Chapter 1
There is only one happiness in life -- to love and to be loved.
George Sand (1804-1876)
She lay on the cold floor of a dungeon flooded with water. A bunch of tangled weeds tied her hands, and a pair of bony hands grabbed at her legs, pinning them to the dungeon floor.
She thrashed her legs, pulled her arms, and tried to roll her body around—nothing seemed to work.
She couldn’t scream, and she couldn’t cry for help—she wasn’t really the crying type anyway. “How long can I hold my breath?” she wondered.
She was twenty-nine now. She was full of life and had been on the path to a better future. At least, that was what she’d thought.
The water was everywhere.
Ten minutes earlier, Orla had held tightly to a rusty steel pipe running across the ceiling of a dark and cold dungeon. Although she was flexible and as agile as a leopard, hanging in the same position with her feet braced against a small ledge halfway through a wall for an hour had pushed her muscle strength to the limit.
The Thames River was not as patient as she, and the tides raised by the minute, flooding the drains and leaking water into the dungeon. She couldn’t see the floor anymore. She wagered that she would quickly have to get out and find another way to break into the building.
Orla had done a countless number of jobs of this nature. She was a high-profile, experienced antique transporter. She disagreed with those who referred to her profession as thievery.
She wasn’t a thief. She didn’t steal and resell for profit. Instead, she provided a service to her clients who wanted to claim ownership of antique items. She removed items of interest from the current owners and transferred them to her clients.
She didn’t care about the person who had original ownership or what the new owner would do with the item. Most of the merchandise had ambiguous origins to begin with and had been dealt with by underground collectors—she doubted anyone could prove genuine ownership anyway.
Orla looked at the barred lid of a small door leading to the compartment above, the dim light coming from it shedding a bit of blue down to the dungeon.
“What’s taking you so long, Lorcan?” she mumbled to herself.
All she needed was a signal from Lorcan that he had jammed all the securities in the above compartment, and then she could climb up to that barred door, on which she had loosened all the screws.
She heard the painful shriek of a cat from the above compartment, a thud, footsteps, and another shriek. A tiny kitten dropped through the bars of the door lid. It clawed at the bars, trying to hang on. Orla heard the sound of door closing from the above compartment. The kitten was losing its grasp of the bar. It meowed and shrieked at the same time.
She heard a bang from the far end of the dungeon.
“Damn it.”
The floodgate had been broken - the water from the river gushed into the dungeon. In minutes, it would be completely under water. She had to leave right now.
Orla jumped down to the floor of the dungeon. She was five foot seven, and the water had risen to her waist in only a few minutes. She treaded ahead toward the exit.
From the door above, the cat clung to the bar with its claws. It cried out a meow. Orla looked up. Soon the cat would let go and drop into the rising water. The door was at the far end of the room, and she was already at the exit, but Orla shrugged and came back inside. She stood right underneath the door and reached her hands out. “Come on, let go of the bar. I’ll catch you.”
The cat clawed and scratched and few more times, then it let go and jumped into Orla’s hands. As soon as it landed on her hand, it climbed up her arm and sat on her shoulder. Orla giggled. “You’re as quick as a full-grown cat, aren’t you? Now you’re comfortable, safe and sound, and we have to get out of here quickly . . .”
Her legs were pulled from under the water. Orla was thrown off balance and fell on the floor. She gasped for air and tried to see in the dark. In the water, a rotten body with bony hands clawed at her legs and held them underneath the water. Its eye sockets sparkled in blue, and where the teeth and mouth were supposed to be, Orla saw something resembling a grin.
She shook her head to ensure that she was conscious. Still under the water, she reached toward her legs to free them from the bony hands. A pile of tangled weeds grabbed at her both arms, preventing her from freeing her legs. Orla gasped, kicked her legs, and wiggled her body as much as she could, but she didn’t make any progress. She was running out of air.
She looked down again at the blue eye sockets and found the mouth of death still grinning at her—the sign she had not seen for a long time, and didn’t wish to see again in her life—the sign of the black curse.
She heard Lorcan’s voice calling out for her. He was entering the dungeon. He would save her. He had a knack for coming for her at the just right time. Her life was full of uncertainties, but Lorcan was her constant, the one thing that would never change. She’d never told him how she felt about him for various reasons—and most importantly, for his own sake.
