Martie Hill, Lucas’ wife, could always tell when there was trouble brewing with her husband. The problem with him was that he never wanted to talk about it, and asking questions only seemed to worsen his mood.

She tried to ignore his mood swings, the long hours on the phone at night, the way he shut himself into his office after business hours were over. There were some things that she felt she shouldn’t have to ask him about. As his wife of almost twenty years, he should feel comfortable confiding in her. After all these years he still didn’t and that annoyed and alarmed her.

She knew, for example, that he was grieving for his first wife.

Well, maybe grieving for her overstated things. He had regrets about her might be a more accurate description. And now that she was gone he was wrestling with what it meant to know he’d never see her again, even if it were to argue with her for one last time.

He’d known that his ex, the mother of his son, died a few months earlier. What she thought was bizarre was that he wasn’t concerned about telling his adult son his mother was dead.

Martie had almost gone to Rick and told him herself. Regardless of what relationship—or lack of one---he had with his birth mother, it was the kind of information he deserved to know. When he came to the house this last time, she still wanted to tell him, but Lucas had already sworn her to silence. In some ways, maybe it wasn’t her place. She was fond of Rick but it wasn’t like she raised him herself. He’d only lived with them for a couple of years early on in their marriage, and she ended up being more like an older sister than a stepmother to him.

When Lucas made up his mind about something like this he was stubborn. Even though she decided to abide by his wishes to keep peace in their home, she felt bad about it. She wouldn’t have wanted anyone to keep a secret like that from her.

According to what Lucas told her, his ex-wife had cancer, but that wasn’t what killed her. A mix of pills and a glass of wine had ended her life. There was no way to know if she committed suicide, or if she just was trying to alleviate her pain with a good night’s sleep. Lucas handled the arrangements and had her laid to rest in England.

There was a lot to the whole story which she didn’t know. Lucas claimed to not have known where she was for years, so how was it he knew when she died?

Martie suspected a lot of things, but there wasn’t much she knew for sure.

Two days after he visited his father, Rick called Martie on her cell phone. They didn’t tend to speak, but she had given him the number years ago, so he had it in case he ever needed to reach his father but couldn’t get him on his home line.

“Hi there,” she said warmly. “I’m away from home, but your Dad is there if you’re looking for him…”

“No, I wanted to speak to you,” Rick interrupted. “Where are you? I could pick you up.”

She bit her lip. “I’m out running errands.”

“That’s fine,” he said. “I promise I won’t take much of your time, I just need to see you away from the house.”

* * *

She offered to meet him at a local family restaurant; it was public, neutral ground, and someplace she could easily explain to her husband. She could say that she ran into Rick and just decided to go have a cup of coffee with him. It sounded reasonable. One way or another, she always ended up having to explain such coincidences to Lucas.

Rick was already in the parking lot when her car pulled up, arms crossed over his chest. The serious expression on his face made her heart drop. This was not going to be easy.

He greeted her with a kiss on the cheek and they walked into the restaurant together. He asked for a drink and she ordered coffee. The uneasy feeling in the pit of Martie’s stomach let her know she wouldn’t be eating anything soon. She already regretted agreeing to meet with him. Taking a deep breath in, she tried to calm her frayed nerves by reminding herself that she wasn’t trapped. She could still leave anytime she wanted to.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Rick said. “And I usually wouldn’t put you in the middle of anything that concerned my father but I need to know, how long has he known my mother is dead?”

Martie had been practicing what she would say when the topic finally came up. She had expected some version of this question but presented with his righteous, smoldering anger, she wasn’t sure what to tell him.

Rick went on, and as she spoke she scrambled for the right thing to say.

“My mother’s attorney got in touch with me a few months ago to let me know she had passed away and that there was an inheritance,” Rick said. “When he told me that she had been sick for some time and that she had arranged for things, I assumed he meant that she also took care of plans for her service as well. Here it is I come to find out that an anonymous person took care of her funeral. I’m betting it was Dad.

“I didn’t go to Dad when I first found out about my mother’s death because honestly, we have never had the kind of relationship. He’s never said a kind word about her. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say unless he could at least be decent about it, especially when I first found out and was reeling from the news. But when I talked to him, I realized he already knew. It was no surprise, and I’m willing to bet now he knew soon after she died.”

