“But you said the crew was tight. Granted, my knowledge of professional thieves comes entirely from heist movies, but I’d always assumed a tight crew was like family.”
“A really messed up family, sure.” Charlotte went quiet, lost for a moment in thought. After a few beats, she said, “No one wanted to believe it about my father. But one by one, they all fell in line—Bones, Trick, Welshman. I was the only one who maintained his innocence. I still do. I know it sounds crazy, but he wasn’t a traitor, Dorian. He’d never do that to us. He really was an honest thief.”
“And the other man?” Dorian asked. “The insider your father brought on?”
“Vanished with the artwork. That’s the great mystery.”
Dorian shook his head. It was all so obvious to him, but Charlotte didn’t seem to get it. “Charlotte, Rudy was involved in this.”
“Of course. He was my father’s brother and second-in-command, right up until—”
“I’m talking about your father’s death. If he didn’t pull the trigger, he knows who did. He was calling the shots all along. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
Charlotte looked away, absently playing with her hair, untwisting and re-twisting her bun. She’d heard his words, but she neither agreed nor disagreed, offering nothing further. Dorian sensed this wasn’t the first time she’d considered the theory, but she’d obviously dismissed it back then, just as she was dismissing it now.
Denial and self-preservation were powerful forces.
“Think about it, love.” He reached for her hands to stop the fidgeting. Her hair tumbled down over her shoulders, wild and beautiful, filling the air with the citrus and vanilla scent he loved. Dorian had to resist threading his hands into those auburn locks, pulling her mouth close to his. Instead, he traced his thumbs over her palms in slow, gentle circles, focusing on the feel of her skin, on the familiar softness and warmth he kept on craving no matter how badly he tried to stop.
“Think about what?” she asked.
“Even if he’d foundirrefutableevidence of your father’s betrayal, no thief on your uncle’s level would let that kind of score vanish without a trace.”
“What choice did he have? It was just… gone.”
“I don’t buy it. We both know what kind of man Rudy is. There’s no way he’d turn his back on a seventy-million-dollar score he’d spent months planning. No way he’d chalk it off to a double-cross. He’d have men on the street immediately, shaking down every criminal and lowlife he’d ever worked with until he’d exhausted all possible avenues.”
Charlotte considered this, but then shook her head. “We had other work, other clients, other scores. We had to move on. There was no time to chase after a ghost. As far as Rudy was concerned, that’s all my father was.”
“But it wasn’t about your father—don’t you see?” Dorian slid closer to her on the bench, their thighs brushing, a familiar heat simmering in the air between them. “It’s ego. Trust me, love. The only way Rudy walks away from that kind of money—and the potential blow to his reputation—is if he knows the money never disappeared in the first place.”
“What do you mean?”
“It sounds to me like Rudy set your father up.”
The longer they talked, the more holes Dorian poked in Charlotte’s old theories. He felt bad being so blunt about it, but she needed to be disabused of the notion that Rudy had any loyalty to her father’s memory, to Charlotte, or to any of the other members of his crew. It was obvious to Dorian that Rudy had sold them out five years ago, just as he’d likely sell them out again after the Ravenswood heist.
Only this time, the demons were involved.
For all Dorian knew, they’d been involved last time too.
Regardless, Charlotte’s and Sasha’s lives were at stake. And Dorian—no matter what had transpired between them, no matter what he’d have to walk away from when all was said and done—would find a way to put that bastard down for good. To finally give Charlotte and Sasha their lives back.
“I made the list you asked for,” Charlotte said. “All the artwork I could remember from the missing cache. Do you think it will help?”
“It will definitely help.”
“What about that Estas guy? Do you think he knows anything?”
Estas.The name echoed through his mind. Dorian had already decided the art dealer was the most logical next step; Charlotte’s story only solidified his determination.
This morning, after he’d updated Cole on the situation with Charlotte and her sister—and Cole had given him the requisite amount of I-told-you-so shit about his obvious feelings for Charlotte—Cole had jumped at the opportunity to help nail Rudy to the wall. He’d been on standby ever since, awaiting word from Dorian on the plan.
Now that Dorian had the list of artwork from the missing cache, that plan was finally solidifying.
“How do you feel about Maui?” he asked suddenly.
Charlotte’s brow furrowed.