The dungeon was a long way underground. She wasn’t sure he would get to her in time. Maybe this time, he’d be too late. She struggled more, but the weeds and the dead arms wouldn’t release her.
She felt a tug at the weeds. Orla looked up to see the kitten clawing at them. It clawed and bit at the weeds until Orla’s right arm was loosened. She yanked her right arm free, untied her left arm, and sitting up, she reached to the bony arms and broke them both at once. The bony arms felt soft like jelly and mud now. They were not as hard as when they grabbed at her legs. She saw a flash of the dead body dissolving into the dark water. She had beaten the curse this time—or at least the cat had.
She surged up to the surface and drew in air. She stood up and saw the tiny kitten trying to paddle with its miniature paws, its bright green cat eyes frantic and pleading with her. She scooped the cat up and stared into its eyes.
“You saved my life. You’re no ordinary cat, are you?”
The cat responded with a meow.
Orla rolled her eyes and mumbled, “Naturally.”
She swished through the water, heading toward the exit.
Lorcan bolted at Orla when she was halfway up the stairs. “You didn’t respond! Jesus Christ, Orla, the floodgate broke! You could have just let me know you were okay!”
Orla pulled out her phone and looked at it. It was dead in the water now, but it had never signaled her. She waved the phone at Lorcan. “I dropped it in the water. It’s dead.”
Lorcan looked at her up and down. “Why are you soaking wet? What’s with the cat?”
Orla sneezed. Lorcan wrapped his coat over her shoulders. “Let’s get back to the van,” he said.
Chapter 2
Inside the van, Orla pulled out a set of spare clothes and got changed. Lorcan chuckled. “We can literary live in this van.” Orla glared at him.
“What took you so long?”
“My device was jammed.”
Orla stared at him for a second and then she rolled over laughing. “Your jammer was jammed!”
Lorcan threw this arms up. “It’s not that funny. It jammed, and then it started working again without me even fixing it. Damn it. And why are you wet from top to bottom?”
Orla dried her long black hair with a towel. “It flash-flooded in the dungeon, and I slipped.”
Lorcan cocked an eyebrow. “You slipped?”
“Yeah. You think I went for a swim in the Thames?”
Lorcan said nothing, his striking blue eyes leveled at hers for brief moment. He ruffled his thick black hair, making its ends spike up, then he pulled out his pack of cigarettes.
“We’re not done with the job yet, Lorcan.”
“You’re not going back in there.”
“The hell I’m not.” Orla pulled up the zipper of her jacket and tied up her hair. Then she snatched his cigarette before he had a chance to light it. “This will kill you.”
Lorcan shrugged. “If you want to go back in there, I want my cigarette.”
She shoved the cigarette back into his hand. “This is the last one of the month.”
Lorcan smiled. “That’s negotiable.”
He lit his cigarette and took a drag. He glanced back at Orla and saw that she stood next to the van, holding the kitten. Through the screen of smoke he exhaled, she was beautiful—tall, lean, milky skin, big dark eyes, full of secrets.
“You’re not taking the cat back in there, are you?”
“Of course. He needs his mother,” Orla deadpanned and left with the cat in one hand and a carry bag in the other.
Lorcan shook his head. He squashed his cigarette on the ground and followed her.
* * *
A moment later, Lorcan was helping Orla climb in from a window at the back door of the building. He had managed to cut off the security system at that end of the building.
“Are you sure? It can’t be that easy to enter this building,” Orla whispered.
“Well, the guy isn’t exactly a high-profile drug lord. I think he’s just an ordinary rich guy.”
“Ordinary rich guys don’t collect multi-million dollar antique collections without putting decent security systems in place to protect them.”
“Maybe my skills make all security systems look ordinary then.”
“I like that explanation better.”
They entered a wider hall way that led to the collection room. The kitten trailed right behind Orla. It paused and hissed. In front of them was the collection room, trashed. Blood was everywhere. The body of an old man was on the floor in a pool of his own blood. A few feet away was the body of the mother cat.
The kitten kept hissing. Orla picked it up. “Shhh, it’s okay darling. We’ll take care of you.” She slid the cat inside her carry bag, where it stayed still and stopped hissing.
Lorcan checked the man. “He’s dead. We have to get out of here, Orla. Don’t leave anything that might incriminate us.”