“I might as well tell you,” Martie sighed. “I think he found out shortly after it happened. He asked that I didn’t tell you. At first, he promised to do it himself. And then he said that it was none of my business and I had better keep quiet about it.”

Rick cursed, leaning back against the booth. “That’s what you were afraid to tell me.”

“I really wanted to,” Martie began. “Lately, I’m at a loss with what’s going on with your Dad, and every time I try to get him to talk to me about it, he just withdraws further.”

“Business?” Rick asked.

“Maybe,” she said. “It feels like more than that.”

“Cheating?”

She shook her head. “I would be used to cheating. He tends to be happy when there’s a newbie in sight.”

“Martie I’m sorry, I hate to be so blunt.”

“Well at least someone in the Hill family is,” she said, looking down at her coffee cup. “If I weren’t driving home I really would have ordered something stronger.”

Rick ran a hand through his hair. “Did he say why he was waiting to tell me?”

“No,” Martie said. “The whole thing is strange if you ask me. You know, growing up my family wasn’t like this. Maybe you liked your relatives or you didn’t but when something was going on everyone knew about it, argued about it, and got over it. I’m not sure what this hiding the truth is about. And I should have went ahead and told you, I was just worried your Dad was going to pop an artery once he found out about it.”

“Sounds like him,” Rick said. “Tell me something. Has he mentioned anything about my sister these last few months?”

Martie paused. “No. Do you know where she is?”

* * *

Erika had heard about where Alec lived with the other black ops officers he called his brothers but she still hadn’t expected the breadth of the space. Four houses, one for each man, with another house in the middle which they used as their office space. At the gate, Alec punched in a code to allow them to enter. She couldn’t help but notice the cameras and the amount of security, and she had a feeling there were a few more she didn’t spot. These homes were more than secure; the place was a fortress. She could only wonder what kind of past these men had which made them feel the need for this many layers of precaution.

Alec parked his car in front of his house.

“I’ll give you the grand tour later,” he said. “I don’t want to be late. The guys are already waiting.”

“Waiting for me,” Erika said. “Why do I feel like I’m meeting your mother?”

Alec shrugged. “I don’t know. You can’t be nervous. Are you?”

“Ugh. I’ll get over it,” she told him. “I’m sure it’s a momentary lapse.”

He leaned over and kissed her deeply. She gently pushed him away. “Alright, I’m sure we have time later but it’s not going to make a good impression if we get carried away out here.”

He took a deep breath. “Yeah, agreed.”

She pulled down the sun visor to check her makeup. He quickly wiped his mouth, and when they were ready they walked up to the office together.

* * *

Apparently, the guys had seen Alec’s car pull up because they had left the front door of the office open. When Erika and Alec got there, the three men were sitting in the living room.

They stood up when the two of them walked into the room together, and Erika smiled. She really was more nervous than she wanted to admit even to herself. These men were not only the people Alec considered his family, but they were also tasked with helping her pull off her last heist. She was counting on their abilities to help her do this and no matter how much he trusted them, she’d never worked with these people before. All her information about them came from what Alec told her.

Alec made all the introductions. The tech guy was David, a muscular man with a shaved head and a thin coating of stubble on his cheeks. He offered his hand and gave her a firm handshake. He wore a loose white t-shirt which did not conceal his thickly muscled arms and chest. He stood a whole foot taller than Erika. She’d have never guessed that he was the computer savvy type. By the looks of him, she would have guessed he was a bouncer, maybe a bodyguard.

Jesse was just under six feet tall, with long, muscular limbs. His skin was a light golden brown, but his eyes were a cornflower blue. His hair was cut into a well-kept Corvallis which would be curly if he let it grow out longer. He smiled and greeted her warmly. He had a dazzling smile—definitely a lady’s man. He wore slacks, a neat dress suit, and tie. She caught a whiff of his cologne, pleasantly sweet but with a touch of salt. There was a reason he was often the salesman, the person who brought customers on and often closed the deal.

