She’s silent a moment. When she does speak, her words are so small and meek it’s hard to hear them. “I have to tell you something, Saint.”
A secret. I can hear it in her tone.
“What?” I ask, although I dread what she’s going to say. I may have forgiven her, but the fact a pit formed in my stomach says I’m still miles from trusting her.
Her eyes come to mine, and she swallows hard. “I was ready to get out of the game. I was tired of this life, but now Mercier won’t let me out.”
My head spins a little, having not expected her to say anything of this nature. “I don’t understand.”
“My dad was working a job for Mercier, and he had the stroke in the midst of it. It got all fucked up, Mercier ended up losing a lot of money, which he holds my dad responsible for.”
I prop on an elbow, incredulously demanding, “He did what?”
Sin nods. “Said my dad owed him the money he lost, and I could work it off by joining his crew. He’d been wanting me to come on board, but I hadn’t wanted to. I’d been working on my own since you… you know… since you left, and I had no desire to work for him. But now… I don’t have a choice.”
“Jesus,” I mutter, pushing my hand into the mattress to sit up more fully. I’m wide awake now. “He’s holding you hostage?”
“I call it more indentured servitude, but, yeah.”
“He can’t do that,” I growl.
“I told him that,” she says, rising to lean against the headboard. She tucks her legs up, resting her chin on her knees. “He told me if I didn’t work it off, then he would kill my dad. It was that simple to him.”
I don’t know Julian Mercier at all. Met him only that one time, so I have no way of judging how ruthless he is. But one thing is clear… I don’t doubt what Sin’s telling me.
Which means I must trust her a lot more than I’m giving myself credit for.
Christ, this is a clusterfuck. I’d hoped to be able to convince Sin to somehow leave this crew before the big heist goes down. I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how to do it without blowing my own cover. I had even hoped now that we’re intimate with each other, we’d get closer and I could use my charm to get her to do what I want.
It’s all moot because she’s stuck. She’ll never do anything to risk her dad’s life. Frankly, knowing what I know now, I’d never ask her to do it.
On top of everything else, I now have to figure out how to protect her and her dad.
I make a command decision before I can talk myself out of it. Leaning over, I turn on the bedside lamp so we can see each other clearly. “I have something to tell you too.”
Sin cocks her head, a small smile of encouragement playing at her lips. It’s a silent reply. You can tell me anything.
“I’m undercover,” I say bluntly.
She wasn’t prepared for that. Her eyes flare with shock, her mouth falling open.
“After prison, I went to work for a private security company in Pittsburgh. An insurance consortium got wind of some major heist that’s supposed to be going down somewhere in Europe, and they knew William Mears was involved. I’m a plant—an inside man who could walk back into this life to get in on the deal.”
“You’re not working with the police?” she asks, her eyebrows knitted.
“No. Which makes this extra dangerous. I have nothing protecting me. I get pinched doing any of this, I’m going to jail.”
“So you’re supposed to figure out what the big heist is and tip them off?” she inquires.
“Something like that. I haven’t quite gotten it figured out, but I do know I want you as far away from this as possible. Since I know they’re holding your dad over your head, we’re going to have to figure something else out.”
“We?” she inquires hesitantly. “As in you and I will have to figure something out?”
“You know all my dirty secrets, Sin. What you choose to do with them is up to you.”
Sin comes to her knees so fast I jerk back a bit. But then her hands are on my face, and she’s peering right into my eyes. “You can trust me, Saint. I’ll help you with this. I want out. I want my dad safe. If taking Mercier down is the way to do it, then that’s a no brainer. But more than anything, I’m so damn happy to have you back in my life I’d do anything to keep building on this. Consider me on the team. We’re going to figure out this heist, then we’re going to let him have his due.”
There’s no describing the mixture of relief and elation at her words, nor the weird fact I’m completely turned on by the determination to keep me in her life.
Moving quickly, I have her flat on her back with her legs spread beneath me. I’m short on words right now, wanting to be inside her too badly.
But I do manage three important ones. “Thank you, Sin.”
CHAPTER 14
Sin
My father no longer lives in the house I grew up in. Once I reached adulthood and left the nest, it had become too big for him even though it wasn’t large to begin with. Since his stroke nine months ago, I’m grateful for the small flat he rents in Tottenham. Smaller space means less he has to take care of. Even though he can afford more, he’s never been the type of man who cared about material things. After years as a thief, he has piles of money stashed all over London in safety deposit boxes, which he can now use to pay his essential living expenses.
No, my father has never been about greed. With him, it was always about the thrill of pulling off a spectacular caper.
About not getting caught.
But while my dad was good, he wasn’t perfect. Before I was born, he had done a stint in prison for a botched car heist. He had always told me that he’d never complained once about getting caught because when it all boiled down to it, he was in the wrong and was always prepared to face the consequences.
One of Dad’s pieces of advice to me was, “If you’re going to live this type of life, you better be prepared to be caught at some point. As long as you know that and accept the risk, you should never lose a moment’s sleep over what you do.”
I often rolled that conversation around in my head when a guilty conscience would plague me over the things I have done. It’s a risk I’ve been less and less sure I’ve wanted to take over the last few years.
After Saint suggested we visit my dad, I had texted him that I was in town and was going to come by to see him before I had to fly out this evening. When I knock on the door to his flat, it swings open immediately. It’s obvious he’s been excitedly waiting to see his only daughter.
“Sindaria,” he exclaims, pulling me into a hard hug.
Even at sixty-three and recovered from a mild stroke, my dad is still a strong man. He’s tall and thin, but he still manages to lift me clean off the floor. It doesn’t prevent me from noticing he doesn’t squeeze as hard with his right arm as he does with his left. The aftereffects of his stroke.
I hug my dad tightly, burying my face in his neck. Even though we have different skin colors, I love my dad so much it feels like his blood runs through my veins. I never once bemoaned the fact I didn’t know my birth parents, and I never took it personally the woman who gave birth to me abandoned me in the hospital. Instead, I chose to accept the love George and Clara Westin gave me when they brought me home and adopted me as their daughter. When I got older and after my mom died, my dad offered to help me try to track down my birth mom again. I declined. I never felt like I’m a mysterious puzzle with a crucial corner piece missing.