“We’re here already. He’s dead. He doesn’t need that vase anymore. We might as well take the merchandise for the client.”
“Jesus Christ, Orla.”
“It won’t take long.”
Orla darted to the secured cabinet. She put her gloves on and worked on the lock. In a few minutes, she had the cabinet opened. Inside the cabinet was a large vase, prominently placed in the middle. It was too large to fit in the bag, plus she had the cat in there. She grabbed the vase and held it in her arm. As she walked toward Lorcan, the bony arm that grabbed at her in the dungeon poked up from the floor, grabbing and pulling at her foot. The cat hissed inside the bag. Orla stumbled and fell. The vase dropped to the floor, shattering into pieces.
Lorcan charged toward Orla. He helped her up. “Are you okay?”
“Did you see it?” Orla asked.
“See what?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry. The vase . . . it’s broken.”
“That I can see. Leave it. We have to get out of here before the cops come.”
“I have to get another one. Something else in replacement for this. It won’t take long. We can’t go back to the client empty-handed.”
“No! I said no, Orla.” Lorcan half-dragged, half-carried Orla out of the house.
A short moment later, their little van was zooming rapidly along the highway, heading back toward London. Orla sat on the passenger seat with the cat on her lap.
“We can’t exactly take care of a kitten, can we?” she asked.
“Why not? It’ll just be like a kid.” Lorcan smiled at her.
Orla narrowed her eyes. “It’s a cat. Not a kid.”
Orla silently cursed herself. She couldn’t offer him a better explanation. A kid between them would make a family. That was no-go territory for her.
“Right. A cat it is. Certainly.” Lorcan glanced at the cat. “Don’t worry. We won’t call you Edward or anything like that.”
Orla laughed. “Of course not. Losing his mother was tragic enough for him! What do you want to do about the murder?”
“Nothing. By the way, the police just received an anonymous tip regarding that murder. The tip must have come from Mr. Edward here.” Lorcan grinned.
“He’s not Edward.”
“Right. No Edward then . . . Listen, do you want me to go talk to the client with you regarding the vase?”
“Why? You think I can’t do it myself?”
“Of course, you can. I’m just saying,” Lorcan smiled, but the smile faded quickly. He kept on driving, while Orla absently scratched the cat’s neck, sending it into ecstasy. The smile on her face had long since faded.
Chapter 3
Orla sauntered into the long hall of the most luxurious restaurant in London. She was tall, slim, and exotic with a river of dark long hair that wrapped around her shoulders. Her siren red gown flattered her flawless body and dazzled people so that they wouldn’t notice her oversized handbag, in which she carried the merchandise.
Orla clenched her teeth when she saw Lorcan standing at the end of the hall, grinning at her.
“You said you’d let me handle this myself,” she growled.
Lorcan smiled. “Don’t pout. It really detracts from that stunning gown. I didn’t see you all day yesterday—I miss you. I’ll let you work with your client, thought. I’ll be sitting over there, keeping my mouth shut.” Lorcan pointed to a table.
“I’m not pouting. And if you keep interfering with my work, I’ll leave you.”
“You need me too much to leave me.” Lorcan smiled and leaned in for a kiss.
A wave of strong jasmine suddenly engulfed Orla. A faint gray mist swirled through the air, forming a funnel and thickening around Orla and Lorcan. She pushed at Lorcan’s chest to stop the kiss, puzzled. She didn’t like what she saw and smelt. It had been a long time since she’d experienced these sensations, and she didn’t care for them at all.
“Are you okay?” Lorcan asked, looking into her eyes.
“Yes, sure. I’m settling a job here. No messing around in public.” She scowled.
Lorcan grinned again. “We’ll mess around tonight in private then.” He nodded toward the entrance. “A minion of your client is here. Don’t take on any new jobs before we talk.” Lorcan walked toward his table.
Orla wanted to punch Lorcan in the face. But it wouldn’t be a good idea to do so in front of her client. She composed herself and turned around to see a tall man approaching her. He nodded at her. She cast a warning look at Lorcan, directing him to stay where he was, and walked toward the man.
“Mr. Turk?”
“Call me William, Orla.”
“I have a table reserved.” She smiled.
“Thank you.” William nodded.
