Heist Royale (Thieves’ Gambit #2)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Eight

I swear Kiah didn’t blink once as he watched me deposit my chips downstairs. One thousand eight hundred and one victor chip credits were deposited to Kennedy Nolan’s account at Hart’s. As planned, I was to cash them out for a few choice items in Hart’s exclusive catalog and, according to Count, ask no questions ever about the things I was recovering.

At least, those final steps were set to happen at some point within the next few minutes. Kiah, petty mother-hugger, insisted on rewatching some security footage just one or two more times before I was actually allowed to place some orders with my newly acquired black chip fortune. At least, I was, like, 90 percent sure that’s what he was up to. He’d more or less dumped me in a fury at one of the cashiers before mumbling something about being right back and disappearing through a hidden door.

The teller, the very same one Kiah had ushered upstairs, gave me a nervous little smile after she accepted my intake of chips. She leaned into the speaker in the glass.

“Um, do you speak Korean?” she asked, in that language. One last attempt from Kiah to have me slip up, I’m sure.

“Huh?” I frowned.

She flushed as she pulled back. “Nothing. Congratulations. You can wait in the lounge.” She pointed behind me, down a snug hallway where a secluded sitting space was waiting for me.

I all but collapsed into a settee. Coming down from adrenaline was like coming off a high. Tiring and draining and ugh. Not that I would know what coming off a literal high felt like.

I heard the sound of featherlight steps coming my way. Dead exhausted or not, letting someone get the jump on me was not how we did things.

I peered over my shoulder. Kyung-soon, still shimmering in her flapper dress despite the unenthusiastic lighting, stopped a couple of steps from me.

“Hi,” she said.

I held my breath, my gaze instantly skirting to the corners of the room where a camera dome would be hidden. After all that work to barely get one past Kiah, getting caught talking to Kyung-soon here would be too much of a coincidence to brush off.

“Don’t worry, there aren’t any cameras in these lounge rooms. Apparently one of the things you can buy from the Hart’s catalog is an hour or so of, uh, intimate interaction with some of the employees. Hence all the comfortable furniture.”

Oh. Now that she mentioned it, there was a distinct lack of chairs and an abundance of settees and oversized couches back here.

I flushed. “Oh…interesting.”

Not really knowing what else to say for a second, I scooted back so she could share the settee—which I prayed Hart’s was replacing regularly—with me, if she wanted. But that wasn’t enough. I did need to say something. She’d saved my skin back there. Even when I was on the opposite team.

She hesitated for a second before flopping backward onto the sofa, letting her hair hang down freely under her.

“So—”

“I’m sorry.”

I felt like my apology eclipsed whatever she was about to say, but in case that wasn’t enough, I pushed myself to say more. “I mean, I feel like I shouldn’t be sorry for being angry about you joining my archenemy’s team, but I kinda do feel sorry for that, but mostly I’m sorry about the pretending not to know Korean thing. It was petty and inappropriate and kinda racist, so I’m, like…extra sorry for that.”

Oh god, did I just apologize for being a racist? Somebody kill me now.

Kyung-soon just looked at me, brow furrowed. She opened her mouth, but I started word-vomiting again. “Not that I’m saying this because you have to forgive me, because, you know, no one should have to forgive anyone if they don’t want to because being angry is your right and my right and everyone’s right, but you still put your neck out for me, so you deserve to hear a thank-you. Which I just realize I didn’t give you yet. So, uh, thanks. Also.”

If shutting up and letting her talk now didn’t work, I was going to staple my mouth closed.

Kyung-soon took a heavy breath and breathed it out slowly. She picked some strands of hair and twirled them around her fingers. “Just because we had a fight doesn’t mean I want you to get beat up with brass knuckles and tossed into the Mediterranean Sea,” she said. “Of course I was going to show up and save you. You’re just lucky you actually did know Korean.”

I nodded, until…“Wait, how did you know—”

“We’ll get to that,” she said, putting a hand up. “It really bothered me, though, when I thought you didn’t learn Korean. I was feeling like you make everything about yourself when we’re talking. I was mad, but that’s not the reason I went with Baron’s team. I would never let a spat like that make me turn rogue on a real friend.”

I tried not to sappy-smile at real friend , and ruminating on the making-everything-about-me part helped there. Maybe I had monopolized a lot of our time together moping about my own problems. Friendships should probably be more give-and-take, and I’d been hardwired to take since birth. “Then why are you on Team Baron?”

She sighed in an exasperated way. “For you, duh!” She sat up. “Obviously Devroe is my friend too, and I didn’t want to abandon him. But I know protecting you is still his priority. If he was joining Baron’s team, then it was more than likely with the intention of trying to work out some sort of deal from the inside, and for that I thought he might need help.”

Did she just say she was going double agent for me?

That was so…cool.

I sputtered. “Why didn’t you say anything about it? Text me or something?”

“Well, because I was mad at you.”

I’d have asked who the hell would hold back information like that just because they were mad, but here I was hiding a whole-ass language, so I couldn’t really call her on it.

