Free The Family Jewels by Christine Bell Page B

peace,” he murmured, and they drank together in tacit agreement before he eyed her again. "Who is Alistair Hannigan to you?”
    She thought the question over and shook her head. There was no reason she could think of not to answer honestly. "He's no one. Just a random bad guy who does bad things. Not to mention, he's a shit tipper and an even shittier customer. He treats the staff like he owns them, and I don't like him.”
    “So you wanted to steal from him?”
    “I wanted to steal from someone like him.” She reached out to scoop up a handful of bar nuts. "He's what my father would call the cleanest of marks."
    "Odd choice of words,” he said with a frown. “I'd hardly call that bastard clean."
    She quirked a brow at him, taken aback by the barely contained hatred in his tone. Clearly, there was a history between the two men that went far deeper than just this con and she had to fight the need to ask him about it. If he wanted her to know, he would tell her as the game progressed. She wasn’t going to hold her breath, though.
    "I agree,” she said with a nod. “He’s as dirty as they come, but I think my dad looked at it the other way. A clean mark doesn't leave a smudge on your soul, you know? Like, even after you hit ‘em, you can still sleep at night."
    That felt too real…too honest, and the weight of his stare felt like a tangible thing. She looked away, taking a few seconds to shore up her defenses. She’d already said way more than she should have, and if she wanted to get out of this mess, she was probably going to have to continue down that treacherous path. The thought scared the shit out of her.
    He’d already cost her thousands by cutting her little night trip short, and something deep down told her that, in the long run?
    It was going to cost her far more than that.

    * * *
    J ake let her words play over in his mind for a while and took a sip from his glass.
    He'd used a lot of people on the way to nailing Alistair Hannigan and all the people before him. Secretaries he’d had to lean on, hotel workers and cleaning people he’d bribed, bank officials and trash collectors he’d used.
    And then there was Mike. His own brother, his flesh and blood, who he'd lied to countless times. Most of the people he'd dealt with were only out for themselves or a buck, but some of the things he'd done?
    Had definitely left a smudge on his soul.
    "By that definition, I'd have to agree. There is little that I could imagine doing to Alistair Hannigan that he wouldn't deserve and then some."
    She shifted in her seat to face him, swallowing him whole with those dark eyes. "Exactly. It's not too often you can say that in this line of work,” she said. “Sometimes, you spend months gathering intel on a mark. You think they're perfect. Some slumlord who doesn't fix the heat in the wintertime who’s cheating on his wife, to boot. And then, you happen to be tailing him only to find out that his wife is cheating too. And they have a daughter who has spina bifida, and sure, he's a shit of a person, but when he leaves from visiting her, he lays his head on the steering wheel and bursts into tears."
    She swallowed hard and looked down, making a show of tapping out a little ditty on the bar with her fingertips.
    "That's when it's hard. Because no matter how much you want them to, most people don't fit into a box like that. Everybody's got their shit that they've lived with, everyone has their struggles. There's always some guilt there. That's the nature of the beast. Which is why it's so nice when it's easy. When you've spent months following a person's every move and you realize more and more that they have almost no redeeming qualities. Makes me feel...justified, or something. I know that sounds messed up. I can hear it when I'm saying it, how hypocritical it is, but you wanted honesty so I'm giving it."
    And damn if that didn't impress the hell out of him.
    It shouldn't. She'd been nothing but a fly in his soup. A thorn