Kiefer, the leader, was also dressed casually; his long sleeved sweater covered his tattoos. He had wavy dark hair and eyes that were a deep, midnight blue. There was a tiny white scar above his left eyebrow, a tilted line which looked like and accent mark. There was something about the man—a center of calm. She imagined him commanding any room that he stepped into. He shook her hand and placed his other on top of both her hands. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said simply.

They all sat down and talked. Alec served as the intermediary.

“First off, I want to thank you for considering this,” Erika said. “Seeing as it’s not legal.”

“We’ve done shadier things before,” David said. “Probably will again.”

“Our concern is really making this all flow as well as possible so you get out from under your boss,” Kiefer said. “Something I have been meaning to ask. Do you think Pascale would have any reason to try to mess with the operation?”

“As revenge?” Erika asked. “Anything’s possible. I mean, it’s not like I have trust in him to keep obligations but I’ve never seen him do something that underhanded to anyone else who worked for him.”

“Okay. But when was the last time someone else in his crew tried to get out?” David asked.

“Good point,” Erika conceded.

“I think the point is,” Alec said. “Just because this should be a simple job, I don’t think we should treat it like one. We don’t know for sure if you’re being watched, but if you are, we have to take into account he may have someone at the gallery.”

“Not that we can’t neutralize the situation,” Kiefer said. “I wouldn’t want you going in with any illusions about it.”

“Well. In my experience, some things are harder than others but nothing is easy,” she said.

“Glad you have that mindset,” Kiefer replied. “Is there anything else you can tell us about Pascale?”

“I wish I could tell you more about him. They always kept us as far from him as possible. I couldn’t tell you his real name, what city he lives in or what he looks like. All of the information we got about our assignments came from Emery. Honestly, sometimes I think he’s the only one who really knows anything about the boss. The one thing I could get out of him was that they’d known each other from the time he was a young man. How they met or exactly what bonded the two of them, I don’t know.”

“Is there anything you can tell us about your old colleague, Emery?” David asked. “I did a search on him but didn’t find much.”

Erika took her time, trying to remember and specifics which might help. Their meeting lasted a little over a half hour, and once it was done, she felt a sense of relief.

“Now, you can come see the house,” Alec said.

“I’m looking forward to seeing your cave,” she joked.

Once they were inside it was obvious the care he put into his home. It was ultra-modern, sparsely furnished but chic. The living room was decorated in tones of white, red, and black. There was even art, including one large mural from an up and coming artist that she recognized. She took her shoes off and followed him from room to room, but they went back to the living room to relax.

“Now that we’re away from the guys,” Alec said, “I wanted to ask you. Were you and Emery in a relationship?”

“Do you care?” she asked.

“Not in the way you might think. I’m not asking about it as your boyfriend. I want to know if he’s a danger to you.”

“You think if I had slept with him that he wouldn’t be?”

Alec shrugged. “Maybe less, maybe more so. But I have to ask.”

She nodded. “I see. And you wouldn’t let the others ask me that question.”

“No, because it’s not their place to ask you.”

Erika sat down. “You’re an old fashioned guy, aren’t you?”

“Did you?” he pressed.

“Emery and I have a complicated relationship. It never included sex. I looked at him as something like a father because I’ve never had one. And most of the time that was how he treated me too. He taught me what I know, and he saved me from making mistakes when I was still learning the trade. He shielded me at times, really all of us in the crew, but me more so than others. I was younger than the others by two years when I started so I needed the extra guidance. And by then my mother wasn’t with me anymore, either.”

Alec sat down beside her. “Okay. So since you’ve been gone, and you’re trying to leave his employ, you don’t think he’d have any reason to want to hurt you?”

She shook her head. “Other than the reason that’s universal—Pascale paying him to hurt me? No. Since I’m agreeing to leave on his terms, I don’t see any reason for Pascale to be angry either.”

“Alright. I needed to know that.” He sat down beside her and rubbed her knee. “Something else we haven’t talked about.”

“What?”

“Your mother.”

“Is that really important right now, with what we’re facing? This is going to be the most important job I’ve ever pulled…”

Alec interrupted her. “Yes, I’m wondering why you haven’t said anything about her when she passed away a few months ago.”

She blinked. “For me, she’s been gone a lot longer than that.”

