Free Someone To Steal by Cara Nelson Page A

not take it out until you get home.”
    “You gave it to me!”
    “It’s still extremely bright.”
    “It offends you that much?”
    “Yes.”
    “I like it.”
                  “It’s the solid color. My eyes hurt.” He glanced away as if guilty.
    “Do we have a deal?”
    “No. Your association with this scarf ends only with our mutual project,” she vowed.
    “Then that is one thing I won’t miss at all.”
    “Will you miss Tico?”
              “I will.”
    “Will you miss me?”
    “Beyond the telling of it, Riley,” Cain said, looking up from his screen and meeting her eyes. His gaze, serious and open, sent a sizzle through her. It was hard to tell when he was being sincere and when he was just tossing back retorts, but the silence between them held the answer.
    Without another word, he returned to his work and she threaded the scarf through her fingers thoughtfully. She glanced over at him repeatedly, but he never seemed to look up.
     
    Oo00oO
     
    After a few days of long visits with Tico at Carol’s place, intermingled with training exercises, Riley was packed and ready for the Ukraine.
    “The Ukrainian was pleased with the statue,” he told her.
    “Pleased enough to let you go?”
    “Hardly. I learned early on that any accomplishment only made me more valuable to him, earned me more responsibility instead of lessening my debt.”
    “What exactly happened there? How do you owe this guy?”
    “He caught me stealing a string of pearls with a flower pendant made of sapphires.”
    “Was he, like, wearing it?”
    “No. It was in his stepdaughter’s room. It belonged to his late wife.”
    “He took exception to your attempt?”
    “Yes.”
    “What was he doing in his stepdaughter’s room?”
    “That isn’t a question you want an answer to.”
    “Kinda what I figured. If the mom was dead and he was sniffing around the kid…”
    “She was perhaps nineteen at the time.”
    “Ew. Why did you target a Mafioso’s daughter?”
    “Well, obviously, I didn’t know he was in the mob. I found that out rather quickly, though.”
    “Gun?”
    “Yes. I became his thief for hire. He persuaded me through a variety of methods over the next few days. From then on, I was his creature, taking things he specified, regardless of the risk.”
    “I bet you hated that.”
    “You’d win that bet.”
    “So how are you going to get out? I mean, if that statue from the Tate, which by the way is all over the news, didn’t win your release…”
    “A Giacometti, even a major work, isn’t worth as much to him as my services. I’ve attained numerous items for him over the years, and not all of them have been decorative.”
    “Did you steal weapons?”
    “No. Technology, a couple of informants.”
    “You kidnapped people?”
              “I secured them. Took them to an appointed location and left.”
    “Were they tortured? Killed?”
    “None were killed.”
    “You turned over people to their enemies to be tortured.” She felt a chill run through her at the thought of being tortured.
    “I’m not risking your life, Riley,” he said firmly. “Those people were turncoats. They tried to play both sides, and they lost.”
    “So their lives had no value? Because they were traitors, it was okay to give them into his hands? They deserved it?”
    “Don’t we all?”
    “Probably. But I don’t want to be—to be hurt, Cain,” she said faintly.
    “I won’t let you be,” he said, taking her hand.
    She shuddered, a shimmer of attraction breaking through the fear that nearly had her teeth chattering. The high-stakes Ukrainian heist had seemed like a lark, a challenge in theory. Now she was heading for the moment itself, she shrank from it, a cold terror coiling in her belly. She squeezed his hand for reassurance. Cain touched her face lightly, reverently.
    “Don’t think I’d sacrifice you,” he said quietly.
    “I knew there was a risk. I—“
    “If I