Page 20 of Heist in Paradise

“Please. Like you pay taxes.”

He grinned at that.

I snorted, exasperated by him. I returned his sweeping assessment with one of my own. “You look like you shop at the dollar store.”

He shrugged indifferently. “So what if I do? Socks are socks.”

I knew he wasn’t someone who shopped ironically, not like the frat boy hipsters who thought it gave them an edge. I eyed him in a new light, the ripped jeans and thin black t-shirt that clung to his muscled torso like a second skin. His boots were so discolored it was hard to tell whether they were originally black or brown.

A traitorous part of me liked it.

He shifted closer. “See something you like?”

I refused to be flustered by his proximity. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“I’m offering you a cut.” He blew out a harsh plume of smoke. “I’ll give you fifty grand, and you keep your pretty mouth shut. We never cross paths again.”

“Why give me anything?” I asked, reeling. “You could just kill me. Not that I’m, like, vouching for that. It just seems suspicious.”

“What, you don’t trust me?”

I shot him a pointed look. He grinned again and tossed back his hair, and I hated the way I noticed his arms, the way his bicep flexed. There was ink scrawled on it. Callum. Was that his brother? A son?

“We don’t kill people,” he said casually. “At least, not anyone who doesn’t strike us first.”

“How noble of you.” I bit my lip, wondering why the hell I hadn’t fled yet. He’d just admitted to killing people. Self-defense or not, his morals were clearly murky.

Instead, I asked: “So, then, what’s the catch?”

“I just told you. You forget us. We forget you.” At my dubious look, he rolled his eyes. “And she said she bribed a cop. You couldn’t hurt a fly, princess. I’m surprised you made it this far.”

Indignation swelled in my chest. I knew he was deliberately provoking me. Testing my reactions. He wasn’t just flirting—he was unraveling me, trying to understand how I ticked. I took a calm, measured breath and gave him a cold look. Typically, that only made him grin wider. “I don’t accept your terms, and I don’t want your dirty money.”

His grin didn’t waver. If anything, he seemed unsurprised, like I’d just walked straight into his trap. “What do you want, then?”

I straightened my spine and made him wait while I considered my words carefully. He wanted to buy my silence and throw money at the problem. That was an average Tuesday in my social circles. I knew how to play the game.

The golden rule was never to show your interest. Never appear too keen. A person easily bought was just as easily conned.

“Salvadore is hiding something,” I said. “I want you to help me find it.”

He made a disagreeable sound. “I’d rather you take the money.”

“I don’t want or need it.”

Smoke puffed harshly from his mouth as he considered it. “Fuck. Fine. I’ll give you until sundown. But you hold whatever we find until my crew and I are in the wind. I don’t want them anywhere near this dumpster fire.”

“Deal.” It took every morsel of my willpower not to preen like a fat cat.

My victory was pathetically brief.

“What will you give me?” Jax asked slyly, turning it around on me. And he called me a swindler.

“My silence.”

“We both know I still hold the advantage,” he said, licking his lips, looking hungry. “You’re small and outnumbered. You have no power here. I could tie you up and leave you here. You’ll stay silent that way.”

I stared at him in disbelief. Despite his teasing tone, I knew he was dead serious.