Now, her father dead five years and counting, it made her feel empty.
Glancing back at the ship in the painting, Charley shook her head. Guilt gnawed her insides. It was a familiar on-the-job companion, but now it was edged with anger, a red-hot blaze seething beneath her skin. The anger swelled, and for a second she considered moving hersomedayto rightnow—taking Sasha and hitting the road, finding a real job, turning her back on Rudy and her past for good.
No trace.
But as she studied the painting, the near-ruined ship, the jagged rocks, the sunshine, Charley knew she wasn’t allowed to live by other people’s rules. Society’s rules. Legal rules. She’d been raised for this, apprenticed by a master thief and his best men. Aside from the mother who’d left when Charley was a kid, she’d grown up wanting for nothing, doted on and groomed by a loving, larger-than-life father who’d promised her the world and tried his best to deliver, right up until the day he died.
By the time Charley was old enough to realize she didn’t want her father’s world, it was too late. She’d seen too much, gotten her hands too dirty. And now, with the last of her legal inheritance dwindling and Rudy in charge of the crew she’d once thought of as family, she was trapped.
Fuck you, Uncle Rudy.
Turning away from the painting, Charley shoved the guilt and anger back inside, locking them in a box where they belonged.
She took a deep breath, trying to think through her next move. The study was her last shot; the Salvatore penthouse was a total bust.
Which meant she was heading home empty-handed. Again.
One thing was certain. Her next assignment—assuming Rudy didn’t relegate her to cleaning his toilets—was going to suck.
With a sigh, she pulled out her phone, tugged off one of her gloves, and sent the dreaded text.
Nada.
It was the only word needed.
The three dots came quickly, and she waited for the undoubtedly furious reply, her stomach in knots, heart slamming against her ribs. But then the dots vanished, and her phone lit up with a call instead, his image filling the screen.
“Are you going to answer that, love?”
“Shit!” Charley dropped her phone and whipped around, trembling at the sight of her mystery man. He stood right in front of her, eyes glittering, mouth stretched into a deadly grin.
She felt like a mouse standing in the shadow of a wolf.
She hadn’t heard his footsteps in the hall. Hadn’t heard the door. Hadn’t heard so much as a single breath.
Yet there he was, right in her fucking space. Lurking. Looming. Intimidating.
Tempting.
“My, my,” he said, his voice as smooth as the expensive scotch he drank. “Someone’sbeen a bad kitty.”
You have no fucking idea…
On the floor, the phone blinked up at her, but Charley ignored it, reaching into her purse instead.
“Don’t come any closer.” She pointed Beyoncé at his chest. “Or I’ll fry your ass with—”
“Fifty thousand volts. I’m aware.” Ignoring the threat, he bent down and grabbed her phone from the floor, glancing at the screen. “Shall I tell this…Rudy…you’re otherwise occupied trying to fry the ass of an innocent man?”
“I wouldn’t. Not unless you want a side order of Jimmy Choo to the nuts.” Charley lifted her foot to show him the spiked heel, then held out her free hand, gesturing for the phone.
The man obliged, but that damn smirk wasn’t going anywhere.
“Twice in one night I find you sneaking around where you shouldn’t be. What are the chances?” His gaze trailed down her body, then back up, his eyes narrowing at the sight of her still-gloved hand. “And what in the devil’s name are you doing?”
Panic rose in her chest, but she quickly tamped it down. Her little rebellion had made her careless tonight—drinking, flirting, not covering her tracks. She’d gotten herself noticed—morethan noticed.
But that didn’t mean she was exposed. Not yet.
