The Professional

  Contents

  The Professional

  Author’s Note

  PROLOGUE Alex

  CHAPTER ONE Cora

  CHAPTER TWO Alex

  CHAPTER THREE Cora

  CHAPTER FOUR Alex

  CHAPTER FIVE Cora

  CHAPTER SIX Alex

  CHAPTER SEVEN Cora

  CHAPTER EIGHT Alex

  CHAPTER NINE Cora

  CHAPTER TEN Cora

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Alex

  CHAPTER TWELVE Cora

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Alex

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Cora

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Alex

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN Cora

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Alex

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Cora

  CHAPTER NINETEEN Alex

  CHAPTER TWENTY Cora

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Alex

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Cora

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Alex

  EPILOGUE Cora

  Thank You for Reading!

  The Professional

  A Rogues’ Gallery Novel

  Laine Stockton

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Laine Stockton 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Author’s Note

  Though the nation of Athea and the Harmont family are fictional, the inspiration for the family’s New York manor is not. The Cornelius Vanderbilt II house was located at the corner of West 57th Street and 5th Avenue and was a shining example of the fabulous excess that defined the Gilded Age. It stood between 1883 and 1926 before it was demolished to make way for the Bergdorf Goodman department store.

  PROLOGUE

  Alex

  Fifteen minutes. That was all the time I had. Not a lot, but more than enough to do what needed to be done.

  I stood on the rooftop, drinking in the sounds of the Village, listening to the calls of drunks streaming from the bars a couple blocks over, the honk of horns like an angry mating call between machines. It was almost spring, the end of March, and unusually warm. Summer was in the air, but in the pleasant way that promised warm nights and forgot to mention the sweltering stench of midday. Midday was never on my mind. I was a creature of the night, of rooftops and alleyways, of silent steps across windowsills as wealthy collectors lay asleep in their beds. And tonight I would strike again.

  I searched inside me for that feeling, the one that always came over me moments before time stood still and every action was a reaction to noise, danger, or instinct. The treasures in my home and the money in my bank were never the real attraction of this life. Sure, they were a nice perk, but it was the adrenaline spike, the danger of capture and the ecstasy of success, that had kept me coming back for close to a decade instead of retiring my gloves after my big break (or even after those nine months in a Thai prison that only revisit me in my nightmares). The thrill of the hunt.

  I closed my eyes, blocked out the city’s noise, and searched for it. It didn’t come, but there was a spark somewhere. A seed of trepidation. I concentrated on it, willed it to grow. It reached upward weakly, like a blade of grass in a desert, but it was there and if I just concentrated harder…

  Huff. The breath blasted into my conscious from my ear piece and any excitement I’d managed to summon disappeared in a cloud of irritation.

  “Why the hell is your ear piece on?” I muttered.

  The breath blasted again and Jordon’s voice crackled in across the com. “We’re two minutes from go. I’m wondering why you’re still on the roof.”

  I bit my tongue until I could taste a drop of blood. A little discomfort was better than fighting with Jordan right before the start of a job. How could he understand? He was an amateur and an idiot. Explaining why I still stood on the rooftop would be like explaining the economy to a Labrador, a waste of time for everyone involved.

  “Exactly how long have I been doing this?” I asked Jordan.

  “How should I know?” he asked.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Nobody knows except me because not only have I never been caught, but nobody even knows I exist. The newspapers don’t have a clever nickname for me. The cops don’t have a sketch of my face hanging on a board. I’m a professional. One of the last in this fucking business and I won’t have you questioning what I do.”

  So much for not fighting. I tried to push the irritation down, but the lie tasted sour in my mouth and that just pissed me off more.

  “Sorry,” Jordan said. “I’m not trying to step on your toes.”

  I didn’t answer, but he didn’t turn the com off. The point of having us connected was just so he could warn me if the cops were coming up the street or if he noticed anything odd on the security cameras. It wasn’t to breathe his loud breath into my ears.

  I cursed Saul in my mind. Why did I let him convince me that Jordan was a good idea? I had a partner, once upon a time, and look how that turned out. I did fine without one. I was perfectly happy as a solo act. And yet somehow, here I was trying to find my edge and all I could think about was popping a fist into Jordan’s stupid, pimply face.

  He thought I didn’t know what I was doing? I’d show him. My watch beeped and the fifteen minute countdown started. I should have been on the second story fire escape landing. I should be easing the window open and slipping inside the four story Village mansion and starting the job. But instead I stayed on the roof and waited.

  “Alex…” Jordan started.

  “Shut up, Jordan,” I said flatly.

  I could hear the anxiety quicken Jordan’s breath and it gave me a twinge of sadistic pleasure. If the security alarms turned back on while I was inside, I wouldn’t be able to get back out without alerting half the cops in NYC, not to mention Calvin Harris, the retired Marine and private art collector who most definitely slept with a twelve gage within grabbing distance.

