Heist Royale (Thieves’ Gambit #2)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Twenty-Nine

Being summoned by Kiah Hart was not my preferred way of ending this forbidden moment with Devroe, but you can’t get everything you want. In fact, you usually get very little.

“You should go,” Devroe whispered against my neck.

“No hard feelings about me collecting the win?”

“None if you have none.”

“Hm.” I shimmied off of him, straightened my shorts and my blazer. Still sitting, he drank me in, in an enraptured sort of way that could make any girl swoon. I thought he was going to top off the moment with some sort of joke or flirty compliment, but he stopped himself and opted to rub his neck sheepishly instead.

“Until next time, then, Ross Quest.”

I wanted to examine him for a little while. What the hell was up with this sudden nervous act? Was he feeling guilty about kissing me? Honestly, if I’d had more time to think about it, maybe I would have been too.

Questions for later.

One of Kiah’s goons was waiting rather impatiently for me in the cashier’s lobby. The woman gestured to an open door, which she shut behind me. Kiah leaned against a marble-topped table, which was the only piece of furniture in the room, and took a dab of his vape pen. I pinched my nose.

“Is it bothering you? Do you want me to stop?” Kiah asked, blowing another plume.

A black binder sat in the center of the table. I pulled it toward me. “Don’t bother. I won’t be browsing long.”

I knew what I was looking for.

The pages of the Hart Exclusive catalog binder crinkled like the pages of a photo album as I began to flip through them. Some pages had pictures. Some did not. Every listing included a brief description and price.

Chateau, 250 black chips

Favor from Queen of Luxembourg, 300 black chips

Human Heart, 190 black chips—related: Discreet Surgical Team, 30 black chips

I couldn’t fight the shudder as I came across the first name.

Weston, Jamie. United States. SSN: 421-00-8765. 100 black chips

“Is this an identity for sale or…?”

Or an actual person?

“Buy it and find out,” Kiah said, blowing another gag-inducing cloud of vape mist into the air.

I steeled my stomach and moved on. There was a list of things I was supposed to be getting for the organization. Embarrassingly, it took a minute of flipping around aimlessly to notice that the catalog was in alphabetical order. This time I flipped right where I needed to be. Five items were on the slate to buy back. Two of them in the rather packed “secret” category: Secret: JM #335, 400 black chips , and Secret: QG #612, 640 black chips . I thumbed through almost fifty pages of secrets. None of them had more information. Only a number and a price. I’d have called it bad advertising, but the ambiguity, in a macabre way, piqued my curiosity.

Digging through the pages of secrets, I passed JL only to find it skipped to KA.

What?

I tried for the QG secret. It too was missing.

The other pages I was looking for were a seat on a UK parliament committee that was supposed to be 500 black chips. Gone. SS Dauntless , a shipping vessel, contents included, 200 black chips. Gone. Evidence from a Vietnamese criminal court case. Gone.

I slammed the binder closed, glowering at Kiah, who was still vaping with annoying nonchalance.

“Where are they?”

“Excuse me?”

“JM #335. QG #612. The SS Dauntless . The parliament committee seat. Evidence from that criminal case in Vietnam. Where are they?” Count had verified that the items were still on the market just an hour before we left for the casino. No way they’d all been bought in the last few hours.

“Oh, those …” Kiah faked a moment of realization, and I really could’ve punched him. “Yeah, those items are no longer available for purchase.”

“Why the hell not?”

He cut a devious smirk. “Because I gave them back.”

I just looked at him. “No.”

“How sad for you—you got here just a couple hours too late. But one of your rivals perhaps reached out to me. I was more than happy to give a few items to Mr.Baron in exchange for, well, you don’t need to know.”

I took a step back, fighting off a minor panic attack. “That’s not how this works. You’ve never negotiated with the organization before.” Count had said that was the whole reason we had to do this the illicit way in the first place.

“You mean my great-uncle hasn’t,” Kiah clarified, rolling his eyes. “Him and his stringent rules. Must stay above the clientele, yadda yadda. I don’t think cutting a deal here or there destroys our integrity. And since Uncle Quinton is a bit busy trying to keep his heart beating these days, who exactly is going to stop me?”

Count, all of us, had been playing by the rules set up by the old king. We didn’t think about someone else being the one actually in charge. This was what Kyung-soon meant. Even when we won, we lost. We’d lost before we walked in.

I gripped the table for balance. “This whole time…”

“Yes, I knew what you were here to do. You and your little friends. By the way, I had your mother escorted out earlier.” He chuckled. “Apparently she broke one of my waitresses’ hands during the ordeal. No easy feat. I also wasn’t expecting the Korean girl to come and help you; I thought she was on the other team. It’s still frustrating I couldn’t figure out what kind of code you were using, so in fairness, I’ll count that as your win. You made it an interesting night if nothing else, Rosalyn Quest.”

I wish I could say hearing Kiah address me by my real name inspired some kind of ice-in-veins sensation, but the feeling was more of a throbbing ache than a stab of surprise.

“Why’d you do this dance with me?” I asked. “If you knew what was going on?”

“I wasn’t lying when I said I love hunting thieves. Shame on me, I really thought it’d be an easy case, since I knew you were pulling something. But it wouldn’t have been any fun taking you in without solving the puzzle. You’re really good. I still couldn’t figure out what you were up to, besides swapping a few forged chips, even though I know that couldn’t have been your main tactic.”

With a final dab, he tucked the pen away.

Disappointed. That made two of us.

There was nothing else to say. We’d lost. And if Kiah Hart, abiding by his own rules, wasn’t threatening my life anymore, then there was no reason to be here. My team needed to figure out what the hell we were doing next.

I pushed the catalog back to the center of the marble table. “Goodbye, Kiah Hart.”

“Not making a purchase? There are lots of other curiosities in here…” He thrummed his fingers over the binder’s leather cover.

“Another time.” Or no time, really.

“Come back soon, please,” he said. “I really want another chance to crush you.”