Page 6 of The One-Night Heist

Never give someone else the chance to take you down.

“I bet you’re wondering what a world famous art thief is doing at a party like this?” I asked my new, rich bitch friend as we awaited our drinks on The Skyline terrace. “Surrounded by a bunch of Feds from the Art Crime Team.”

Giancarlo fucking Luxford’s honey-brown eyes dropped from the top of my head—what the hell was he looking at?—to my face, his expression still chiseled out of emotionless marble.

Seriously chiseled.

Look at those goddamn cheekbones!

“Do you want to tell me why?” he calmly answered my question with another question, which seemed awfully avoidant, but he also wasn’t wrong.

Because, yes.

I do.

“Well, I work for the Art Crime Team as a consultant—oh, bless you, child!” I gratefully accepted my amaretto sour from the waiter who’d magically appeared on the terrace, tossing a few dollars on their tray before turning my attention back to Giancarlo. “It’s part of my parole.”

Once again, he gave me zero reaction, instead taking his drink and offering the waiter a polite nod before setting a crisp fifty atop my crumpled bills.

That felt personal.

But now I know which pocket he keeps his money in!

As I debated whether I should try and pickpocket the bazillionaire who owned the hotel we were perched upon, Giancarlo took a quiet sip of his Boulevardier and turned that honeyed gaze my way again.

“Is it a requirement of your parole that you socialize with federal agents outside of business hours?”

“No…” I grinned, thrilled that the only interesting person here was willingly engaging with me. “But the promise of an open bar was too tempting to ignore.”

His perfectly symmetrical lips twitched with what might have been a smile, which made my chest warm in an alarming way. So, naturally, I needed to restore the balance of the universe by asserting dominance.

“Why are you here, Moneybags?” I asked, my tone sharp with annoyance at myself. “Did someone make off with the Luxford private art collection and now you need Marky Markel to help get it back?”

His thick, black eyebrows furrowed the teensiest bit, promising a reaction. “No. My appraiser was assisting me earlier today with getting my collection prepared for auction. He invited⁠—”

“Your Daddy in the pinstripes, you mean?” I countered, determined to throw this man off-kilter.

“My… what?” Now he was getting flustered and I was getting semi-hard as a result. “My father died when I was young.”

I ignored the twinge of adoration over how this sheltered rich boy thought I meant that kind of father figure and powered forth with another jab.

“Oh, so now you’re an orphan, hmm?”

“What?!” he snapped, true anger flashing across his annoyingly attractive face. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

Because being an orphan like me is a fate worse than death.

I felt an odd mix of triumph over how I’d managed to crack that unbothered facade, but before I could continue to poke the bear, Daddy Pinstripes reappeared.

“Hey, Giano! Come with me for a minute, yeah? I want to introduce you to the supervisor for this division…”

My boss.

That this wannabe gangster not only got the nickname privilege but considered himself the keeper of one of the wealthiest men in the city had an aggravating blast of jealousy shooting up my spine.

Unacceptable.

Even though I knew he wasn’t personally to blame for my woes, Giancarlo represented everything that was. Actually, I was sure he was somehow to blame, and I decided to make it my mission to figure out how.