Page 1 of The Woman with the Wallet

CHAPTER ONE

Max

I walked into the apartment, throwing my keys in the bowl, then tossing the wallet onto the kitchen table—a cheap folding card table with a torn padded top I’d found at the curb one day then had never thought to replace—where it landed with a thud, sending some markers flying and making my roommate let out a grumble.

“What’s this?” she asked, reaching for the wallet with her marker-stained hands, red, blue, and green streaks across her sun-kissed—despite the winter gloom—skin. “I didn’t think you were going to the financial district today.”

“I was in Manhattan,” I admitted, going for the coffee pot, knowing it was probably burnt since it had likely been sitting on the burner since I’d left the apartment hours before, but not caring.

“Then I don’t get it,” Megs said as she stroked the fine leather wallet.

We were a long way from my scrappy teen pickpocketing days, back when a stolen wallet would literally be the difference between eating that day or not.

Even then, I’d had my code of ethics. Mostly that I would take the cash if it was there. If there were only cards, I would just charge enough for a hot meal or essentials that we didn’t have—socks, warm gloves, feminine care products—then wipe the wallet down and toss it into a post box.

Sure, there’d even been some guilt then. But I’d been fifteen, living on the streets, and desperate.

It wasn’t until I came across this epic asshole of a rich dude on the street who’d literally kicked a sleeping homeless man because he was slightly in the way of a door he was trying to enter, that I got an interesting idea.

Stealing from the rich. Exclusively.

It was hard to feel bad about stealing a few hundred, or grand, from the wallet of some man wearing a ten-thousand-dollar watch.

“It’s like making them pay some of the taxes the government doesn’t,” Megs had said when I’d come back to her with the designer wallet a few hours later.

It had been a good score. Almost a thousand dollars. Enough to pay for a week or two of a cheap hotel room—plus the bribe to get someone to rent it for us, since we weren’t of age yet—so we could be out of the shelter for a bit. Some decent meals. Maybe even a decent fake ID, so I could get a better job than the part-time gigs I strung together for cash since I was technically too young to work anywhere full-time.

From then on, when I wasn’t working, I was down in the financial district, finding the most obnoxious finance bros and helping myself to the cash in their wallets.

Even when it was no longer strictly necessary for us to survive, I had to admit that I was a bit addicted to the high of it. Like adrenaline junkies who liked to drive too fast on empty roads. Or dive out of planes. Or lay money they didn’t need to lose on black five times in a row in a casino.

I sighed as I sipped my burnt coffee.

“Have you ever seen a guy so fucking hot that you just want to ruin his day?” I asked.

“What? No,” Megs said, letting out an airy laugh. “But I guess it is a bit like cute aggression. You know, when something is so cute you have this weird urge to squeeze it really hard?”

“Yeah, maybe it’s like that,” I agreed.

“I mean, this city is packed full of attractive guys, though. How hot was he?”

“Hot,” I grumbled.

“Like surfer hot? Cologne ad hot? What kind of hot are we talking about?”

“Like… straight out of some classic mob movie hot. Slicked-back dark hair. Gooey dark eyes. Chiseled jaw. Broody brow. Nice suit. Great cufflinks. That mysterious air about him.” I flipped open the wallet to show her the man’s license picture.

“Oooh,” Megs said, lifting up her protest poster to fan herself dramatically with it, making her curly brown hair sweep back away from her pretty round face that was dominated by big, golden eyes.

“I know. It was either steal his wallet or smack him in that too-hot face. I figured this was the lesser of two evils.”

“It would be a shame to mark a face that perfect,” Megs agreed. “On a completely unrelated note, when was the last time you got laid?”

To that, I snorted, nearly making coffee come out of my nose in the process.

“Probably too long,” I admitted. “Not all of us can be as lucky in the romance department as you are.”

Because Megs, my best friend and basically little sister, progressive queen, fighter for all good causes, was in a triad with her girlfriend and their boyfriend. Really, the only reason they weren’t all living together in one sexy tangle of limbs wasbecause their boyfriend traveled more than he was around. And, possibly, thanks to my unwillingness to live away from Megs. Yet. I knew the day would come. But I was happy to delay it as long as possible.

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