How to Steal a Thief (Unholy Trifecta Book 2), page 1
Table of Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Epilogue
Dictionary
Author
This book is a work of fiction, so please treat it like a work of fiction. Seriously. References to real people, dead people, good guys, bad guys, stupid politicians, companies, restaurants, events, products, locations, pop culture references, or wacky historical events are intended to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. Or because I wanted it in the story. They belong to their own owners. Characters, names, story, location, dialogue, weird humor, and strange incidents all come from the author’s very fertile imagination and are not to be construed as real. No, I don’t believe in killing off main characters. Villains are a totally different story.
HOW TO STEAL A THIEF
Unholy Trifecta Heist 2
Copyright © 2020 by AJ Sherwood
Cover by Katie Griffin
Compass Rose Gold Star Logo Template Illustration Design by soponyono/Shutterstock; Paper-06 by Ian Barnard/Designcuts
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
Purchase only authorized editions.
www.ajsherwood.com
Tags:
Aiden does not appreciate being in peril, but Ivan likes protecting him, band of brothers, bisexual character, family of choice, experienced/inexperienced couple, strangest meetcute you’ve ever seen, don’t try and apply logic to this okay, just enjoy it, heist, Kyou is so done, Ivan is a walking disaster, crush at first sight, Ivan is one scary MoFo, be glad he’s on our side, assassinations as romantic gestures, stealing therapy, emotional growth, combat ballet, Carter and Ari are good wingmen, Ivan continues licking everything, including things he really shouldn’t, Remi’s the only sane one to be honest, no bedsheets were harmed in the making of this book, degrees of morality, healer acquired—quests can now be taken
Acknowledgements
When I first started writing Unholy Trifecta, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. As it turned out, I needed a lot of help and advice on characters, translations, cultures, and general feedback to really make this series shine. So, this is for you, my wonderful, talented advisors—for all of those pesky questions I asked. The (I’m sure) head scratching questions you patiently answered anyway. The feedback you gave me helped take the story to the next level. I really couldn’t have done it without all of you.
~AJ
1
Ivan
Ivan Azarov was not having a particularly good month.
First of all, there had been nothing interesting to do recently. He’d helped Ari and Carter with two of their jobs, played with his solnishko, but there wasn’t anything to really get the blood pumping. He’d been beyond thrilled when a contract was posted about a rare, one-of-a-kind stamp that a greedy collector wanted to attain. Hunting the stamp down sounded like a challenge. Ivan was always up for a good challenge.
But this was proving to be more tedious than he’d planned for.
The initial job request was simple enough. Recover the Treskilling yellow stamp. Simple, right? A stamp was a stamp, even if it was under glass protection—and it likely was—then it could be slipped into his pocket, and no one would be the wiser. The Treskilling had just proven to be ridiculously difficult to locate. Ivan had initially found record of it being part of a stamp museum in the heart of New Orleans, but the museum had closed down over two years ago due to the owner’s failing health. Then it had been either sold off or bundled into an estate, with some of the stamp collection inherited by family or given as gifts. Ivan had managed to keep track of which parts of the collection were sold—in part thanks to Kyou’s support—but the gifts? He had no way of knowing who got what. The bulk of the collection seemed to be sitting somewhere with the estate. It was more like a treasure hunt than an actual heist. Ivan had hoped for something with more action involved.
His best bet at the moment was to sneak into the old woman’s place and see what she still had. If the stamp was there, it would cut down on this wild goose chase he’d been involved with for the past month. Her address was open record, due to her eBay account, and he’d been able to find it without any real difficulty. The utility bills showed the apartment was still in use, although probably vacant at this point. He didn’t need to worry about anyone being there. Hopefully. At least, odds were against it in the middle of the workday.
At this time of the day, people were still at work, and the quietness of the apartment building gave him the cover he needed. It was basically child’s play to get into the apartment building, up to the right floor, and only a moment with an old credit card to jimmy the lock and slip through. Ivan fully expected it to take perhaps an hour to shift things until he found what he wanted. Estates were never clean ordeals, after all, and surely some of the collection was boxed up at this point. He just had to find out where the family had stored it.
Stepping inside, he paused, eyes widening incredulously as the door softly closed itself behind him.
This would not take an hour.
This wouldn’t even take a minute.
There was nothing in here.
Ivan cleared his throat. “Testing, testing. Earth to K.”
Kyou answered absently, “Don’t tell me you’re having trouble getting in.”
“Kyou!” Ivan protested in a mock-wounded manner. “I felt that cut to the bone.”
Kyou snorted.
“But you told me the apartment is still in use. It’s empty.”
“Huh? Of course someone’s still using it. Utility bills say so.”