She spared a glance toward the still-empty hallway before biting her lip and drawing closer to me. “Devroe wants to save you, but he also thinks his mom is going to win this somehow, with or without any of our help. She pretty much bagged this phase for us a couple hours in.”

“What do you mean? Whether you want to believe it or not, my team’s kind of already racked up the win here.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Kyung-soon said. “Look, Devroe’s already gotten Baron to agree to saving your life if we win. I’m trying to get him to give me a wish too, but I’m not betting on that. We’re doing the best we can.”

“That’s not good enough—” I stopped myself, flexing my hands over my lap. Snapping at people never gets you far. “I think you’d be helping me more if you were on my team.”

“Maybe. Hate me for it or not, but after meeting Diane, that’s not what I believe.” She looked away. “She’s like a hurricane in a bottle, Ross. You can’t stop that once it’s let out. I hope you win, but in case you don’t…” She bit her lip. Enough said.

“I used to think you were the one all about contingency plans…” a voice said.

Kyung-soon and I looked up. Devroe stood cautiously at the entrance of the lounge. He cleared his throat. “Sorry for interrupting.”

Devroe and I must have matched gazes for a second too long, because Kyung-soon was the next one to speak. “Now I feel like I’m the one interrupting—”

“Wait,” I said, reaching for her as she stood. Ditching her because my—uh, Devroe showed up was not good friend behavior.

“It’s okay.” She reset a slanted barrette and whispered, “By the way, who do you think sent me up there to help you out?”

Then, with a peace sign, she was gone.

I just blinked at Devroe. “You sent her to help me?”

Devroe, brushing some invisible dust off his wrist, meandered my way. “I didn’t know who else could. Kiah would have killed you if you lost that bet.”

I crossed my arms. “Since when do you know what languages I speak?”

He hovered for a moment before taking Kyung-soon’s spot beside me. “You’ve been practicing for months. I saw you practicing ordering breakfast while we were on that job in the Maldives.”

“I never spoke to anyone in Korean while we were in the Maldives.”

“No, but you were whispering translations under your breath after you spoke to the waiter in English.”

My face flushed. Okay, maybe I had been known to do that when I was studying a new language.

I pulled one of my legs to my chest. God, I loved shorts and pants that gave me the freedom to do that. “So you’ve been watching me is what you’re trying to say, but in a way that doesn’t make it sound creepy?”

He rubbed his chin. “How about, I was noticing your beauty from afar?”

“Why don’t you go ahead and paste that together with newspaper clippings and mail it to me.”

He pouted. “Look what the months of heartache have done to me. I can’t even string together a decent flirt.”

I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “I’ve been intrigued by your tenacity, nonetheless. If not confused.” I pulled my other leg up, hugging both to my chest. “It’s not every day or every year that someone, you know, kisses you and then, like, three days later almost kills you but then doesn’t and then goes back to flirting with you.”

“Really? I never did more than a few weeks at any one school, but I assumed that was more or less how most high-school courting went.”

I didn’t laugh this time.

He polished his shirt buttons with his thumb. “You know what I’ve been thinking about a lot over the past few months?”

“Besides all the heists and betrayals and passive-aggressive texts from Count? Because I haven’t had much bandwidth for much else.”

“If you didn’t hate me, and if we didn’t have all of the family things to worry about, what it would be like to run away.” He said it with a devastatingly devilish grin. “It’d be like the end of one those heist movies. We’d move to Boca, live on a beach, never wear shoes.”

“Done the beach thing, not as spectacular when you grow up next to it. And sorry, even without all the other baggage, Devroe without shoes is not a Devroe I’m as enthralled by.”

He pressed a hand to his chest. “Scathing, Ms.Quest. Then we’ll have to settle for some lush countryside somewhere, next to a village with the finest tailors, of course. We’ll spend our days doing…whatever it is people do in quiet villages after the credits roll.”

I snorted. “That sounds…awful. Who the hell wants to move to a village where no one does anything ever?” My heels clacked together. “Hypothetically, I’d be much happier in a city. A huge one, where there are people everywhere. And lots of tourists to pickpocket on a Sunday stroll. Maybe Brisbane or New York or—”

“London?”

“Sure, London,” I said. “I still wouldn’t be able to trust you, though.”

“You could remind me every day.”

“We’d still have to hate each other, though. How would that work?”

He paused. “Just as well as it’s working now.”

I took a breath. “It wouldn’t last. Maybe a year or so until we get dragged back into some other dramatic mission or, god forbid, another Gambit,” I said.

“Exactly.” He smiled.

“Except it’ll probably be more like a week later, knowing you know who.”

“I’d just have to use my wish to get us out.”

My grin faded. This fantasy was starting to get swallowed up by reality again. I folded my arms. “Why didn’t you wish us out of our contract with the organization months ago, then?”

“And give up the only reason I’ve got to see you every day?”

“So getting to be with me is more important than what I want?”

