Caught for Christmas (6 page)

It’s a question of survival, and I can see in his eyes he understands that.

His voice is steady. “Put that down, Bianca. It isn’t safe.”

A harsh laugh escapes me. “Isn’t safe? You were pointing it at me earlier.”

“I didn’t point it at you, if you remember. And I have a lot more training with it than you do.”

“That only means you can shoot me better. This is supposed to be comforting how?”

“I’m not going to shoot you.”

“Yeah, because I have the gun.” I have nothing if not bravado.

“I was never going to shoot you.”

It’s too much. “Then why did you have a gun with you?”

“I didn’t know if you were going to come alone. Maybe you’d even send someone else. I had to be prepared for anything.”

“Boy Scout.” I mean it like an insult, but it just comes out sad.

“Bianca, listen to me. I asked around about you once I realized you were in trouble. I know something about the money—”

“Don’t talk to me about the money.”

He looks frustrated. “You don’t understand. There aren’t—”

“Just stop, okay? I’m not stealing from you. Not stealing from Ivan either.”

As much as I hate the idea of stealing from him, of West knowing the truth about me, I can’t forget that Jeb’s life is on the line here. Maisie’s too. Even mine. But I’d never be able to crack the safe and hold a gun on him at the same time. He’d turn the tables on me before then. The best I can hope for is to get away and figure something else to give the cartel.

His voice is low, and that damned earnestness is back on his handsome face. “You don’t need to steal from anyone. I can help you.”

“You don’t know a damn thing,” I whisper, but I’m already backing away, already working my way up the stairs. I don’t want to hear anything else he has to say, fake promises that can never come true. There’s no happy ending for someone like me. I’m a thief and a stripper. And once the mafia realizes I’m Jeb’s daughter, I’m as good as dead.

When I get to the top of the stairs, I toss the gun aside and run for it. It’s not my smoothest exit, but then everything about West twists me up.

I think he could have caught me. I know he could have.

But I make it out the front doors of the Grand, where the morning light has already split over downtown Tanglewod. Then I’m dashing down the street to where Maisie is waiting for me—waiting for me to hand over the money that would have kept us alive.

M
aisie knows I
don’t have the money as soon as I show up. For one thing that much cash would be large and heavy, filling the expandable bag in my safecracking kit. And for another thing, I’ve been gone for hours. Breaking into a safe of that magnitude would take a while, but we’re talking thirty minutes—not two hours.

It makes me wonder what she thought was happening all this time. Did she worry about me?

I know exactly what she was worried about.

“What am I going to tell the cartel?” she asks, already anxious. “You can go in again tomorrow night.”

I shake my head, trying not to be disappointed. She didn’t even ask if I’m okay when she must know
something
happened down in that basement. Maybe it had always been coming to this. Maybe this is what she wanted from me all along.

“They would be expecting me,” I say, more tired than sad. “The code will be changed, the doors and locks reinforced. A trick like that only works once.”

Actually it hadn’t worked at all. West had seen me coming. “I have another idea.”

Her expression is wary. “A way to get the money?”

“We go to Ivan.” West wants me to trust him, but I’m too far gone for that. But I might be able to make a deal with Ivan—with the devil of Tanglewood. I’d probably have to sell my soul. That’s all I deserve.

She gasps. “Bee, no.”

“He’ll be pissed when he finds out what we did.” He might even kill us and save the Caivanos the trouble. “But we don’t have any other options. At least Ivan knows I can earn money. I can work it off.” Though I might have to do more than stripping to earn that kind of money in this lifetime. My stomach is a hard, twisted knot.

“I can’t let you do that.”

I’m actually touched that she’s fighting this so hard. It’s always been her and Jeb against the world. I was their daughter, but not a loved and cherished child. I was more like the getaway driver or the strategically placed distraction, someone useful to have around for a con—unless I wasn’t.

The fact that she doesn’t want to give me up to the cartel means more than it should. “It’s the only way. I won’t let Jeb die, and you too, when I could stop it.”

“I’ll find another way,” she says, her voice rising. “I’ll negotiate with them.”

