Page 119 of The Love Bandits

Which is not to say he’ll return everything from the museum. Because it may not be a popular opinion, but there are people who don’t deserve sympathy. Likemotherfucker, and Peter, Peter Pussy Eater of the cookie bouquet. Sometimes karma doesn’t deliver unless it has a helping hand. Over the last few weeks, I’ve discovered how much I like being that helping hand.

“You don’t know him. You don’t know either of us.”

“Did you know he’s been gone for three days?” he asks pointedly.

The news rattles me, the way it’s meant to. “Why would you still agree to the meet up?”

“Because I knew he wouldn’t come to you.”

Worry pricks at me. Ryan is gone, who knows where, and he hasn’t reached out to me. He isn’t involving me in his plans.

But I won’t show my hand. “Goodbye, Roark.”

He stops me with a hand on my arm. For a second, I’m brought back seventeen years to when I was little. He taught us to thieve, but we hadn’t started with expensive jewels or one-of-a-kind pieces. We’d started small. Part of our training had involved hanging out in public places where it was easy to “part fools from their money.” The zoo. The park. On those outings he used to silently signal to us like this—with a quick touch to the arm. Sometimes he’d direct our attention to a man whose wallet was practically asking to be liberated from his pocket, or a woman who kept setting her purse down to take photos. But other times he’d point out a monkey, hanging by its tail. A giraffe licking a little girl’s hand.

Sometimes I pretended I was what I seemed to be—a kid hanging out with his dad.

I glance back and see he’s holding a gun on me.

My stomach lurches.

Demonize your mark.

Maybe he thought of Ryan and me as sons once. Proteges at least. But now we’re just drains. Ryan’s his enemy, and I’m the wall blocking him from what he wants.

“Give me the necklace,” he says.

“On second thought, you’re worse than my actual father.”

“No more bullshit,” he sneers. “Give it to me.” His gaze shifts from me to Mrs. Rosings, who’s standing behind the decrepit fast food restaurant, staring at him like a queen from her throne. His expression shifts and then hardens.

“No,” she says. “I’m the one who suffered for it. It’s mine, and one day it will belong to my daughter. Now, you can kill us in cold blood and take what’s mine, but you should know there’s a tracker on that necklace that’svery hardto remove, and also that we have friends parked two blocks away who know where we are and who we were meeting. You will get caught, and this time you’ll go to jail. Now, your pride has been injured, your museum of curiosities cleared out, but one would assume you still have your bank account. Why not do the world a favor and retire?”

He’s staring at her now, his attention averted from me. They’re still talking, but their words have become white fuzz. My heart beating in my ears, I try to gauge if I should go for it. His gun is aimed at me. If I jump him, there’s a chance it’ll go off, and I’ll lose a lung or maybe my life. But if I don’t, he could shoot both of us. The sound of the bullets might draw Nicole and Damien and Lainey, and then—

That’s all it takes. The fear of him seeing her, of her being close enough for him to harm her in any way. I still think he wouldn’t, but the possibility is unacceptable. My brother is safe, and Lainey must be kept safe too.

I jump.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

LAINEY

The sound of a gunshot makes me jolt.

Fear axes into me, but I don’t hesitate…

I open the car door.

“Lainey,” Damien says urgently, turning back in the driver’s seat, “I’ll go in first. We need—”

But I’m already out of the car, running.

When I reach the edge of the shitty fast food restaurant, I glance around the side of the building, keeping my body covered—

Jake is on top of Roark, and he’s pounding his arm against the concrete of the parking lot, the gun angled sideways in his grip. The necklace box is sitting on the concrete too. The gun skids away, toward Mrs. Rosings, who’s standing there with the confidence of someone who’s much more familiar with decrepit parking lots. I’m about to run in and grab it when she casually steps forward and does so instead.

I pull my pepper spray out of my pocket and run toward Jake, who’s still struggling to immobilize Roark.

---