Page 106 of Heart of Thieves

I hold her gaze so she sees just how much I mean every single word. “The best and the worst things in this world were built by flawed people making mistakes.”

Her nostrils flare.

“But,” I say, stepping in close and tipping my head toward hers so my eyes are all she sees. “Sometimes the most loving thing a person can do is move forward.”

Her eyes flash. “Move forward?” she repeats through her teeth. “You want to feign innocence?”

“Innocence?” I keep my voice calm even as panic lances through me. “Who betrayed Enzo and me that night, showing up to a heist she wasn’t invited to?”

She shakes her head violently. “No.”

“Who used her magic to control people?” I continue, gaining strength.

“That’s different.”

“Who,” I say, dropping my voice to a lethal rasp, “killed your father?”

Her eyes gleam. “How dare you.”

“Someone may have given you the weapon, Laurel, but you’re the one who wielded it.”

A force slams into me from the side, sending me sprawling into the street. My head smacks into the cobblestones so hard bells ring in my ears and my vision goes white. I struggle for purchase, squinting as the world swims.

One of the women I saw earlier stares at me in horror, body lurching as she lowers the stone she must have used to hit me.

“Thank you,” Laurel says to her without dropping her gaze from me.

My hand goes instinctively to the voratium in my pocket, but there’s nothing there. Frantic, I search my jacket, but it’s gone.

I lift my head. The chips glimmer from Laurel’s palm. She must have picked them from my pockets when I was preoccupied with our conversation.

Which means I cannot access my magic.

A horn blares, headlights cutting toward my face, and I scrabble on all fours toward the other side of the street as the motorcar whizzes past. My vision blurs. Blood spatters from my wound, speckling my hands.

I reach the curb as bile hurls through my teeth. I gag into the gutter. My pulse roars in my ears, a torturous cacophony I can barely see through.

As I wipe my mouth and use a lamppost to pull myself upright, Laurel approaches, flanked by the entire group of women I saw before with their eyes wide and their hands rising as though on marionette strings.

“Laurel,” I say, tasting blood as my vision swims yet again, “this isn’t you.”

“No,” she agrees, her tone icy. “It’s what you turned me into.”

The puppeted women attack, punching me with fists that split open when they make contact with my body, with bones that snap when they ram me into the wall. The women cry out through their teeth, tears streaming down their faces.

I try to run. I don’t want to hurt them, don’t want to hit back, don’t want to fight. I just have to find some voratium. But where?

My thoughts instantly go to my casino. The one place I didn’t need to carry voratium on me because it surrounded me completely—above, beneath, on every side. If I can just lure her there, I might be able to stand a chance. And, if she refuses to come inside, I at least should be able to pry some from the walls.

I stumble down the sidewalk toward the casino district, but the world swims before my eyes. Pain slices through muscle and sinew, and stars scream in my ears. The clacking of the women’s heels behind me crescendos, puncturing through my eardrums as fists rain on my back, my legs, my head. As kicks jab into my legs. As hurled rocks slam into my shoulders.

I just have to hold out. One foot in front of the other.

But something is wrong. My body is not healing like it should. My first injuries are still bleeding, my body weakening far more than it usually does.

What’s going on?

I stagger across the street, and a horn blares as a motorcar slams into me from the side. I flip over its hood, careening behind it into the cobblestones.