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.”
“How deep do you think this place goes?”
Elena shrugged. “I don’t know. Like, six miles?”
The flashlight on his phone bounced along the walls as he adjusted the hood of his leather jacket. “Great.”
“What’s wrong?” She turned around to keep walking, albeit backwards, while she flashed him a mischievous grin. “Worried about getting back out? Your walking through walls trick not so great under the lake?”
Cade aimed the flashlight at her face just so he could glare at her. “Want to find out?”
She got his point. Kept her mouth shut. Returned to a more furious pace ahead of him but, annoyingly, he managed to keep up.
“Here.”
The entrance to the maritime sector didn’t have a locked door, thank goodness. It lay beyond an open archway and had enough security lighting to allow Cade to turn his flashlight off and stuff his phone back in his pocket. “Split up,” he ordered. “We’ll find it faster.”
His whole demeanor changed after their little “moment” back in the first sector. Cade felt more standoffish. Less conversational. He didn’t ask any more questions about Elena or her life, and she got the sense that peppering him with any more questions about him would only add bricks to the wall between them.
This is why I’m single.
Elena sighed and picked an aisle of shelves to go down; it was purely coincidental that they were tall enough to hide her from him. Or rather, hide him from her.
What? He was nice to look at.
And way too distracting.
Shifting focus to searching for the astrolabe didn’t take much effort once she laid eyes on the treasures that existed, right here, within reach. No glass, no alarms, no security guards to yell at her for getting too close.
She wanted to run her fingers over the ancient artifacts nestled neatly in foam padding and meticulously catalogued for the archives, if only to momentarily touch a connection between worlds. Between time. Between everything that separated her from the unknown and yet shared, in a singular object, the fingerprints and breath marks and scratches of someone who might have been just like her. Someone who also yearned for adventure, for something more.
Further down the aisle and closer to the back wall lay a collection of brass and golden objects that caught her attention. The security light gleamed in the reflection of some things round and flat which, judging by the display back in the observatory, might have been exactly what they needed to sort through.
Yup.
Found them.
She patted her sweater pockets. Then sighed. Cade was the one with the sketch and there was no telling where he’d wandered off to. Or if he was in the mood to share—
“Found it?”
Elena yelped. Clutched a hand to her chest. “Holy— You scared me!”
One dark brow arched as he glanced between her and the compass collection. He’d somehow managed to come up right behind her without making a sound, but maybe that should’ve been the least surprising thing about him after the door incident. “Good.”
If it weren’t for the rustling sound of him pulling out the sketch that distracted her, she would have given him quite the earful. As it was, they’d already been inside this forbidden space too long and needed to grab the compass, get out, and get paid.
He was kind enough to hold up the paper for her to look at while she scanned the shelves. It didn’t seem like the astrolabe was here…until she caught an identical symbol carved into the forefront of one particularly elaborate model. “Here! It’s this one!”
Cade peered at the mariner’s compass and held the sketch next to it just to be certain. “Yeah, it does look like it.”
“I don’t see any others with that mark.” She didn’t mean it flippantly, although it did come out a little snarkier than she meant. The yo-yo-ing this man did with her emotions—and hormones—clouded her ability to remain nonchalant. “Yeah. It’s gotta be that one.” When he stepped aside, even took a few steps back, she stared at him. “What?”
“I can’t touch it, remember?”
“Oh. Right.” Elena tried not to appear too judgmental and focused her efforts on carefully sliding the tray out from the shelf so she wouldn’t knock anything to the floor. “Why is that?”
“It’s a thing.”
“A thing.”
She heard the heavy sigh but chose not to look. It would be easier to lift the astrolabe without leaving fingerprints if she watched what she was doing with her sweater sleeves than what he was doing with that stupidly sexy face of his.
“Do you like Chicago?”
That was unexpected. “Yeah. It’s my home. Always has been.”
“Do you want to stay in it?”
Now she turned to look at him, this time with her sleeves covering her hands and the compass held between them. “Um, I guess? Yeah? Can’t think of anywhere else I wanna go.”
“Alright, then.” Cade nodded once at the astrolabe. “Good idea. Keep it covered. I know what will happen if I touch it, but there’s no telling with you—”
A door at the other end of the sector slammed shut.
Elena froze. So did Cade.
Footsteps.
Shit.
Her eyes widened when she realized the guards were coming for them, for her, because why wouldn’t they? She stood right there, right in the middle of a top secret storage facility holding a priceless artifact she had no business touching, let alone looking at.
Oh, God.
She was going to get arrested.
Thrown in jail.
Imprisoned.
Her parents will find out. Shame would fill their whole family and permanently scar her name at every reunion, every celebration, every holiday.
Her degree? Out the window.
