Page 26 of Heart of Thieves

“For the record, I’ve never once gotten a stomach ulcer.” Arden jabs a finger at me.

“Forgive me. Just a few heart attacks.”

He sticks out his tongue. “I’m still concerned about those two St. James goons we let go.”

“Have you been out here all night?”

“Didn’t want to wake Soren with my ulcers and heart attacks.”

“Shouldn’t have bothered,” Soren says, slumping into the room and pressing his lips to Arden’s brow in greeting. “I can’t sleep when you’re gone anyway.”

“You mean all I had to do to get Soren not to sound like a bear being mauled all night long is separate you two?” I ask, affronted.

“I don’t snore,” Soren retorts, his deep bass voice scratchy with fatigue.

“You should have shot St. James’s men, boss,” Arden says to me.

I sigh. “I know.”

“Why didn’t you?” Soren pours his own mug and leans against the counter, studying me with intense onyx eyes.

“The look on Lola’s face . . .” I swallow as the intensity of her desperation flares in my memory.

“Nobody likes to see people shot,” Arden replies. “But leaving them alive was foolish.”

“She was forced to watch her loved ones die the night she was kidnapped.” Saying the words out loud tightens my stomach. “That kind of thing leaves a mark.”

“What if they tell St. James what we stole?” Soren asks, perching on the armrest of Arden’s chair. “What if he figures out we’re targeting lumenoring equipment and predicts we’re heading to Opalton next?”

“Then she’ll have to watch all of us get shot,” Arden adds, “and I’d bet everything in our treasury that will leave a far worse mark than seeing those no-name henchmen die.”

“I took a calculated risk,” I say. “Because I had to.”

“You didn’t have to.” Soren mops a large hand down his face. This is more words than he usually speaks in a whole week; he’s typically the silent protector type. Quiet. Contemplative. Perceptive. Perfect for keeping watch and especially good at bringing the muscle with his six-and-a-half-foot-tall frame and experience as a security guard for celebrity Shirley LaCour. “One person’s trauma shouldn’t put the rest of us at risk.”

I sigh. I’ve never run my gang of thieves as though I’m in charge and they are my subordinates. We work together. So even though the idea of explaining my reasoning feels like baring a vulnerability, I set my jaw and meet their gazes in turn. “You know I rescued Lola from Salazar.”

They nod. I explained all this when I brought her here after the Liar’s Dice Tournament.

“Well, I was the reason all that happened. I convinced Magnus St. James to enter the tournament. I bribed him.”

“With what, exactly?” Arden’s expression has not changed.

“I told him if he entered the tournament, I’d help him find someone.” Memories of that night sizzle in the back of my mind. Sneaking into his bedroom, waking him from a dead sleep just to show him I could. He tried to shoot me, but I’d gone noncorporeal, reappearing to press his own blade to his throat.

Haven’t heard from Nell lately, have you? I taunted as he bared his teeth in the dark. Do you want to?

Arden shifts forward, his long blond hair spilling over his shoulders. “Who?”

“Someone he’d been looking for a long time. I told him I’d help him win the tournament. Made him think my goal was the Unbreakable Lie. He knew I couldn’t enter myself, so he didn’t question that.”

“But you were after . . . ?” Soren prompts. Both of them are watching me, unblinking, and I wish I didn’t have to worry if they’ll see me differently after I tell them the next bit.

“I knew he had a secret daughter,” I admit. “Once he was in the tournament, it was only a matter of tipping off Salazar to make sure St. James lost.”

“So when Lola’s existence was revealed and Salazar targeted her, you were there, ready to ‘save’ her.” Arden sits back, pursing his lips, holding his coffee mug just inches away from his nose. “She knows all this?”

“Uh . . . part of it,” I hedge.