“Really? Explain to me why there’s only carpet and walls in this room, then. Why there’s no furniture anywhere in the…apartment…” He trailed off as he poked his head into a bedroom. There was a pillow, blanket, and a milk crate on the floor. The milk crate supported a small lamp, a phone charger resting nearby. Poking into the closet, he found several clothes hanging, others sitting neatly in piles on the floor. Not many, though. Barely enough to be considered a wardrobe.
Bemused, he stepped out and went to the bathroom in between the two bedrooms.
“Ivan?” Kyou prompted worriedly.
“A moment. Just a moment. No danger here, no one’s here,” Ivan assured him absently. Towel hanging on the rack, shampoo and body wash in the shower, razor on the white counter of the sink with a toothbrush standing upright in a cup. The bathroom clearly had seen use for some time.
He retreated again, to the very back of the apartment where the kitchen was. A single bowl and spoon were in the sink, signs someone had eaten breakfast here. Opening the cupboards and fridge, he discovered nothing more than cereal, a jug of milk, and two packets of ramen. Three textbooks were on the bar, all of them anatomy or medicine related somehow.
A picture slowly forming, Ivan looked around him in disbelief. “Kyou. The lady’s family, did she have any grandchildren who are medical students?”
“Uhh…one sec. What are you seeing?”
“Nothing,” Ivan responded, turning to pan the apartment as a whole once more. It was a nice place, everything clean and modern, the carpets light and unstained, the kitchen and bathroom with cherry wood cabinets and all the latest finishes. It was an apartment that should belong to an upper-middle-class person, so why did the inhabitant live like someone below the poverty line? Ivan had heard the term ‘starving student’ before, but…surely people didn’t mean that literally. Even in his mother country of Russia, which could be hard on people, he’d not lived like this.
“Ivan, you’re not making any sense. You mean her collection’s been cleared out?”
“I mean, my friend, that there is nothing in here. There are clothes, textbooks, a blanket and pillow, and not much else. I mean that whoever lives here barely has anything to their name and certainly nothing of value.”
“Huh. That’s certainly not what I expected. Okay, hang on, I’ve got her family will here. So, the bulk of her estate was split up between two people—one’s already contested it. The apartment went directly to one of her two grandsons, Aiden Stalworth. Googling Aiden Stalworth…bingo. He’s twenty-four and recently graduated medical school. I’m pinging a picture to your phone.”
Ivan pulled out his phone and opened the text he’d just received. Aiden Stalworth was a cutie. He looked like a doctor in the making with his clean-cut appearance, dark auburn hair in a low fade, short on top and swept back. His hazel eyes were warm and sweet.
“I have no records of the stamp collection being sold. You sure you didn’t miss that somehow?”
“In order to be able to hide something, there must be something to hide it in. You wouldn’t be asking me that question if you could see this place.”
“Yeaaah.” Kyou made several clicking noises before he grunted in irritation. “Sorry, Ivan, I think I should have dug a little deeper before sending you over there. The family who conteste
Ivan tsked his tongue in anger. “The grandmother likely wanted him to have both apartment and collection to help him through school.”
“You’re probably not wrong. Other grandson is a complete waste of space. I’m pulling up multiple records of DUIs, possession charges, the works. He’s also the only child of the uncle who got the stamp collection. How much you want to bet he needed the cash to deal with Junior’s criminal stupidity?”
“I do not take sure bets, you know that.” Anger stirred in Ivan’s gut, writhing as it grew. He knew very well what it felt like to have family steal from you. This young man, this Aiden, he’d worked hard to make something of himself, and how did his family treat him? They tore away what was given to him, all to take care of a man-child who had not been disciplined enough growing up.
“Ivan. I can literally hear you fuming. This kid is not your responsibility.”
“How well you know me. But I disagree.”
Sighing long and loud, Kyou argued, “Ivan—”
“Njet.” Ivan looked around again, gut twisting for a different reason this time. Guilt swamped him, followed closely by shame. “Njet, Kyou. I broke in here to steal from a young man who has already been stolen from. By his own family. He has nothing to steal, nothing to lose, and yet I came in here planning to take from him even further.”
Kyou sighed gustily. “But you didn’t know.”
“I know now,” Ivan maintained stubbornly. “I steal from those who can afford the loss. I do not victimize the poor.”
“I don’t get why you’re so wound up about this. Mistakes happen on the job.”
Ivan didn’t know how to explain to Kyou that he felt like he’d been abruptly thrown back to the past. As a teenager, he’d been forced to go and steal things he didn’t agree with. Sometimes, what he’d stolen meant a hard loss to the target. It sometimes meant financial ruin. Ivan had hated it, hated putting someone in that situation, especially when he knew it might mean starvation for them.
Even though he hadn’t stolen anything from this young man, Ivan felt old guilt return like a punch to the chest. It was a horrible, wretched feeling and Ivan wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight if he didn’t do something about it. Unlike his past self, he had the freedom and means to compensate for it now. “It’s not that, K. It’s….”
Kyou was a good listener and he clearly heard Ivan’s distress. “What? What’s really the problem?”
