Lords & Thieves: Chapter Six
The prequel arc of ✨The White City✨ — a weekly serialized urban fantasy series
Previously in The White City:
He gave her a glimpse into his old life—and where he actually comes from (hint: it’s not Chicago)
He also gave a glimpse into the reality that he might, maybe, possibly have something resembling a heart. Maybe.
Their museum heist shifted from “grab it and run” to something a bit more complicated—and buried beneath the lake
Son of a bitch.
He actually did it.
That son of a bitch actually did it.
“I’ll have you know, my mother was a lovely woman.” Cade wrinkled his nose at her but kept his hand firmly on her back to push her further into the dark corridor. “So you can stop muttering such horrible things about her.”
“Sorry.” Elena quickly shook her head. “No, I mean, I was talking about you.” Maybe. She didn’t remember saying anything out loud. To be fair, though, the man had her in a state of semi-shock and awe. Her cognition was a little fried at the moment.
It started with their “casual stroll” out into the night air and down the observatory walkway that connected to the natural history museum’s tiered gardens. Cade followed her lead up to a point, letting her steer their direction but insisting on holding her close to his side. They laughed over meaningless quips and smiled, waved, nodded, et cetera to passersby and outdoor security guards alike.
They were a picture of the perfect downtown couple.
Until Elena spotted the “employees only” signs over a door tucked behind some bushes but definitely leading to the underbelly of the history museum. That was when Cade told her to stay quiet, hold on to him tight, and trust him enough to keep her eyes closed.
She did.
They kept walking.
And they walked right past a group of guards, through the door, and into the first sectional hallway of the museum storage facility.
No one said a word. No alarms went off.
It was like they didn’t even exist.
That’s around the time Elena started muttering to herself. Cade didn’t break his stride, or hers, a mask of determination etched on his face—at least until he scolded her for insulting his mother.
“I just don’t get it,” Elena whispered. She glanced around his arm to see if anyone had spotted them or followed them in. “That guy was, like, three feet away. I could smell his cologne.”
“Dogs with head colds could smell that. Don’t worry about it.”
She moved to pull away from him, unsure of whether it was a good idea to keep walking so attached to this weirdo. Sure, he was sexy and funny and oozed charm when he allowed himself to relax out of “Mob Boss Mode”, but there was just something about him. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on that had some alarm bells tinkling in the back of her mind.
Okay, so they were small alarm bells. Not foghorns, thank goodness.
More the kind that whispered the most ridiculous and insane ideas she shooed out of her brain the second they formed.
“Best stick with me,” he muttered when he felt her pull away. “It’ll be easier to make an escape if we need to.”
“How?”
“Just trust me. Yeah?”
Elena gave him the most skeptical Look she could muster. “Trust. You.”
He pressed his free hand over his chest and feigned a gasp of hurt. “Ouch. You’re making it sound like I’ve done anything at all to break your trust.”
“Oh, you haven’t. It’s just, hmm, let’s see.” She held up a hand to count the points with her fingers. “Organized crime boss, right? Full mafia. Not just a loan shark.”
The firm line of his mouth answered that question.
“Right. Who had God-knows-what done to some guy—”
“A thief.”
“Okay, but you couldn’t call the cops because otherwise you would have. Which means you’re definitely a criminal of some sort. See Item One. Next, there’s the fact that you’re totally okay with stealing an artifact from a museum, breaking into a highly secured facility—”
Cade scoffed as he looked around. “Not that secure.”
“Semantics. It just goes to show you’ve done this before and who knows how many times? Not to mention some of the weird shit you’ve been saying and telling me about that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever unless you’re some crazy person and oh my god, I’m on a museum heist with a crazy person.”
“Need to sit down? Process that for a moment?”
She shot him a glare. “No. What I need is a tranquilizer gun.”
“Oh, calm down.” He nodded at the door they were quickly approaching. “We’re here.”
Before she could shove the metal door open, he tucked her tighter to him and whispered the order for her to close her eyes again. When she didn’t obey right away, he gave her a little shake.
“Hey. I’m serious. Some of my ‘weird shit’ you keep panicking about is more than you can handle.”
Elena’s glare only deepened. “You know what? Fuck you! I can handle—”
He pulled her through the door.
Not like a normal person. Not the way that regular people use door handles or push on handlebars and lean their body weight against the wood or metal slab to enter the next section of the building.
Nope.
Cade pulled her through the door.
The very locked, very secure, very much not open door.
“You’re right,” he said with a proud smirk at her stunned silence. “I have done this before. Many times. It’s a specialty of mine.” He gestured to the open space of the huge bunker they now stood inside. “Not here, though. This is a first for me. You?”
She shook her head. Tottled forward. This time he let her, with a quick pat on her shoulder and a not-so-stifled chuckle as he left her there to go look for the compass.
This was a lot for her to digest. Visually, internally, situationally…the whole…everything. Around her sat potentially millions of artifacts spanning cultures and languages and entire civilizations of hundreds, maybe even thousands of years across the globe. Things the general public had not seen yet or didn’t know existed. Things she was forbidden to see or touch or share oxygen with because she just didn’t have that kind of clearance. No one did.
And standing in the middle of it all, rifling through provenance records and flipping over item tags, was a man who shouldn’t be able to do half the impossible things he’d done right before her very eyes.
“Who are you?”
Cade glanced up from a pottery tag to blink at her. “Me?”
Elena rolled her eyes, threw her hands in the air, and sighed. “No. The other guy I came here with. Yes, you!”
“First of all.”
A mixture of danger and excitement swirled low in her belly with every long stride he took toward her. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes glowed in the low light with a heat she didn’t want to believe was for her. Because it couldn’t be.
“I’m not loving this idea of you coming here, or going anywhere, with some ‘other guy’.” Cade filled her space once more, too close and too overwhelming and too…intoxicating. His voice dropped low, sending shivers through her spine and straight to the ache deep inside her. “Don’t get me wrong, ælfscíene, I have no illusions of exclusivity between us.” He lifted his hand to toy with the ends of her curls that tumbled over her shoulder. “But I think you should know just how much I find myself hating that thought.”
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. “What thought?”
“You.” His face dipped lower. Closer. “With some other guy. Another man. Not me.”
Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Thick. Dry. Needing him. “Why?” She breathed.
“Fuck if I know.”
His lips came so dangerously close to hers. Another inch, another sigh, and they’d be tasting each other exactly the way something inside her begged and pleaded for her to enjoy.
“Second of all…” Cade gazed at her mouth as if he were deciding on whether to go for it or hold back. The fact that he seemed to be debating it made her pulse race. “You’re asking all the wrong questions.”
“What?”
“Exactly.”
Just like before, he quickly stepped away and left her to stew in the heat he created but refused to tamper. “We need to find this thing,” he called over his shoulder. “Any idea where it could be?”
She’d be lucky if she could string two words together.
“Ah! Never mind!” Cade grinned and pointed at a sign. “Maritime! That sounds right.” He waved her over. “Come on. Let’s go. We don’t have all night.”
