Page 38 of Merciless Heir

No. I don’t fear it. I want it.

Shit. What’s wrong with me?

“Does it have to do with the whispers I’ve heard?” My Yia-yia asks.

My head snaps up. “What whispers?”

“Sadie, I’ve heard things.” She folds her worn hands with the vixen red nails in front of her, face a sudden study in worry. “And with you, I usually don’t. Not unless it’s all the boring above board gossip.”

“That’s all it is.” Unease snakes through me, even though it’s true, even though I want my hands on a Sinclair jewel. Want and thought isn’t the same and carrying through. “This is just more above board boring gossip.”

“Sadie…”

“I’m locating a missing item. Doing my thing.”

She doesn’t speak for a few moments. “Let’s just say I’ve heard you’re looking for a certain tiara with a certain billionaire.”

“I don’t like Kingston Sinclair.” The words are out before I can stop them.

“And I’m the grand Queen of Sheba.” She sits next to me and takes my hand. “Because I didn’t ask that.”

I draw in a breath, scrabbling to save face. “You don’t have to. I know you.”

“And I know you, dear.” She looks down at her hands and then at me. “You’re about to tell me you’re fine on your own. Don’t be alone.”

“I’m not.”

She goes to say something, but doesn’t.

Out of everyone, she knows me the best. She worries, I know she does, but I’m fine. I like my life. And I especially like it man-free.

“There’s something else,” I say, “isn’t there?”

“If I’ve heard, so has he.”

We don’t say my father’s name. “I haven’t been under his influence since you took me in.”

“Honey.” She squeezes my hand. “He might have lost out on molding you into his partner in crime, and you would have been a better con artist than him, if you chose that path, but he’s not above blackmail, and if he hears you’ve an in with a billionaire.”

“I’ve been working for the rich for a long time now, Yia-yia,” I say. “This is no different.”

“We’re talking Sinclairs. We’re talking the tiara, Sadie. And he’s a greedy, manipulative man.”

“One who’s in prison.”

“One whose parole comes up in a few months.”

“And I’ll be finished with the job. It’s short term.”

“Short term has a way of getting away from you, Sadie.”

I switch the subject to the latest man she’s had her sights on. Though she knows what I’m doing, she lets the other conversation go. For now.

Athena is one of the strongest women I know. She got out of a terrible marriage, she got out of a worse relationship. She did things she won’t talk about, and things she will. She’s saved so many young people in terrible lives because she wanted to. She wasn’t ever rich, but you knew her place was a safe place.

And I owe her.

Everything.

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