Orla caught a slight accent in his voice, but she couldn’t quite make out its origin. It didn’t matter where they came from—as long as they paid her, she was happy. After they had settled at the table, Orla put the bag on the floor and pushed it toward the man. William placed an envelope on the table and pushed it toward her.
She opened the envelope, pulled out the cheque, glanced at it, and put it back into the envelope. She slid the envelope into her purse and smiled at William.
“Please send my regards to your employer, and tell him I appreciate his business. I suppose if he isn’t happy with the merchandise, I can’t cash the cheque.”
William smirked. “That’s the reason he keeps using you. You’re a smart cookie.”
“Technically, he’s using my services, not me. Prostitution is not my line of business.”
The man nodded. “Getting a prostitute is a lot cheaper than your services, Orla. Trust me, he values your services highly. As a matter of fact, he has a new assignment. If you pull this one off, you won’t need to work again for the rest of your life.”
Orla felt the urge to sneer at the statement, but thought better of it, so she maintained a neutral expression. She could try for a poker face, but she would never be able to pull it off. Acting was not her strong suit, and she knew it. “You have no idea how much money I’d need to settle for the rest of my life. Don’t speculate. Anyway, what’s the job?”
“It’s a prepaid ransom.”
Orla arched an eyebrow. “Too good to be true.”
William shook his head and chuckled. “You should hear me out first.”
Orla nodded and absently gestured the man to continue.
“A computer game designer was kidnapped from her New York apartment. The kidnapper used her to blackmail her best friend, a reputable journalist, for some information. The journalist will be in London tomorrow. Your job is to rescue the computer game designer at the deal settlement between the journalist and the kidnapper.”
Orla leaned back in her chair, narrowing her eyes at the man.
“I told my boss you wouldn’t take this assignment. You’re a thief. Rescuing is not exactly your expertise.”
Orla smiled. “I take your view on my expertise as a compliment, William. Indeed, stealing is what I do best. I can steal anything from anyone . . . if paid well enough. If I consider the computer game designer as a job, I can steal her from the kidnapper. If that qualifies as a rescue—and I save her life, so to speak—then I get to be a hero. That’s an added benefit.”
The man put on a crooked smile. “Being a hero doesn’t pay.”
“As I said, it’s an added benefit. What’s being exchanged for the ransom?”
“That information is beyond your pay scale, I’m afraid.”
“A thief like me has standards. I won’t kill and I won’t deal drugs.”
“I can guarantee you that. No drugs and no life endangerment.”
“Is that why you didn’t want to do the job yourself? It’s too boring for you, isn’t it, William?”
“You know, if you’d reign back your sarcasm a bit, you could be quite pleasant to talk to.”
“I don’t get paid to be pleasant. How much?”
“Two million.”
“That’s not enough for me to retire on, as you claimed before.”
“That’s the first installment.”
“Do the other installments come from other parts of the task?”
“Of course. But you have to agree on the first part before we move on to the next. You don’t have to do the other parts if you don’t want to. But as for the first part, if you commit, you have to go through with it.”
“I have to think about this.”
William stood up. “You have two hours to make a decision. There are others willing to do this. But as I said, my boss values you highly. He wants to give you the first opportunity.” He grabbed the merchandise, left some money on the table for the drink, and strode toward the entrance.
Orla turned around and saw that Lorcan was no longer at his table.
Chapter 4
Three hours later, Orla carried a bunch of shopping bags into her leased apartment. After accepting the job, she had shopped for new outfits and new gear. She changed her appearance for every new job. Experience had taught her to be cautious of everything. Taking on a new identity was routine.
She found Lorcan leaning against the wall in front of her apartment. He raised a large pizza box and a bottle of her favourite Shiraz as if they were tickets to enter her apartment.
“Perfect timing,” Lorcan said.
Lorcan Brody came from a privileged family. He had a college qualification. With his family’s wealth, he didn’t have to work, but he chose to work as an engineer for an IT firm so that he could stay in London and be around Orla. He could have any girl he wanted. But he chose her for reasons she didn’t quite understand. Regardless of how long they had been together, she never got tired of looking at him—long, lean, and well-toned body, dark hair, striking blue eyes, and a mouth that was made for kissing.