Alec sat down beside Erika on the couch. Close, but not touching. She got a look in her eyes which he hadn’t seen before. There was a sense of longing when he spoke, and once she started he didn’t dare interrupt her. He wondered how long it had been since she had shared her story. As tough as she might be he didn’t believe the loss of her mother was unimportant to her.

“My mother and I lived everywhere for a while,” Erika said. “Her name was Melinda but she used many other names. We would live in one place for a couple of months and move on before anyone noticed we weren’t paying rent. Or we would stay at the house of a friend who was away on vacation. At least that’s what she would tell me at the time. Of course, I believed her when I was little. It wasn’t until I was older that I began to believe she was just breaking into vacation homes and living there in the off season.

“I think she was a real master thief, far better than I am. She taught me how to steal when I was little. She made her living off of what she stole. I remember her telling me that it was a job skill like anything else, but that she didn’t want me to use it recklessly; only when we needed it. As I got older, she started doing bigger jobs, and we didn’t have to work the streets anymore.

“We ended up with a flat in Prague when I was a teenager. It was a nice place enough, two bedrooms, a halfway decent neighborhood. I don’t know what she did to afford it. We’d been there for maybe a little over a year. I went out on a Saturday morning to go shopping with one of my friends. I came home and found a note. She said that she had to go and that she would come back when she was able. In the meantime, she wanted me to stay put. The rent was paid for the next six months, and she would send more money to me when she could,” Erika paused. “I was suspicious. It was her handwriting but it didn’t sound like her. We’d been in all kinds of places together, in all types of situations. The one thing she never did was leave me behind, and I couldn’t figure why that would change. She said something about me being old enough to take care of myself, and that stung even more. Of course, I could take care of myself. But at fifteen what kid really wants to permanently?”

“What happened when the money ran out?” Alec asked.

“It didn’t for a long while. She had some cash hidden away in her room, which she didn’t take with her. So I was okay for a while. I stayed at the apartment. At least everything was paid up. But more than that I stayed because I was hoping she might come back home. I feared that I would move on and when she came back I would already be gone. About three months in, I started going out and pickpocketing again. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to make rent by myself for more than a couple extra months at most, so rather than waste the money, I saved every bit that I got. I started selling off the furniture and things she left behind. It was painful. I felt like I was watching our lives being sold off. But it was necessary.

“You know, I kept thinking that she would never desert me, but I started thinking about how she left my brother behind. And I thought to myself, maybe she did leave me too, after all. What made me more special to her than he was? Maybe she had just taken longer to do what she might have always planned.”

“I can’t imagine how it was for you,” Alec said. He’d had some hard times in his life, but one of the things he was grateful for was a fairly normal childhood and parents who loved him. He’d never went without either of his parents and found it hard to imagine what it would have been like to be without one of them, much less both of them.

“One of my friends was living in a place. It was an abandoned loft, and they paid to live there by providing a security guard with money and the occasional meal as a bribe to not tell the landlord we were staying there. A roommate had moved out recently and I took her spot. It was warm and clean, there was a decent amount of room. It wasn’t the kind of place you would want your teenager to live but it kept me off the street. Wintertime was the worst when the tourist trade slowed and people were staying inside or only going to work and cafes in the evening,” she said. “Those were the times when it made it harder to steal because the crowds were thinner. Or worse, when you were inside there was more of a likelihood someone might see you.”

“In the meantime, you weren’t hearing from your mother?”

“No. Every once in a while there was money wired to her old account, which I had the code for, but there was no way for her to communicate with me. I was being a kid about things, and I felt like no matter how hard it was, she needed to come home and find me. I started to get bitter about it. I didn’t know what happened and I was beginning to think maybe she didn’t care about me. I mean, what was I supposed to think?

“There were times when I wanted to find my father and hear his side of the story. But of course, that wasn’t going to happen. I didn’t have the money to travel to the States and wouldn’t know where to start in order to find him if I did. Anyway. That idea didn’t last long. I got caught pickpocketing the following year. I was bailed out, by a man whom I’d never seen before.”

“Emery,” Alec said.

Erika nodded. “When I did hear from my mother I was shocked. She called me out of the blue last year. She showed up at my new apartment one day. I was shocked to see her after all that time. She was very thin and obviously ill. She had cancer, had taken treatment, but was told she didn’t have long.