“I’ve had to do this before,” Ivan finally said. “I’ve had to steal from people who couldn’t afford it. It eats at me.”
“You’re going to guilt trip about this until you can somehow fix it, aren’t you? Alright, I know better than to argue. So what are you going to do?”
“What else? I’ll fix it.” The guilt burned in Ivan. He couldn’t possibly do anything else.
There was a popping sound and then a light, feminine voice joined them. “Hi!”
“Solnishko,” Ivan said with pleasure, trying to shove the roiling sensation away. “I have not heard much from you this week. How is it, staying with your uncle?”
“Uncle Luca has strange rules,” she informed them. “Like, he doesn’t want me to use the lockpicks on his door. Even when he lost his keys. And he won’t let me hack anything, even though I told him I just wanted to see how things were going.”
Ivan commiserated with her. “He’s a straight-shooter. But it’s been going well, despite that?”
“Sure! He took me to Disneyland again. And he watched Togo with me twice. And he taught me roller-skating and bought me skates and everything. But…”
“But?” Kyou encouraged.
“But he wanted me to pick furniture and toys out for a room. Like, he wants me to have a room of my own in his house. I don’t get why?”
And it worried her, that was clear. “Remember, solnishko, your uncle and father had no safe place to go throughout their childhood. He wants to give that to you, a safe space that is always your own. He may not be good at expressing that.”
“Oh. So, it’s like my safehouse?”
“That’s a good way of putting it,” Kyou said.
They were all trying to cement her relationship with her Uncle Luca. Remi liked the man, she just didn’t understand him. His values were not hers, and they certainly didn’t match up with most of her inner circle. But if things ever went truly wrong, or if she chose to have stable, consistent schooling, it would be Luca she went to.
She let out a humming, thoughtful noise. “I guess that’s okay, then. Whatcha doin’?”
And she was apparently done talking about it. “I am searching for very rare stamp, solnishko. It’s called the Treskilling, a Swedish stamp from 1855. There’s only one in the entire world. I thought I knew where it was, but it turns out I was wrong.”
“And now he’s feeling guilty because he broke into the apartment only to find that the person had everything stolen from them,” Kyou threw in with a sigh. “And somehow, I’m relegated to furniture shopping with your Uncle Ivan. Despite all the more important things I need to do.”
“You could go back to them,” Ivan suggested sweetly.
“Uh, no, I know you in these moods. You’ll spend thirty grand on this guy without even thinking about it. Your spendthrift moods are insane.”
“Spending money is healthy for the economy,” Ivan pointed out slyly.
“And, well, your way of recouping isn’t. And if you hit one more casino and wipe it out, I swear they’ll hire a hitman for you.”
“You suck all joy from life.”
“Yup, that’s my job. Tell you what, why don’t you help us, Remi?”
“Okay!”
Ivan had no problem with this and sat on the kitchen counter as they flicked through various local furniture stores. There was just enough time to put in an order over the phone today before the stores all closed. And maybe, with enough cash, they’d deliver tomorrow morning. Sitting in this bare apartment truly was sickening to Ivan. He hated it.
But then, he remembered sitting in an apartment that barely held much in the way of furnishings. He remembered having to steal just to be able to eat. He remembered being at the mercy of his two older brothers for years until he’d found ways to outmaneuver them. It wasn’t guilt so much as heartbreaking empathy he felt for this young medical student who was just trying to make something of himself and survive.
“Uncle Ivan, what about this white bed?”
The one she sent a link to was a four-poster with a stout footboard and headboard, an antique white with nice trim. Neither masculine nor feminine, just solid and elegant looking. “Da, that one’s good, solnishko. You’ve good taste.”
“I might get this one for my new room,” she sighed gustily. “Daddy and Carter insist we have to move and then stay put for a while.”
Remi tended to change schools every three or four months, depending on the jobs they were doing. They did hit-or-miss homeschooling with her in between. It was hardly conducive to a smooth educational experience. “But you want to be near your Uncle Kyou, don’t you?”
There was a pregnant pause. “Wait. We’re moving up there? To Boston?”
“Didn’t they tell you?” Kyou asked in surprise.
“They just said New England. I don’t know where that is.”
“Ah. Boston is in New England,” Ivan explained patiently. Kyou had moved up there six months ago. He’d had many, many reasons, but they all knew the guy he was stalking lived somewhere in that area, and Kyou had moved to be closer to the action. “It’s the northeastern section of the US.”
“Oh!” Where there’d been dread before, there was excitement now. “Then cool! Boston, huh?”
“Might not be Boston precisely,” Ivan warned. “Just near there.”
“No, but,” Remi whined, “I want to play with Uncle Kyou.”
“We will, we will. Just maybe not living in same city, da? But we talk about that later. We need to get furniture ordered before stores close. What about table for kitchen?”
“This one has a leaf in it. It looks nice.”