She smiled at Lorcan. She entered the apartment and left the door open. Lorcan followed her inside. Orla pulled out the envelope and removed the stash of money she had cashed. As soon as she had accepted the new job, the client had allowed her to cash the cheque. Not that she thought he wouldn’t be happy with the merchandise, but she could never tell. She had done a countless number of jobs over the years, but this client was the most mysterious. She didn’t even know his name or the purpose of the items he asked her to acquire. The stolen item this time was an authentic sixteenth-century antique.
She split the money in half and gave half to Lorcan without counting.
“You know I don’t care about the money, right?” Lorcan jammed his hands into his pockets.
“You worked for it, you get your share. Otherwise, I can’t work with you for the next job.”
“You shouldn’t have taken this new job. It’s too good to be true . . . And it sounds fishy.”
Orla arched an eyebrow, wondering how Lorcan knew. Lorcan shrugged. He grabbed her purse and peeled off a tiny spy recorder he had placed on it before her meeting with William.
“Is there a camera anywhere else?” She scowled.
Lorcan shook his head, looking sheepish.
“Not only fishy, this job sounds dangerous, Orla. Can you please sit this one out?”
“It could be dangerous, but it won’t be any more dangerous than stealing the one and only White Knight’s dagger out of a private collection in Paris. And we did that job easily, didn’t we?” She pointed at the stash of cash.
“This is not a joke, Orla. The dagger is only an object. Now you’re talking about a person. God knows what he’ll ask you to do for the next installment. The guy kidnapped someone in New York and will transport her all the way to London. You can’t tell me he’s a small timer who picks pockets for a living.”
“Lorcan, I accepted the job. You know I have to go through with it—with or without you. That’s two million. I might save a life for two million. The next lot will be three times at much. That’s six million . . .”
“Orla, you don’t need that money. I can take care of you, of us. We can go back to Ireland and live the lives we want . . .”
“Says who? Lorcan Brody? Yeah right.” Orla sneered and felt her words bubbling in her throat as she fought back tears. She did feel uneasy about the job. But the client had been good to her so far. This shouldn’t be an exception. “Two million might mean nothing to you. But it means a lot to me. I need that money.”
“No, you don’t.”
“The vase I broke yesterday cost one million.”
“What? You don’t deliver the job, you don’t take the fee. How could that cost you a million?”
“Volkov runs one of the most notorious underground dealer networks in Europe. He missed out on a deal with his client because I didn’t deliver. It cost him money, and he charged me for that.”
“What the fuck?”
“He’s not someone to mess around with, Lorcan. I can pay him that money. I just have to take this new job. That lump sum payout for Volkov put a dent in my budget.”
“Budget for what?”
She shrugged and didn’t answer the question.
“It’s only a couple of million. I don’t want you to take the job. I can take care of the money.”
“Listen to yourself, Lorcan! I don’t want you to ask for favors from your family. You can’t take care of me. I take of myself and my problems. I can’t go back to Ireland empty-handed.”
“I don’t need my family’s money to take care of us. Why do you think I’ve hung around you all these years, working at that pathetic IT company?”
Orla waved her arms in the air. “You just want to stay in London. You want to prove to your family that you can be independent from them. Isn’t it obvious?”
“And you play no role in this? You have no part in my life and my decisions? What am I to you, Orla? Your fuck buddy?”
Orla slapped him hard across the face. Lorcan fell onto the coffee table, pushing the pizza onto the floor.
“Whatever you do, you still have a family to come back to. They love you. I don’t even have a last name.”
Lorcan rubbed at his jaw. “That’s because you didn’t want your last name. You can take mine. Be a Brody.”
She stared at him. “I slap you, and you propose to me. How romantic. Are you nuts? Get out.”
“I . . .”
“I said get out.”
Lorcan stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him. Orla sat down. She felt like weeping, but she held on. She would give him ten seconds to come back.
Ten seconds passed.
Twenty.
Thirty.
There was still no Lorcan in her apartment. It was quiet except for the sound of the clock ticking on the wall. There was no sound of him clicking on his mouse or tapping on the keyboard. There was no reduced sound of all the games he watched on his computer while trying not to annoy her at the same time. There was none of his loud laughter. And there were certainly no gorgeous smiles or witty comments about the jokes she made about her clients.
Without him, her existence didn’t seem to count as much. What she was doing and about to do didn’t seem to matter. She ran out of the apartment, down the corridor, to the empty foyer, and outside the building, but all she found was emptiness.