“Mom explained to me why she disappeared. She’d left England and went to America for a short time. Her plan was to see my brother, but my dad wouldn’t allow it. Once she got back to Europe she found out she had cancer. By then she came looking for me but I wasn’t in the flat anymore. She explained that she only planned to be gone a month. But she hadn’t wanted me to know where she was going because she knew I would want to go as well, and she was afraid for my safety. By the time she came home I was living off the grid by so I wasn’t easy to find.”

“At least she found you before the end,” Alec said.

“We made up with each other. She asked for forgiveness for leaving me, I apologized for holding onto the anger I’d had for so long. Things weren’t the same between us. I mean, I didn’t feel they were but I didn’t want her to die thinking I wouldn’t forgive her.”

“You didn’t, not entirely,” Alec said.

“Not entirely,” Erika admitted. “But enough to put her at ease, I hope. There’s still so much I don’t really understand how she chose to live her life and even though we talked I still didn’t get the answers I wanted. I got as much as I could from her but at some point, there were things she refused to talk about.”

Alec pulled her into his arms and held her for a long moment. He kissed her, and afterward, held her face in his hands.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he said.

“For what?” she asked softly.

“For showing me your scars,” Alec said. “Proverbial ones, anyway.”

“I don’t know what to say to that. We’re both kind of messed up, aren’t we?”

Alec laughed. “Yeah. But it’s okay.”

When they kissed this time, there was more urgency in the touch.

“I guess this is the first time in your house,” Erika said. “You know, we could christen rooms or something. You don’t have to be anywhere in particular for the next hour, do you?”

“I’m already ahead of you,” he said. Reaching for her, he pulled her dress off his shoulder. He kissed her skin there, pushing the strap of her bra aside. They parted for a moment and he got up. She pulled off her clothes and watched as he discarded his: shoes, shirt, pants, and underwear. She was about to take off her bra, but he stopped her.

“Let me,” he whispered in her ear. He was gentle. He unhooked the bra and it fell away from her, the blue lace falling soundlessly to the floor. He cupped them both in his hands, stroking squeezing. She sighed, tossing her head back. She moved to kiss him, taking his tongue and his breath into her mouth. One hand rested against his shoulder, while the other cradled the back of his neck.

Alec didn’t pull off her panties but ran his hand beneath them. He traced the line of her body with his fingertip, and then slowly teased until he pushed inside of her. A moan escaped the back of her throat, long and low.

“Come here,” he whispered, all heat and breath. He drew Erika down onto the carpeted floor, and they rolled around, enjoying each other, twisting around each other’s bodies. It had been a long time since loving felt like this. Like play. And heat. And loving, all at once. Erika took in a deep breath.

She ended up on top, straddling him. He ripped her panties off.

“I kinda liked those,” Erika said.

“I’ll buy you more,” he said.

She lowered her body onto him, moving so that they connected. She felt him inside her, and they moved together. Slow, and then fast, building into a harder rhythm that neither could resist. She came first and collapsed onto his chest. He got on top and moved her until he came a moment later.

“Darling,” she whispered, running her hand over his chest. And then she was out, unconscious in a deep, dreamless post-coital sleep.

* * *

“What did you guys think of her?” Kiefer asked.

Kiefer, David, and Jesse were in David’s part of the office, each man in a different corner.

“Surprisingly forthright. For a thief,” Jesse said.

“She told us pretty much everything we knew already,” David said carefully. “She seemed genuine.”

Kiefer nodded. “I thought so too. You know we’re really doing this for Alec since he’s involved with her. This whole story of hers bothers me though and it’s not anything she’s left out which is the problem. There’s something operating her she doesn’t know, that none of us do.”

“I agree with you,” David said. “I’m still trying to find some more information on Emery and haven’t been able to find anything.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s not in Los Angeles,” Kiefer said.

“Me neither. But if he’s lying in wait for us...”

“We’ll be ready,” Kiefer said.

“One other thing, which I didn’t want to mention in front of the two of them,” Jesse said. “We’re supposed to be working for Rick Hill but not only isn’t he in the loop, we’re not really doing anything for him.”

“Yes we are,” Kiefer said. “We’re keeping his sister alive and out of jail.”