Page 87 of The Thief

Tak put his elbow on the table and rubbed the side of his face, a gesture of irritation I’d seen before. “Go on.”

I struggled with where to begin.

He sighed. “I like suspense but only at the movies.”

“Argento dropped a bomb the other day about my past, but I had reason to doubt him. A total stranger walks into the bar and pretends to know everything about me? You can understand my skepticism. Then I found a letter I’d written to myself that confirmed everything.” I wrung my hands, unable to meet the alpha’s gaze. “For decades I stole from people who hired me to manage their money. Not enough that they would have noticed, and I must have covered my tracks in any ledgers and accounting books that I kept. I funneled the money into that Mage’s account. Probably mine too.”

“You’re telling me you were a professional thief?”

A door closed in the distance.

“I’m the one who erased my memories. I was overcome with guilt and couldn’t live with myself anymore, so I hired a Vampire to wipe them away. I can’t answer every question—only what was explained in the letter.”

“Can I see this letter?”

“I burned it to protect myself.” I shook my head. “It’s all true. And the reason this Mage is hanging around is I have something important in my possession that he wants. I didn’t know it was sitting on my shelf this whole time. It looked like a rock or a paperweight, but I always felt this close connection to it and couldn’t let it go. The Vampire put that in my head so I’d never get rid of it. It’s too valuable. No, valuable isn’t the right word. Important.”

Hope quietly padded into the room with her hands tucked in the pockets of her overalls. She had on a white shirt beneath, her long brown hair brushed to a smooth shine. Before sitting across from me, she took her hands out of her pockets and placed the raw diamond in the center of the table. Her countenance was that of a person who’d seen a ghost.

“Well?” I asked her quietly.

She swallowed hard. “It’s real. I used my loupe and tested it several ways. Where did you get this?” she asked quietly. “There’s only one other diamond like this I know about, and it’s worth hundreds of millions on the human market.” Hope gave Tak a desperate look. “It’s 513 carats!”

Tak lifted the diamond and held it up to the light in quiet astonishment.

“I thought it was a paperweight!” I said, leaning back in my chair. “No one can know. Just us. It’s dangerous.”

He set the stone down. “Yes, it is dangerous. Even my father would never keep something this precious. Hope, stand guard and make certain no one enters the house.”

She sprang to her feet and hurried out of the room.

Tak flicked a glance at the row of windows behind me and curled his hand around the stone as if to conceal it. “Where did this come from?”

“I stole it for a good reason. When I stumbled across it in someone’s possessions, I hinted to Argento that I might have something valuable. Apparently, he divulged what he wanted to do with the money. After learning his intentions, I couldn’t let him get his hands on it. He doesn’t know what I have—only that it’s worth an obscene amount of money.”

“Why did you not escape him and leave the stone with the owner? Why draw the attention to yourself?”

“I was afraid he’d kill the person it belonged to. The owner’s an important figure, and maybe I didn’t want their blood on my hands. I told Argento that it turned out to be nothing, but when I fled and supposedly bought a plane ticket to Europe, he must have gotten suspicious.”

Tak folded his arms across the table and stared at the diamond. “Men are driven by greed. All this trouble for money.”

I lowered my voice. “He wants to finance a war to overthrow the authorities. Maybe even war against humans. He was already involved with people on the fringe. If I’d buried or hidden it and he found me, he would’ve forced the truth out of me using a Vampire. Even if I had scrubbed my memories, he might have found a way to undo it. I kept it as leverage in case he ever came after someone I loved.”

Tak released a heavy sigh. This wasn’t just my problem anymore; it put the pack in danger. “He means to start a war?”

“Without hard evidence, I can’t slander his name. Even my letter wouldn’t have been enough to get a warrant for his arrest. The accusation alone is dangerous. If I can’t prove it?—”

“You’ll be the one to pay,” he finished.

Slander was a serious offense in the Breed world. An accusation could damage an immortal’s reputation for centuries whether it was true or not. That could affect his or her livelihood and personal life, so the higher authorities had built safeguards against slander.

“We’ll keep this in the safe for now,” he said. “Does anyone else know?”

“Lucian made a remark about it, but he doesn’t know. Bear… Bear knows. Well, he doesn’t have Hope’s confirmation, but we talked about it privately. I’m sorry. I just needed someone to confide in, and I trust him.”

Tak rubbed his thumb across a smooth part of the diamond. “I instructed him to guard you. It’s only natural you would have gone to him. I’ll speak to Bear. Do you realize the peril this puts my pack in?”

More than he knew. I sat there wondering for an instant if running away would make everyone’s life easier, but it wouldn’t fix the problem. Argento was going to track me down until we settled this.

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