Page 52 of To Heist and to Hold

“Like hell they haven’t,” Copper snapped.

His eyes darted back and forth between Ethan and Heloise, confusion and anger and fear twisting his features.

“What I can’t figure out, though, is why they’re here in the first place.

How did they know—?” He gritted his teeth, shaking his head violently.

“It doesn’t matter how or why, I suppose,” he mumbled, seemingly to himself, the words almost manic.

His expression, when he turned it on Ethan, was tortured, that of a man burning from the inside out.

“Damn it, why couldn’t you have stayed below? ” he cried.

“It’s over,” Ethan said in a soothing tone that nevertheless shook from fear. “Just give me the gun.”

“Like hell it’s over,” Copper snapped. He looked to the desk with its strangely open top in fury and longing.

Ethan followed his gaze, catching what he hadn’t before: the glint of coin, the piles of papers.

So this was where he had been hiding it all, some secret compartment, right in plain sight.

He pressed his lips tight in frustration.

No wonder they had been unable to locate the jewels.

He breathed deep, trying to control his rising fury, but it betrayed itself with one tortured question. “How long has this been going on, Copper?”

The man’s eyes blazed fire before, in the blink of an eye, he seemed to deflate. “Does it matter?”

“It matters to me,” Ethan replied harshly. “Why did you do it? Did you need the money? Are you in trouble?”

The words came out almost as a plea. And no wonder. Here was a man he had known nearly all his life, someone he had trusted implicitly. But even a response in the affirmative wouldn’t alleviate the sense of betrayal that suffocated him.

Again that fury was in Copper’s eyes, though it was threaded through with pain. “You don’t know the things I know,” he hissed.

“Try me.”

Copper clenched his jaw tight, as if fighting against the words. But they would not be held back, pouring out of him like water from a pitcher. “The patrons, they treat you and the other partners with deference. They see you as men of power, who can make or break their miserable lives.”

His nostrils flared, his vision going dark.

“But I straddle our world and theirs. I’m the invisible brute lumbering in their midst, a cockroach that they tolerate.

I hear how they truly see us, that they think we’re vermin.

That, if given the chance, they would crush us beneath their polished boots. We’re a joke to them.”

His lips twisted cruelly, a defiant look hardening his features. “And so I took from them. So what? The amounts were so small they could never miss it. Mere pocket change to them.”

Despite his knowing he needed to keep a clear head, red began to bleed at the edges of Ethan’s vision.

His hands curled into fists at his sides.

“Notwithstanding the fact that in cheating our members you are dishonoring every person at Dionysus,” he gritted, “not everyone you stole from could afford it. For some it was the difference between life and death.”

Something in Ethan’s tone must have gotten through the outraged haze in Copper’s head. He frowned, glancing to Heloise and Mrs. Rumford.

“Yes,” Ethan said quietly, “they are here to save a life that you have put in jeopardy.”

Copper faltered, uncertainty taking hold of him. The gun began to lower, ever so slightly.

But the vulnerable moment was quickly gone, his features hardening once more. “It doesn’t matter. One person doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.”

Heloise made a strangled noise in her throat, her body shifting as if she would attack Copper. Ethan held up a staying hand, praying she heeded his silent plea, even as his furious gaze remained on his former friend.

“More than one, I’m thinking,” he growled low. “What of Gavin? How does he fit into your grand schemes ?”

At the mention of Gavin’s name, Copper flinched. “I never meant for that to happen,” he rasped.

“Didn’t you?” Ethan’s body fairly vibrated with the need to beat the life from Copper. “Didn’t you mean to distract us by putting the blame on Gavin, to throw us off your scent?”

“It was an accident—”

“An accident? Gavin died because of you.”

“I know!” Copper cried. “Don’t you think I know? It has tormented me every hour of every day. But it truly was an accident. I swear it.”

Why, Ethan thought with the one portion of his mind still capable of reason, did the man sound sincere? “Explain,” he demanded through numb lips.

Copper let out a harsh breath, looking to the ceiling as if for support from the heavens.

“You were all searching for the reason behind the rumors swirling about the club,” he began, the words tremulous, a long-buried secret finally breaking free.

“I’d meant to move the goods to someplace you could never locate them, but I was nearly discovered.

I ducked into the closest room I could access, Gavin’s office, hid it all there.

I’d meant to go back for it later, when things cooled down. But it was found before I could.”

He ran a hand over his face, suddenly looking a hundred years older. “It all happened so fast after that. And then Gavin was dead, and it was too late.”

“You should have said something,” Ethan hissed. “You should have come clean before—” His voice broke, and he clamped his lips tight, breathing hard through his nose.

“I should have,” Copper said, the words fragmented with emotion. “Yes, I should have.”

But in the next moment that hard look was back in place. “Even so, if I were to go back I would make the same decision. Those rich bastards deserve to be stolen from, to be dishonored in such a way. And the rest of you are too cowardly to see it.”

That red haze was back, clouding Ethan’s vision until he could hardly think straight. The need to end this overriding his common sense, he lunged forward, determined to take the weapon from him.

Before he could reach him, Copper jerked the gun up, arm straight, not a hint of shaking in his limb now as he leveled it once more on Heloise.

Ethan froze. “Let her go!” he roared.

Copper let loose a chilling, manic laugh. “I don’t think so, Sinclaire. If it was your own life on the line, I’m certain you would do something stupid.” His lips twisted. “Mrs. Marlow, on the other hand…”

Ethan’s blood congealed in his veins as Copper turned his head slowly to her. “Yes,” he said, almost to himself, “with Mrs. Marlow’s life on the line, you’re more likely to behave. We all know you’re in love with her.”

A small sound escaped Heloise. It took every ounce of Ethan’s control not to look at her. He should refute it, tell Copper he didn’t give a damn about Heloise, that she was a good fuck and nothing more. It could quite possibly save her life.

Yet he couldn’t give voice to the lie, no matter how hard he tried; the thought of Heloise believing he didn’t care for her, and one of them dying before he could tell her the truth, seized his tongue.

But no, neither of them would die. He would make certain of that. To do so, however, he had to draw Copper’s attention from Heloise and her friend as quickly as possible.

It was as his mind worked feverishly, trying to think of some way, any way, that he could get Copper to redirect the gun to him, that a light suddenly appeared in the hallway behind him.

On the heels of that came angry male shouts bouncing off the walls, Teagan’s and Parsons’s and Isaac’s voices mingling in a cacophony of fury.

He saw it the moment Copper realized it was over.

He hissed a curse, spinning to face the new threat, gun turning with him.

Before Ethan could so much as tense to spring forward, however, there was the flash of silver in the lamplight.

In the next instant a blade buried itself in Copper’s hand.

The sound of the gun clattering to the floor mingled with Copper’s screams. And then all hell broke loose, a mass of huge bodies pouring into the room, tackling Copper, who was clutching his bleeding hand to his chest.

But Ethan didn’t care if the world burned down around his ears; all he could think of was Heloise.

He looked at her, barely noticing her wild eyes, her arm extended toward Copper from throwing the blade.

The only thing he could register was that she was safe.

In the next instant he was around the desk and dragging Heloise into his arms, feeling as if his world was finally whole.