, takes a velvet bag from her back pocket, and throws it at me. I catch it in mid-air. No fucking way. I untie the strings and peer into the bag. Diamonds. A lot of them. Enough to make Cas a diamond magnate.
A multitude of emotions run through my chest—admiration, pride, disbelief, and that godawful fear. It’s the fear that hooks its claws into me.
“You took a risk,” I say, jostling the stones as I shake the bag in front of her face. “He could’ve pulled a gun or alerted the security company.”
“I know Mint. I know his store. He doesn’t own a gun, and I made sure he didn’t get near the panic button.”
“There are cameras.” I slam a hand on the wheel. “Fuck, Cas. You should’ve told me the minute you left the store.” I grapple for my phone. “I need to call Leon. We need to hack into the feed and wipe it out.”
She places a hand on mine, stilling me. “I broke the security monitor and made him throw his laptop out of the window. A beggar ran off with the broken laptop. Recovering the hard drive is very unlikely. By now, it’s long since dismantled and sold.”
“That wasn’t the plan.” I gnash my teeth so hard the joints of my jaw ache. “You were supposed to stay in the camera’s blind spot and not show your face. That was the plan.”
“I improvised.”
“It was an uncalculated risk,” I say through clenched teeth. “You deviated from the plan, a plan we fucking worked out to the last detail. Stealing the diamonds was a last resort. You said so yourself. Stealing was supposed to be my job.” I stab a thumb on my chest. “My risk.”
Throwing the diamonds in her lap, I curse under my breath. I’m shaking with the knowledge of what could’ve happened, but I’m also suffering from a persistent hard-on elicited by her ballsy act. I want to spank her for being so irresponsible and kiss her for being so brave.
I blow out a long breath, trying to get a handle on my emotions. Before I met her, I never had a problem with keeping control. Emotions are exactly why involving Cas is a risk. I’ve always taken uncalculated risks when I’m around her, because she fucks not only with my body but also with my head. The fact that we’re sitting in the truck and having this discussion when I should be checking the app on my phone is proof of that.
“Fuck, Cas.” I still can’t believe she did that.
She looks toward the mountain. “He said I wasn’t mother material, okay?”
What? My chest squeezes. That lousy son of a bitch. Of all the things he could’ve said, he said the one thing that would hurt my girl most, because of all the things in the world, it’s the one thing she can never be, at least not biologically. It makes me want to turn the truck around, grab him by his scrawny neck, hand out a few punches, and shoot him in the kneecaps.
Gripping her chin, I force her gaze back to me. “I’m proud of you. You did well.”
A smile threatens to break through the bleak expression clouding her face. “Do you mean that?”
I exhale another shaky breath. “Yeah.” Her smile is contagious. It looks good on her. I’m going to make her smile more often. “You make a good bandit.”
She tilts her face, escaping my touch, and slaps my arm. “Be serious.”
I laugh. “I am.” Fuck, yeah. It’s good to laugh. It takes off some of the edge. I motion at the bag in her lap. “What are you going to do with all those diamonds?”
She traces the stones through the velvet, staring at the bag. “Find a buyer, I guess. Maybe I’ll donate the whole lot to women unworthy of being wives.”
“Hey.” I twist a strand of hair that has escaped her braid around my finger. “You’re perfect. Forget that asshole and what he said. He’s not worth your anger.”
“You’re right.” Her mouth sets in a hard line. “Giving him any kind of emotion is giving him power he doesn’t deserve.”