  But unlike Jordan, I was perfectly aware of what I was capable of and that the fifteen minutes might as well be fifteen hours. I would get my prize. As the time ticked down on my watch, I searched again for that thrill, hoping the act of waiting, of tempting fate would restart my heart.

  When the watch read ten minutes, I moved. I ignored the sigh of relief on the other end of the com and slipped over the rooftop edge, landing lightly on the fire escape. I was down the iron bars in a flash, moving quick like a tiger through grass.

  The window was locked, but my picks flashed with the skill of a master escape artist and soon I was pushing the window open and ducking inside. The house was silent and dark, yet it simultaneously boomed with Jordan’s breath. I hoped it wasn’t loud enough to wake Harris sleeping on the third floor.

  I was on the second, the entry point. I had to climb two stories, take the bust from its place in the display case, and exit stage left - a tricky move climbing out the window and onto the roof using only a small ledge for support.

  Eight minutes. I was up the stairs in forty-five seconds. City lights streamed in through the tall windows and cast long shadows down the plush hall. It was a beautiful house, but there wasn’t time to admire the luxury. I pulled open the door and entered the library.

  My prize was a bust carved in marble depicting the face of the Russian empress Catherine the Great. It was said to have been sculpted with the empres
s herself as a model and had been smuggled out of the palace during the Russian Revolution by a fleeing servant. It had sold at auction for one point three million dollars and entered Harris’s private collection. Its journey wasn’t over yet though; its final resting place would be on my mantel.

  I scanned the library and light from the windows glittered off a glass display case in the corner.

  Six minutes. I approached it, picks already in hand, and then stopped cold.

  “Jordan,” I hissed into my com. “Where the hell is it?”

  “What?”

  “It’s not here. The case is empty.” At first I hoped there was a misunderstanding, that there was another case somewhere in the room. But it only took a second look to realize that something was missing. Smaller trinkets accented an empty pedestal. It had been here, but now it was gone.

  “Where is it?” Jordan asked.

  “How the hell should I know?” I snapped, despite just having asked him the same question.

  What were the odds? My intelligence was accurate: the bust had sat in this case for two months since Harris bought it. It couldn’t be a coincidence that it was removed on the night of my heist. That meant he knew I was coming and only two people knew I’d be here tonight. Had Jordan sold me out? I listened for the muffled sounds of booted footsteps climbing the stairs to apprehend me as I moved around the display case, towards the window and my exit.

  I was vaguely aware that my heartbeat hadn’t risen a beat. Even this kind of disaster wasn’t getting my blood pumping. Dammit. I pushed open the window as my watch began the countdown from two minutes. I had one leg over the sill and my thoughts on murdering Jordan with my bare hands when a glint caught my eye.

  I pulled myself back into the room. Of course… Why hadn’t this been my first thought?

  “What are you doing?” Jordan asked. “You have a minute. One single minute!”

  I switched off my com, silencing Jordan for the moment.

  It was on the wooden side of the case, glittering in the pale light. A single hand print made with gold paint. Midas. He’d gotten here before me. I walked closer (forty-five seconds) and examined my rival’s mark. Like I’d told Jordan before, I never left a calling card, but I was the exception when it came to the masters in my profession. Midas always left his golden mark at the scene of the crime. Lately, those crimes seemed to be popping up frequently just where I was about to be.

  The hand print was large, male, made with a glove. It seemed like a messy mark to leave, but he had the skill to pull it off. There wasn’t any other thief in New York that rivaled Midas’s legacy. Other than myself of course.

  Thirty seconds. I had to go, but as I looked at the print, something caught my eye. It was wet. Fresh. The realization hit me. Midas was still here somewhere. I turned on my heel, pulled myself completely out onto the ledge, and eased the window down with my foot a moment before the small timer on my watch sounded a single warning.

  I climbed along the ledge to the spot where I could haul myself up onto the roof. I stood up and rushed across the rooftop, scanning the houses adjacent to Harris’s, looking for movement.

  Then I saw him. He was standing three houses down, masked in black as I was, staring at me. I stood still and stared him down. Get your own marks, I wanted to scream at him, but I couldn’t for fear of waking Harris. I settled for flipping him off. I couldn’t hear him and I wasn’t close enough to see a quiver, but I got the impression that he was laughing at me. Then he gave a mock salute and disappeared off the side of the roof.

  “Fuck,” I said out loud to myself. What a waste of a night. Not only had I not gotten the bust, but Midas had made me out to be a fool. Again. Well, there is one upside, I thought as I climbed down the fire escape and toward the waiting van. I could tell Saul that I tried his guy and found the experience wanting.

  “Why did you turn your com off?” Jordan demanded as I entered the van.

  “Please stop talking, Jordan,” I said, pulling my mask off and slicking my sweat drenched hair back flat against my head.

  “No, I won’t!” he said. “What the hell is the point of having a com system if you ignore me?”

  “Midas was there,” I said.

