Page 100 of The San Marco Heist

“Eloise…” he drawled. “Such a pleasure to see you again. But wait, is it Eloise Stone? Eloise Reynolds?”

My brain whirred. I’d conned him into opening the Codex drawer so I could get the password. I’d been afraid at the Albrecht mansion that he might have known. But if he was working with Noah to get the ring… He would have been behind the original request from the clowns to get the Codex. Had he been the one who paid Noah to get the Codex in the first place?

And why had he been at the Albrecht party? Unless it was nothing more than a game to him, and he’d been watching me?

Itwasall about winning, just like I’d said. Either winning or anger that he’d lost to me.

Thomas descended the raised platform and sidled over to me. Like every time I’d seen him, he ran a hand along my arm.

Noah shoved him. “Take your hands off of her.”

Thomas’s lip curled and he looked me up and down one more time like I was nothing but a prize. Something to be won. “Why does everyone insist on protecting this little piece of ass?”

“I’m not a—”

“Because she’s worth a hell of a lot more than that.”

“Don’t forget who’s paying for your little expedition here.” Thomas stepped closer to Noah, looking up at him, and yet somehow looking down his nose at him. “It would do you well to remember I’m in charge.”

There was no way Noah’s new benefactor was this toad. He had no vision, other than a vision of his own superiority.

I said, “If Noah was the blue-haired clown, were you the red-haired clown?”

Thomas’s upper lip quivered. “Illuminations are light bulbs, are they?”

“Alright, now that we’ve had our proper introductions...” I folded my arms and tightened my toes again. I still had so many questions about Noah and the last two years. But they were being drowned out by wanting to know what was going on between these two men. And the hole in the ground. I turned to Noah. “If you want me on your team, tell me what’s going on.”

Noah smirked. He thought he had me. “Thomas hired me to get the Codex. I assembled a team who weren’t up to the job.”

“Including Malcolm?”

“So your boyfriend confessed?”

“Not my boyfriend. Keep going.”

“He failed,” Thomas practically snarled. “It’s as simple as that.”

“Except it wasn’t a complete failure,” said Noah. “I heard him talking to Emmett, so I knew when the Codex was already gone once he got up to the library, that you had it.”

I’d told Emmett he’d screwed up when he responded to Malcolm that night. I just hadn’t realized how much. “You knew you needed Emmett to get the Codex. And—what? If Malcolm failed the first job, why pay him for the second job?”

Thomas’s eyes snapped to Noah. “You didn’t tell me that loser was being paid. He failed to get the Codex from my father. You don’t get paid for that.”

Noah shrugged at me. “You caught me. I didn’t actually pay him. I let him live after failing. Giving him an opportunity to redeem himself is payment, of a sort. But then what does he do?”

He takes what you wanted—me.

Noah was a liar and a master manipulator. He’d made the entire story up right on the spot. Nothing more than to drive a wedge between me and Malcolm.

You son of a bitch.

“What about the Codex?” I said to Thomas. “Why steal it when you already owned it?”

Thomas frowned and walked back up the steps to look into the hole. “All this talk is boring me.”

Noah smiled. “You know the answer, Scar.”

Of course, I did. “Junior over there believes the treasure’s real. His father was going to sell the Codex, so he wanted to take it first.”

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