Page 11 of Priceless Diamond

The safe chimes again when I close it. I shove the suits into place and turn to Alix. “Don’t wait up,” I say. It’s a piss-poor joke, because we both know there’s no way in fucking hell she’s going to sleep before I get home.

This time when I kiss her, neither one of us holds back. She meets my tongue, fierce and proud. My palm cups the back of her neck, like I can melt our bodies together. I want to drown in her forever.

We pull away at the same time. My fingers trace the line of her jaw. She catches my hand and squeezes once, hard enough to pinch bone.

And then she steps away and I head out to capture her miserable son-of-a-bitch of a brother.

5

ALIX

* * *

Iwait in the house until midnight. I hover in my office over in the freeport tower until three, staring at my computer screen, studying the security feed from the front gate. I spend two and a half hours pacing the warehouse loading dock.

Every few minutes, I take out my phone and check the display in case I missed the reassuring buzz of an incoming message from Trap. Nothing. Not a word. Which might mean everything has gone perfectly and he has nothing to report.

And it might mean disaster.

The white panel van finally arrives at 5:27. At least at this hour on a Sunday morning, the paparazzi are still sleeping. There’s no crowd outside the freeport gates, no eager photographers waiting for a money shot of me, the Steak Knife Killer.

I’m at the driver-side door before the vehicle comes to a stop. My stomach seizes as I look in the window. Trap leans forward in his seat, forehead resting against the steering wheel.

“Oh my God!” I grab for the door handle, but it’s locked.

He looks up. It takes him a moment, but he opens the door.

His face is pale. His eyes are rimmed with red, like he’s pulled an all-nighter before the most important college exam of his academic career. He moves like a prizefighter at the end of a twelve-round match.

But his feet touch the ground. He hauls himself out of the van. He stands upright. And he stays standing as I throw myself at his chest.

I don’t know what I’m saying, what I’m asking; all my words run together. But Trap’s hand is soothing as he cups the back of my head. He murmurs something: “It’s okay. I’m home now. It’s okay.”

I let myself melt into his reassurance. I inhale his unique scent of rosemary and ice. I allow myself to believe that everything will be all right.

And then I realize he’s wearing a gray sweatshirt. It’s too tight across his chest. The sleeves are too short. He left the freeport dressed all in black.

Stepping back, I steady myself by grabbing his biceps. He winces, almost too quickly for me to notice. “What happened?” I ask, looking at his hands, his arms, his legs. “Where are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” he says.

“What happened?” I ask again, and I hear the shaking in my voice, but there’s no way to stop it. When he doesn’t answer quickly enough, I say, “Trap—”

“I’m fine,” he repeats. “There were only two men. Two men and Leo.”

“Are they…” I don’t want to say the worddead. Dead sounds rude. Dead is final. I grew up in a world where I could never imagine needing to ask the question.

“The two guys, yeah.”

“Did you…”

He shakes his head. “Kelly got one. His lieutenant got the other. But one of the shitstains got off a few shots before he was taken out.”

“Trap!”

He squares his shoulders, clearly making an effort to look okay. “It’s a graze,” he says, like he twisted an ankle, or maybe got a sunburn. “Nothing serious. It just bled like a motherfucker.”

“You need a doctor!”

---