He didn’t answer. We sat quietly, taking in the eerie stillness of Hart’s back room. “I don’t like what Mum’s doing either,” he finally said. “I want her to stop just as much as you, if only for her own sake.” He fiddled with the cuff of his jacket. “Of course, I don’t expect you to believe that, but…” He shrugged.

“If things had happened differently before we were born, with my dad. Obviously I used to think about that a lot when I was a kid. Everyone without a dad imagines what it would be like to have one.” He swallowed hard, and damn me, I felt his sorrow. It stung my throat too.

He was trying to hold it back, but he couldn’t hide his blush. He kept twisting one of the buttons around his cuff. “The last few months, I’ve been thinking about how else things would be different. If our mums were still friends, I bet we would’ve grown up together. I probably would have had a crush on you, and if I ever asked you out, Mum would’ve been over the moon. Maybe there’s an alternate reality out there where that Ross and Devroe are living.”

I clenched my knees, seeing it myself. My chest hurt. A world where we could’ve known each other forever. A world where Mom hadn’t pushed away all of her friends, Diane included. Where I wouldn’t have been alone for so long. It was beautiful. But it was a fantasy.

Because that version of Mom didn’t exist. But I wouldn’t tell Devroe that.

He sighed, looking infuriatingly handsome as he leaned his head back. “I suppose what I’m trying to say is…I wish we lived in a world where I could kiss you and neither one of us would have to feel so treacherous about it.”

“Too bad we don’t live in that alternate reality, and I’m not allowed to kiss you.”

He frowned. “Allowed?”

“ I’m not allowing myself.” I thrummed my fingers against the edge of the sofa. “My mom would never let—”

“Stop it,” he said. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, like he couldn’t believe what I was saying. “Don’t tell me your entire takeaway from the last half a year is that it all happened because you let it happen to you and never trusting anyone ever is…” He started laughing.

My jaw dropped, watching him bust a gut. “Screw you.” I tried to punch his shoulder, but he dodged. A ridiculous kind of anger was boiling in my chest. “Yeah, maybe that is my takeaway. Sorry if that’s what I learned after the attempted family genocide and the fake first romance, because that’s what happens when you let yourself be wet-pancake weak and vulnerable, and I lost everything—”

“You got everything you wanted last year.”

“Are you drunk?”

He started counting on his fingers. “Independence from your mom. Friends. Dashing first love.”

“Almost being murdered along with the rest of my family.”

“That didn’t actually happen, did it?”

“Well, at least one of the other things you named was a fabrication.” I crossed my arms to keep from attacking him.

“Do you think I would’ve disappointed my mum and backed out of the thing she’s been planning for the last twenty years if it was all fake?”

Screw him and his logic.

The couch shifted as he got closer. “You got everything you wanted last year, and you got it because you let yourself be a little vulnerable. Even if you hate me, don’t disrespect your other friendships by pretending those don’t count.”

I suddenly wanted to dissolve into the couch.

“You still lied,” I said. One final line of defense.

“Yeah, I did. Sorry, for what it’s worth. But I’m a thief, and I was just playing the game.” He smiled sadly. “When you tally it all up, I still think you came out on top.”

Devroe looked drained, as if explaining to me that being vulnerable got me everything I ever wanted was a hard day’s work.

And you know, I was starting to think he was right.

Before I could stop myself, I slipped into his lap. He jumped, sitting up as I fully straddled him. A similar but inverted version of where we’d been at the slot machines.

Just like before, I could feel the heat of his body seeping through our clothes. He was the softest, most comfortable place in the world. His face went even more red. “What are you doing?” he asked. But he didn’t ask me to move. Didn’t squirm. Didn’t do anything.

I rested my hands on his shoulders, matching his gaze. “Being vulnerable, for now.” I moved closer until we were only a breath away for the second time that night. “But I haven’t decided if I’m doing that long-term yet, so when we leave, this never happened, yeah?”

It took a second, but his hands settled on my hips. I felt him nod.

And he went for it.

His lips crashed into mine, with so much fervor I was glad we were holding on to each other. He devoured me, and I devoured him, drinking up every drop I could get. He tasted like champagne and mint and everything I remembered from our airport kiss all those months ago. I wanted to melt into him, meld us together forever and ever.

Devroe kissed like a man starving. His hands on my hips pulled me even closer, like he was having the same thought as me, a perfect synchronicity. I remembered our last kiss; it’d felt feverish at the time, but compared to this, it had been an innocent thing. Here there was no holding back. No secrets keeping us apart. No lies. I knew what I was getting and he knew what he was getting and we both wanted more.

I don’t know how long I was there, in his lap. But at some point, too soon, we were shocked out of it by the yelp of a startled teller.

We broke apart breathlessly, just in time to see him backing away.

“I hate this casino.” I buried my face in Devroe’s neck for a moment. So I said, but I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“You think they’ll add this secret to their catalog?” Devroe flexed his fingers over my hips, and I might have died.

“We’ll have to steal it back,” I said, and went in for another kiss.