Page 68 of It Takes a Thief
“And that served you pretty well tonight, I’d say.” She smirks, and I can’t help but press a kiss to her lips. But before I’m distracted or lose my nerve, I pull back and force myself to continue.
“My dad left when I was eight. Ma was heartbroken and never got over it. I spent a lot of time wondering if he left because of me.”
“Why would you think that?” she asks, sounding sad.
“Because I was a dumb kid who sucked at school and was always in trouble. For a long time, I blamed myself. But then I found out he’d had someone else on the side. For years. When he married her, Ma didn’t handle it very well. She was still in love with that asshole, right up to the very end. I think she died of a broken heart. It made me angry, scarred me, and I vowed never to love someone like my mother did. She’d self-destructed.”
“I’m so sorry, Linc,” Merritt murmurs. “Have you talked to your dad at all?”
“No,” I grit out. “But, after I went pro and started making a name for myself, he reached out.”
The memory bothers me more than I care to admit. It’s hard cutting out a blood relation. And when it’s your father? Yeah, it fucking hurts. But I knew I had to for my own peace of mind. He was a toxic presence, a selfish man, who was on his fourth wife when he contacted me. He’d left a string of broken hearts in his wake, including Ma’s, and I promised I’d never be like him. I’d have rules—rules that wouldn’t allow my heart or anyone else’s to get broken.
“In the back of my mind, I think I was foolishly hoping for some kind of reconciliation. An apology at the very least.”
“What happened?”
“He asked for money,” I say flatly. “No apology for leaving or sending Ma to an early grave. Not even a ‘Hey, kid, how’ve you been?’ Just wanted me to deposit a chunk of cash in his bank account. He said I‘owed’him.”
My throat tightens with emotion. Thank God for my found family. Addie, Knox, Ryder and Brighton have saved me in a way they’ll never fully understand.
“Owed him for what?”
I shrug. “For being my sperm donor? Who knows.”
“What a jerk. If I ever get the chance to banish him, I will,” she promises, and I can’t help but give her a small, grateful smile. My fierce royal princess. “Where did you go after your mom passed?”
“I went to live with her brother, my Uncle George. He never had any kids of his own, and he loved me as best as he could, buthe was married to his bank job. And that made more sense to me than marrying another person.
“Anyway, school never appealed to me like fighting, and eventually I stopped going. Uncle G was too busy with work to care for an eleven-year-old punk like me. A few times, he made me go to work with him because he often worked on weekends and didn’t want to leave me home alone. That’s where I learned about safes and vaults. Figuring out how to open them intrigued me and was way more of a challenge than schoolwork had ever been. When I wasn’t taking Jiu Jitsu or Muay Thai or some other martial arts class, I would go to the bank and study the locks and their security system. I learned a lot,” I say carefully.
“Makes sense how you ended up working for a security company.”
I pull in a breath, preparing for the worst. “A-Squared is, ah, a little more than that.”
“What do you mean?” She blinks those pretty, clear blue eyes. So innocent.
I let go of her hand and sit up, my back against the pile of pillows.Tell her the truth, Lincoln,I can hear Ma say.Come clean now, not later.
Whether I like it or not, she’s my voice of reason. Even though sometimes I wish I could tape her mouth shut like Laurent taped Dumas’s.
“Merritt, I’m not who you think I am. I’m more than a bodyguard, a fighter and a security expert.” I huff out a breath then blurt out the truth before I change my mind. “I’m also a thief.”
She slowly sits up, studying me closely. “The second time you took the crown… Did you do it because Jeffrey coerced you to or—”
“Yes, of course. I’d never steal from you, Mer. You have to believe me.”
After a long, torturous moment where I’m terrified she’s going to tell me to go to hell, she lays a hand on my arm and whispers, “I believe you, Lincoln.”
Relief pours through me.
“Thank you, sweetheart.” I lay my hand over hers, dragging it onto my chest and covering it with mine.
“How did you meet Addie and the others?”
“Addie recruited me not long after I retired. She said The Man knew all about me and told her I’d be a good fit to come on board.”
“How would he know?”
