Cozen Read online

  For D—the man who stole my heart like a thief.

  COZEN

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  A NOTE

  BIO

  OTHER BOOKS

  Copyright

  December 24th, 2012

  A family with a history as old as time, and one they refused to muddy or be ashamed of, the Astors were a force to be reckoned with. And not one very many people felt comfortable going up against in any kind of way.

  They controlled the gun trafficking business—carving out a mark as the biggest, and likely only, gun trafficking organization in North America. They dominated politics by either being directly in the Senate, or having a foot-long list of politicians they could call on at any time to do their bidding. They owned one of America’s biggest banks, newspapers, and a branch of television media.

  It meant they could control what was put out in the world, and in a way, influence the goings on in their own country. They had the means, the tools, and the wherewithal to use it to their advantage, too.

  They couldn’t stand competition.

  They were excessive to a filthy point.

  They never backed down.

  Proud.

  Arrogant.

  Dangerous.

  They earned it.

  And they knew it.

  When an Astor summoned someone—today, it was Ace, a black market broker able to find anything or anyone that might be needed to get a job done, or a deal made—that someone picked up their shit, and they went. No one needed the trouble of ignoring an Astor’s call or request.

  “The mansion is quiet today,” Ace noted.

  Pearl Astor glanced over at the broker she had called in, and smiled. “I had to get the rest of them out of my hair for this.”

  Ace lifted his brow at that. “Oh?”

  “Fourth thinks the best way to go about doing this is the flash and dash. Make a big scene, and deal with the clean up later.”

  “That might be a faster way, sure.”

  Pearl shook her head. “The Astors cannot afford any kind of problems in the criminal world at the moment. We’re gearing up for some … well, that’s none of your business, but I meant what I said. We’re going to have enough to deal with soon, and we don’t need to be adding anything else to our list of problems.”

  “Fourth does have his ways,” Ace said.

  “Usually, I’m tempted to go with his ways,” the old woman said, smiling in that unsettling way of hers, “but not this time. Are you going to show me what you have, or diddle around longer, Ace?”

  Straight to the point.

  As always.

  “Pearl, you have a call—”

  “I am not taking calls, Mathieu,” Pearl said, never looking away from Ace.

  The butler—a man in his fifties, at least—continued to stand in the doorway. “It is your son, ma’am.”

  “And Senior can wait, I am busy.”

  “If you’re—”

  Pearl’s sharp gaze drifted to the side, and narrowed when she had Mathieu in her line of vision. “Child, if you ask me if I am sure about the words that just came out of my mouth …”

  Child.

  The butler was not a young man, but maybe to a woman of Pearl’s age, he seemed like it. Ace couldn’t be sure, but his amusement came out in the form of a grin that he hid by looking down at the tablet in his lap.

  Nonetheless, the warning in Pearl’s old voice could have cut glass. Her age, Ace decided, was nothing more than a number. She was just as dangerous as anyone else who laid claim to the Astor name.

  “Don’t interrupt my meeting again,” Pearl said.

  “My apologies,” the butler muttered.

  He was quick to scatter. His footsteps couldn’t even be heard as he left.

  Sighing, Pearl turned back to Ace. “Now, are you going to show me what you have? Prove the thief you chose is the right one for the job?”

  “She is the right one,” Ace returned, “and actually, she may be the only one.”

  Pearl lifted a brow, and a jeweled finger to wave. “So you say.”

  “Cozen is exactly what you need. She integrates into a mark’s life, gains their trust, and gets the job done. It may take two weeks, or it may take six months. It doesn’t matter because when she is done, she leaves quietly and without the fanfare another thief might cause with a quick heist.”

  “Problematic.”

  “Pardon?”

  “That would be problematic for us,” Pearl said, “and so, you think this woman and her partner will be—”

  “I never said Cozen has a partner. She works alone.”

  For a long while, Pearl stared hard at Ace. It almost felt as though she were weighing his words, and how she felt about them.

  “No partner?” she finally asked.

  Ace shook his head. “She doesn’t need one.”

  “And what if she fails—what is her backup?”

  “She has never failed.”