“They won’t negotiate,” I say softly. “Not after they’ve taken Jeb. It’s gone too far for that.”

“I’ll talk to them,” she says stubbornly.

Why won’t she see? “At least let me go to Ivan first. Then if I don’t—”
If I don’t make it out alive.
“If I don’t come back, then you’ll know it didn’t work.”

“You can’t.” Now she sounds almost petulant. It’s a familiar tone but strange at a time like this. I know how much she loves Jeb. I’ve had reason to doubt her love for me, but never him.

“I don’t understand,” I mutter, almost to myself.

“She doesn’t want you to understand.” The voice comes from the end of the alley. A voice I recognize. A voice that very recently was murmuring dirty words against my clit.

West.

I whirl, blocking Maisie with my body. “Leave her alone.”

“So protective.” He’s just a shadow, his body hidden by the building beside us. I can see he’s holding something. My bag. I must have left it behind in my rush, which is foolish.

This entire thing is foolish.

We’re deep in the alley, but the chain-link fence behind us doesn’t provide any cover or protection. “I didn’t take anything,” I say, raising my chin. “And you had your fun. Let me go now.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t do that. Not when you’re thinking of going with her.”

The way he says
her
makes my gut clench. I know she hasn’t been the best mother, but that’s for me to decide. Not him. “How do you know who she is?”

“She’s the one who sent you down to that basement. And she left you there while I did whatever I wanted with you.”

My insides turn cold. She did leave me there. She must have known it was taking longer than usual. Hell, she must have seen Blue when he left the Grand, proving I’d been caught.

She hadn’t come in after me.

Logically I know there wouldn’t have been any point to her getting caught too. The emotional side of me, the core of me is hurt that she let me suffer it alone. West didn’t hurt me. No, he fed me and made me climax—but she couldn’t know that about him.

I clench my hands into fists. “It’s not your concern.”

What I really mean is,
I’m not your concern.
Why should he care about me? No one else does.

He shakes his head, hearing exactly what I meant and denying it. “Someone has to look out for you,” he says. “And it’s not going to be her.”

The words pierce me deeper this time, and I have to lash back. “She was doing what she had to do. You don’t know what these people are capable of. They have my father.”

“Are you sure about that?” The question is so soft I might not have heard it, but it echoes in my head as if he shouted it.

“Of course I’m sure.”

Except now that he’s asked the question, I don’t know. Stealing fifty thousand dollars was a big fucking deal. It’s not implausible he could be taken as collateral.

And more to the point, if Jeb hadn’t been taken, why would Maisie lie?

As soon as I ask, I know the answer.

To get me to rob the Grand.

She and Jeb had proposed the idea when I first started working there, and I’d told her no. No fucking way. This was my chance to go straight, to earn an honest living, even if I did have to take my clothes off.

I turn to face her. Her expression tells me everything I need to know.

Glass cuts my insides. I need to hear the words. “Maisie?”

My voice is raw.

“Oh kid,” she says softly. “You always cared too damn much. I told you that.”

The air is too thick; I’m choking on it. Tears prick my eyes, and I can only stand there and stare at her. My mother. But not my mother. She may have given birth to me, but she has never loved me as a mother should. I could have forgiven her for leaving me down there with West, knowing what might have been happening. If she’d been desperate to save Jeb. But it turns out he wasn’t captured.

The worst part is that it doesn’t surprise me. This is who she is.

That doesn’t keep it from hurting. The pain runs along deep ruts in my heart, places that have been trod over again and again. It’s all I can do to stand upright in that alley, with trash and broken glass strewn around me like debris.

“Where is he?” I whisper.

She has the grace to blush. “At our motel room.”

I picture the dried blood on his ring. Who cut themselves for that blood? “Does he know?”

“It was his idea.” Her eyes shut against the pain—or what looks like pain. I can’t tell anymore. I believed she was worried for Jeb, that she feared for his life, but that had been a lie. “The debt was real, but he was worried you wouldn’t go through with it.”

West moves in front of me, shielding me from her view. “Go,” he says.