Cade’s own eyes widened, nostrils flared, when she tried shoving the compass into his hands. He quickly dodged out of the way and angrily mouth, The fuck are you doing?! But she didn’t care; she didn’t want to get caught holding this. Stealing this.
No.
This was his caper.
His problem.
“Take the damn thing!” She whispered as silently and vehemently as possible.
“No!”
The footsteps grew louder. Closer.
Cade pivoted on one foot to place himself squarely between her and whoever was coming their way. She honestly expected him to throw her at them as a distraction and means of escape, but apparently there was some form of chivalry in him.
Or maybe it was just the fact that she was holding what he came here for.
He lifted a finger to his lips. She didn’t need to be told twice. Nodding, she tried to give him the compass once more, but he slowly shook his head, inched closer, and carefully wrapped his arms around hers while maintaining a few inches of distance between the device and himself.
Elena met his gaze. Felt her breath catch in her throat.
He was protecting her.
“On my signal,” he breathed as softly as he could, “run.”
She didn’t understand. There was nowhere to run. Their only way out of this aisle was about to be barricaded by guards.
Or…a guard. It definitely didn’t sound like there was more than one person.
She flicked her gaze, silently asking the question of whether she should look behind him or not. To her relief, Cade understood—and shifted his expression to do everything but nod.
There truly was only one person. A man. He, too, wore a dark leather jacket, but the hood was pulled low over his head, hiding his face from view. He didn’t seem quite as tall as Cade but certainly dwarfed Elena in terms of brawn. Whatever he was looking for, crouched among the lower shelves of artifacts perpendicular to them, it would be fair to guess he didn’t have security clearance to be there.
The man stood. Sniffed the air.
Whipped around.
Elena screamed.
Or at least she tried to. The sound caught in her throat.
The man’s eyes were pitch black, no white or hint of color beneath a hairless brow on an equally hairless head. A multitude of colorful tattoos darted over his scalp from his nonexistent eyebrows all the way down to his neck—which was easy to see because his hood flew back the same time he launched himself over the artifact shelves.
“Run.”
She felt Cade’s strong hand grab her, lift her, and shove her straight through the shelves next to them like they didn’t exist.
Right at the same time the crazed man collided with Cade’s other hand in a burst of blinding silver light.
“RUN!”
Elena scrambled to her feet. Booked it down the long aisle. Tried very, very hard to stop looking back over her shoulder at the impossible sight of Cade, bathed in brilliant light, punching the absolute shit out of the other guy.
She stumbled over a stepping stool and caught herself before colliding headfirst into a case full of obsidian blades. Without thinking, she grabbed one and clutched it in front of her, determined to fight off the attacker if he came after her or the astrolabe clutched tight to her chest.
The black-eyed man snarled and snapped impossibly sharp teeth at Cade, who grunted when a foot connected with his stomach. It gave the man enough purchase to shove himself away and claw through racks to get at Elena, who finally managed to scream when she saw him dive at her from only a few feet away.
Cade’s glowing hand wrapped around the man’s neck and yanked him back, slamming him hard enough into the ground to make him wheeze. With eyes burning as bright as the tattoos on his skin, Cade drew one fist back and pinned the attacker to the floor with the other.
“Who sent you?” Cade demanded.
The man only growled and struggled to get away.
“Who sent you?”
Now the man laughed. He glanced at the growing orb crackling in the palm of Cade’s poised hand and laughed even harder. He said something Elena couldn’t understand and she wasn’t sure if Cade could, either.
He understood enough.
His fist came down and punched through the man’s chest with a sickening, wet snap. The energy surged through his fingers and burned through the body until the skin turned into glowing red embers, crackled with heat, and then disintegrated into ash.
Elena didn’t know if it was the sudden darkness that followed after such brightness, her own mind playing tricks, or true reality…
But she could have sworn she saw shadows crawl and scramble out of the man’s dead body until they melted into the darkness.
“We need to go.”
His voice sounded muffled. Distant. From a whole other world away.
“Elena. We need to go.”
She couldn’t put the blade down. She held it so tightly in her fist she could feel the obsidian cut into her palm and blood start to trickle to her wrist. She didn’t care.
She didn’t know what the hell that man…or thing…was.
She didn’t know who Cade was.
You’re asking all the wrong questions.
“Elena.”
She blinked. He stood in front of her, hands clean and not a speck of blood or ash on his clothing. Just one more impossible thing for her mind to never, ever wrap around.
“You.” Her voice cracked. “That…that…”
Cade gently eased her fingers open, prying the blade from her injured palm with a tenderness that made her want to cry. “That was something that shouldn’t be here. Just like us.” He lightly brushed his thumb over her cut. “Let’s go.”
Elena could only nod. Then follow him back through the sector, down the long corridors, and through the walls and doors that should have been impermeable to anyone trying to get in or out.
Anyone except the man now holding her hand.
This episode of Lords & Thieves may be over, but the story continues.
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