  He fell silent. “Midas? The guy from the papers?”

  I nodded. “He took the bust.”

  Jordan groaned, threw the van in reverse, and started out onto the street. “So we didn’t even get the prize?”

  “If you’re asking if I chased him across the rooftops and beat it out of him, than no. He got away with it.”

  I could hear Jordan stewing beside me as we drove across Manhattan, losing ourselves in traffic. Somehow I was more annoyed at him than Midas.

  “So he used our hacks,” Jordan said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “If he was still there than he must have had access because we turned off the alarms.”

  “Possibly,” I said even though I knew he was right.

  “And if you weren’t trying to prove some fucking point to me by sitting around on the roof for five minutes, you would have gotten there first and we’d have the bust, not Midas.”

  The fact the Jordan had a point just made me hate him more.

  “We’re done,” I said. “This was a mistake, working together.”

  He snorted. “You fucking think so? If a quarter of the things Saul said about you are true, you’re a legend in the business, but your whole shtick is insane. You’re tempting fate just to get some kind of rush out of the job and I sure as hell don’t plan on getting caught up in it.”

  “Fuck you,” I said. “You breathe like a dog.”

  Jordan slammed on the breaks and skidded into a parking spot on the side of the road. A car behind us honked and swerved around us. Jordan threw open his door.

  “Goodbye,” he said. “Can’t say its been a pleasure.”

  “Likewise,” I spat. He slammed the door in my face and started down the street, back the way we’d come.

  I slumped against my seat. What had I been thinking? The job would have been fine if Jordan hadn’t been there pissing me off. I didn’t care what Saul said. I was fine on my own. I’d had a partner before and I’d sworn never again. Just because time had more or less scarred the betrayal didn’t mean I could go back to that life. There was only one person I trusted with my safety and that was me.

  I slid over into the driver’s seat and started the engine again, pulling back out into the city traffic. I needed to take a break, lay low for a while, get out of the city. When I got back I’d figure out what to do about Midas and his constant presence. With any luck, he’ll have gotten nabbed by the time I returned.

  And if he hadn’t, well, maybe getting rid of him would be a fun project in itself.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cora

  Graham brushed muffin crumbs off his blond mustache before smiling at me with all his teeth. My lips tightened into a grimace, but my date didn’t seem to notice. He bit into the remainder of his muffin and continued with his anecdote without pausing to swallow.

  “-and that was when I said, ‘Are you sure you want to sue? You were just as drunk as I was!’” He paused, grinning, for me to laugh.

  I caved to the pressure and felt bad about myself. Thankfully once I started, he joined in and drowned out the polite chuckle with great rolling peals of laughter.

  “So long story short, I avoided that hassle, graduated on time, and now I’m getting a degree in International Law. Dad’s happy he didn’t need to get involved. Could you imagine? It probably would have kept me out of Columbia.” The mustache had collected more crumbs, but he didn’t brush these away. They sat on the prickly hairs and danced with his lip. I wanted to reach out and flick them off, but Graham might misinterpret the gesture.

  “I can’t even imagine,” I said.

  If I had even a smidgen more of self-respect, I would have left the cafe as soon as he waltzed in twenty minutes late with no explanation or apology. When I’d asked why he
’d kept me waiting, his response was, “I’m not the kind of guy who’s a slave to the clock.” Translation: I’m a douche who can’t manage time. And if he’s a douche than what did that make me, a girl who’s voluntarily spent the last hour drinking overpriced coffee and pretending to be interested in an utterly unremarkable (and more than slightly creepy) life story?

  Desperate, that’s what.

  “So what about you?” he asked like a second thought.

  I smiled and nodded - an automatic response - before the question fully hit my brain. Well damn, he actually cares.

  “What about me?” I asked.

  His eyes wrinkled in the corners as he narrowed them at me, a flirtatious smile playing at his lips. “I’ve been watching you all semester, sitting in the corner, trying not to fall asleep. Not the best student, are you?”

  Irritation spiked, but I kept my cool. “I got an A, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Really?” He genuinely sounded surprised. “Well good for you, babe. But no, what I’m asking is why are you in Econ? You seem more like an artsy chick than a…” he trailed off, waiting for me to fill in the blank.

  “Politics major,” I admitted. “And no, it wasn’t my first choice.”

  “Then why you putting yourself through it?”

  A humorless laugh escaped me. “Tale as old as time. My mother wants me to study something ‘I can use’,” I said, making air quotes around her words.

  Graham leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands behind his head. “And what’s the desired alternative?”

  “Filmmaking,” I said.

  He laughed. This time I didn’t. “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Oh come on. She’s got a point. Filmmaking? Do you know the kind of connections you need to be successful doing that?”

  I would have given a million dollars and several fingers if Diana would have walked up at that moment and wiped the grin off Graham’s handsome, yet smug face. But she was still finishing her last final and also didn’t follow me around on dates just in case I needed to prove my networking skills to douchey assholes.