“What are you going to do with her?” I hear her ask. I can’t even look anymore.

I never want to see her again.

“You lost the right to ask that question,” he says. “Now get the fuck out of my sight before I call the cops.”

I stare down at the ground, the glitter of wet rocks and the sheen of dewy puddles, as her footsteps fade away. Then there’s only West and me in the alley, only the knowledge of what I did to him and what he did in return. And all my reasons, all my dreams turned to ash.

I
wrap my
fingers around the hot cup of…what is this? I breathe in the steam. Tea.

West pushed it into my hand a few minutes after sitting me down on his couch. He wrapped a thick afghan throw over my shoulders. Now he’s in the kitchen, speaking in low tones to someone on the phone. Probably Blue. He’ll have to explain why I’m not in police custody—or worse.

It doesn’t seem to matter anymore, what happens to me. Lock me up. Throw away the key. It’s not like I had some great future ahead of me. It’s not like I have anyone who’ll care when I’m gone.

West enters the large open living space, tossing his phone onto a side table. His apartment is a huge loft in the part of Tanglewood undergoing a resurgence. Old buildings are being remodeled and rented out. This place has exposed brick and stainless steel. It wouldn’t have come cheap.

If I had pictured him anywhere, it would have been in a simple, bare apartment one step up from my own. And I would have been wrong. The walls could use some artwork, but the place is fully furnished in the kind of restrained, comfortable style that speaks of money.

My faded bag looks ridiculous leaning against the side of the plush, luxurious sofa.

He looks down at my tea, his expression disapproving. “Drink.”

I consider making a dirty joke about that or maybe just flat out refusing. Except what would be the point? He proved in that basement that he could master me if he chooses. And after what happened in that alley…
Don’t think about that.

After what happened in that alley, I don’t really have any fight left in me.

I take a sip. The hot liquid burns its way down, but it doesn’t touch the chill inside me.

West’s frown deepens. He sits across from me on the rustic wood coffee table. I barely feel the cup leave me fingers as he sets it aside.

“Bianca. Talk to me.”

I tilt my head. “About what?”

He gives me a low laugh, almost like he’s laughing at himself. “About what happened in that alley. About what I did to you in that basement. Hell, you can talk to me about the weather if you want to. I just need to hear your voice. I need to know you’re okay.”

“I’m not okay.”

He swears under his breath. “Shit. After what your parents did, of course you’re not.”

“How do you know she’s my parent?”

He gives me a self-deprecating look. “I’m not blind. As much as I’ve tried to be since I started working at the Grand. It’s hard to miss the resemblance.”

“Yeah.” My voice sounds hollow. “I’ve always looked like her.”

I’ve always
been
like her, using my body and my smile to get what doesn’t belong to me. I tried to change. I tried to go straight, but look where that got me.

He swears again. “I should have had her arrested.”

I feel strangely numb, as if I’m only watching things happen. “Why didn’t you?”

“It would have been complicated to explain your involvement. And we would have had to go down to the police station tonight.”

I pull the afghan tighter around my shoulders, grateful I’m at his loft instead of a cold police station. “What are you going to do with me?”

“Right now? I’m going to put you to bed. You’re falling asleep just sitting there.”

“You were never going to turn me in, were you?” I say suddenly, already knowing it’s true.

He shakes his head slowly. “We got word that someone was offering cash for the security code. Blue had the idea to give it to them, to set the ambush and catch them in the act.”

And then I really would have been in a jail cell tonight. “You didn’t let him. Why?”

Because he wanted to fuck me? He didn’t even do that. Because he wanted to
taste
me? There were easier ways to accomplish that.

Hope beats in my breast that maybe it’s something more. Maybe it’s because he cares about me. I’ve spent my whole life stealing or being stolen from, being a thief or being a mark. I could never trust him. Never trust anyone.

“You need rest,” he says gently. “We can talk in the morning.”

And just like that the hope quiets.

Even if he did care about me before, how could he now? And even if he did still care, how could he ever trust me? I’ve ruined the only good thing I ever had, before I even knew I had it.