Page 37 of Merciless Heir
“Why would I do that?”
“The match.”
Her eyes narrow and the smile falls away. “Kingston will trample most people into dust. I needed the right person for the job. Yes. But, he did find you on his own without a push, so maybe there’s hope—”
“For what?” The words come out sharper than I mean.
“That the jewel will be discovered.” There’s real amusement behind the steel of her look. “Now, Sadie, please do your job, the one I hired you for.”
“And Kingston, too.”
“If you’re worried about the morality of the situation, don’t be. Kingston is all grown up.”
I know she’s layered her words with a subtext I don’t get. Or is that subtext one I don’t want to get? Maybe they’re the same things.
“He wants it found.”
“Not,” she says gently, “for the right reasons. And that’s going to be on him in the end. But follow the plan and do the job.”
“Do you know where the tiara is?”
His mother studies me. “Why are you so interested, Sadie? Beyond the obvious.”
“There’s only the obvious.”
“If you say so. Is there anything else?”
Yes, so many things, but I just say, “No.”
“Good. I’ll be in touch if anything changes.”
My Yia-yia—she’s not my grandparent by birth, but she’s the woman who saved me in so many ways, took me in when I stared the down the barrel of a future that would have swallowed me down, and taught me to believe in myself—is tapping her foot in her Harlem home.
Her improbably dyed black hair, stacked heels, and take on mourning dress that would give any fashionista a run for her money is one of the many things I love about Mrs. Athena Diakos.
I flicker a gaze at her from where I’m sitting on her too comfortable red sofa. “Sorry?”
“Does he have a name?”
“Who?” My cheeks burn.
She pops a fist on her left hip. “The man distracting you.”
“Not a man.” And Kingston really needs to get out of my head on my time off. “It’s a job.”
“Right, and I’m twenty-five, not forty.”
She’s seventy if she’s a day, but I don’t say a word.
“This job that doesn’t involve the man you’re not thinking about, it’s above board?”
I frown. Thing is, I want to tell her about the deep layers of unease inside, but I don’t know what they’re from. I want to tell her all the ways Kingston infiltrates my blood, but I don’t know how. And yeah, a part of me wants to whisper to her that I kissed him and want to do it all over again.
I don’t do any of that. Instead, I meet her gaze. “Of course. I don’t do any of that anymore.” Even though, I admit to myself, I’m tempted. “It’s been years.”
And it has. Rumors have had a way of building me into something way more dangerous, way more criminal than I was. Not that I didn’t take from the rich. I should rob Kingston blind. I’m not going to. He’d come down hard, bring his own brand of retribution and…I don’t fear it.
A small thrill threads like sparks through my veins.