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“Fuck him,” Jack added from my other side.
There was a dead rat not even two feet away. “Maybe he don’t know what vermin is,” I said. “Maybe we should put that rat in his carriage. That’d show him.”
“Do it.” Jack elbowed me. “He’ll piss his proper pants.”
I found a flat piece of metal and scooped up the rat. Edging around the crowd, I approached the fancy carriage. I started to lean in the window—and found her sitting inside. The prettiest girl I’d ever come across.
I couldn’t move, awestruck by her delicate features and dazzling smile.
“Hello,” she said to me.
I dropped the dead rodent. My mouth wouldn’t work, so I stood there. Staring. I hadn’t seen that color hair before. It looked like spun gold in the gaslight. Her skin glowed with health and happiness. She was an angel.
The crowd began clapping. The girl nodded toward the street. “You better go. My father’s coming.”
My legs carried me back to the boys. When I sat, they clapped me on the shoulder. Timmy said, “I can’t wait to hear him scream when he spots that rat!”
“I didn’t do it.” I couldn’t defile the carriage, not with an angel sitting in it. “Don’t worry. We’ll come up with another way to get back at Daniel Kelly.”
I had watched that night as Kelly climbed into the carriage. The girl gazed at him like a diamond necklace and slice of roast beef rolled into one. But he spared not a single glance for her. Instead, he’d shoved her aside to wave out of the carriage window, his smile slick.
Some do-gooder. Treating his own daughter like dirt so he could soak up the attention and praise of strangers.
In a snap, I hated Daniel Kelly.
As I smoked, I regarded Isabelle. I hadn’t thought of her much after that night. After all, she was the unattainable princess, too good for a rotten man like me.
But all these years later, the angel was here in my club. And she was even more beautiful, with all the curves I loved on a woman.
Better, she needed help.
I really was a bastard, because I couldn’t resist turning the situation to my advantage. It was what I did best, after all.
“What will I do? How far will I go?” The edges of her mouth turned down. “What does that mean?”
“Exactly what I said. Tell me what you’re offering.”
“What do you want? Money?”
Now we were getting somewhere. I blew out a stream of smoke. “Perhaps it’s to merely spend time with you.”
“Doing what?”
I threw my head back and laughed. Was she truly this innocent? If so, it hardly made this fun. I had no interest in taking a woman against her will. And seducing a sheltered uptown princess—even the daughter of a man I hated—sounded boring as fuck.
I liked my women eager. Experienced. Filthy.
Not that I’d had time for any recently. Being king of the underworld consumed my every minute. There truly was no rest for the wicked.
“Forget it,” I said, pushing to my feet and putting out my cigarette. “Run along, Miss Kelly. Good luck with your Pinkertons. They’ll never find your father.”
I shoved my hands in my trouser pockets and started for the exit. There was a meeting in a few minutes down at the docks and I needed—
“Wait!”
Miss Kelly’s hand landed on my arm, and I swore I could feel the heat from her body through layers of cloth. Awareness crawled over my skin. It caused my voice to come out sharper than I intended when I asked, “What is it, Miss Kelly?”
“Please, wait. I really do need your help.”
