Page 92 of Merciless Heir

“I don’t know. Yet. But we now have options. We have the fake. And we know something has Jenson rattled. The fake is what it’s meant to be; both a fire under asses and your insurance if we don’t get it.”

I spin away from him and grab my coat and throw his at him.

He asks, “How? And where are we going?”

“How? Even if they have the real one, I say they because I’m bundling your mom in this, but if they have it, then it will appear that day, so you’ll fulfill your part of the quest.”

“I still want the damn real one.”

“I know.”

“So, where are we going?”

I pick up my bag and open the door as he pulls on his coat. “You’re doing whatever you’re doing, and I’m doing my thing. Alone.”

“No.”

Annoyance ticks through me, but I tamp it down. “I know you don’t trust me, but this time, you need to. I’m asking you, too.”

After a long moment, he nods. “This one time,” he says, and then he’s out the door and gone.

I lock up and am on the street and in a cab, heading to midtown when a text comes in from one Ryder Sinclair about security. Or else it’s an excuse to get information from me for Kingston.

He wants to meet, his offices, which are midtown. It might not even be his main one. These Sinclair brothers have businesses all over Manhattan. I agree to meet, and after a half-second thought I dismiss the whole information pumping.

That isn’t Kingston’s style.

If he wants to know, he’ll ask.

And I know I must be crazy because the whole in your face business of hard-edged Kingston gets me hot and bothered.

Crazy. Capital C.

Since traffic is utter shit, I send out feelers and then call Yia-yia.

She answers immediately.

“Give me a list of who you think would want the tiara,” I say.

“What’s wrong?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

Ryder Sinclair is just as stylish, beautiful, and charming as he was when I met him. He asks me about security for his various businesses, dangles a carrot of hiring me because he wants information.

I play with the carrot a moment. And then a light switches on, bright. He wants information, all right. But not for Kingston.

In his way, he’s prodding me to protect his brother, in case he needs it. “You don’t want to hire me.”

“Actually,” he says, reclining in a chair in his office, “I do. My apartment buildings, businesses, need an overhaul. Something good. Crime, you know.”

“Uh huh.”

I stare at him, his easy, casually flirty smile doesn’t slip, though I get the feeling he can be as ruthless as his brother.

“So, you’re Kingston’s,” he says. “Not really his type, but I can definitely see why he’d want you. Smart, beautiful, and more than a handful.”

“Listen up, pretty boy, your charm might work on most females, but not me.”