  Pearl rested back in the couch, and the lines of her aging face deepened with her contemplating frown. “Never?”

  “Her way of working takes time, and sometimes it feels like very little is getting done, but it is always successful. If you give her a little bit of faith, I promise you will receive everything you want in return.”

  “Fine, show me.”

  Ace turned the tablet on, and typed in in his four-digit passcode. A few swipes across the screen, and he had the video brought up. Turning it around for Pearl to get a good view of what was happening on the screen, he waited.

  Pearl watched in silence as a party was caught on camera in what had been an art gallery—the famous theft of the Van Gogh painting had basically bankrupt the place when the rich who had been using it to show off their art under the guise of possibly selling it no longer had a client list to keep them relevant.

  The camera was directly on the wall that showcased the Van Gogh—a small painting no larger than twelve by eight inches, or so—and a few other pieces that any respectable art dealer would die to put on the market.

  The crowd swelled once in the video.

  They dispersed.

  “I’m sorry, what is happening?” Pearl asked.

  “Wait for it,” Ace murmured.

  The crowd swelled again, but this time when they dispersed, the painting was gone. The Van Gogh was taken.

  Pearl sat back quickly. “I missed it, didn’t I?”

  “No,” Ace assured, “but you’ll never see her actually doing it. This took her three months, according to the broker I talked to who approached her for this job. She integrated into the mark’s life, as she does, and then planned her heist according to his ways and rituals. I don’t have all the details of this particular heist, but as you can see, she clearly took her time to know the room, the cameras, and which way would be safe and clean for her to get it done. This is her style, and her signature. Exactly what you want.”

  Ace let the video play through the end at a slightly faster speed before stopping at just the right point, saying, “There she is.”

  The woman with the russet eyes glancing up at the camera as the guests finally noticed the painting was gone wore a ghost of a smile.

  “They have this video, clearly,” Pearl said, hedging at somethin
g.

  “They never even looked at her for this. The man who I talked to stated she stayed about two weeks after this, and then left quietly.”

  Pearl tipped her head to the side. “Cozen, you said?”

  “Yes.”

  “Appropriate name.”

  Ace smirked. “You could say that.”

  “Does she always use that name?”

  “Depends on the situation, or the mark.”

  “And you are sure …”

  Ace set the tablet aside. “Pearl, I will do a lot to get a deal done, but I promise you that Cozen is the thief you need for this. Let me approach her with the job.”

  “Fourth isn’t going to like this,” Pearl muttered. “He thinks he can do this quicker.”

  “I’m sure he could, but Cozen will be clean. Therein lies the difference.”

  The Astor queen nodded once. “Fine, approach her.”

  January 8th, 2013

  “What is it, do you think, that keeps you coming back for more?”

  Cozen Taylor shifted on her perch at the end of the reclining lounger, and passed her companion a look. “What, are you shrinking my head now, Ace?”

  Zander “Ace” Everston laughed hard and loud. “No, but I’m always curious about thieves like you, Zen. Frankly, I’m curious about anyone in our world, and what keeps them going from one job to the next.”

  “I get that.”

  “So do tell, then. What keeps you coming back for more? The last one was the last one, right? That’s what you told me when I came to offer you the deal on this job. Yet, here you are taking it.”

  Fair is fair.

  “The last one was the last one.”

  “And as I said, here you sit in South Beach waiting for the next call.”

  Cozen smiled out at the tide starting to rush up the edges of the beach. The smell of the ocean clung in the air, and despite it being January, Miami was still warm enough that all she needed to wear was a thin shawl over her black, bodycon dress.

  Sand touched her toes when she dug her ruby red stilettos further into the beach. Even the sand still had a warm quality to it, and the beige color matched some of the streaks lighting up the sky. Miami was a beautiful place to visit, or relax. She tended to stick to the other side of Florida, though. More tourists, she supposed. It was easier to blend in with the crowd.

  “Does that mean you’re not going to answer me?” Ace asked.

  “Are you ever going to tell me how you earned your nickname?”

  Ace flashed her a grin.

  For a second, she was caught by how handsome Ace could be when he was trying to be charming. Usually, he tried most of the time. Had it been years ago and he graced her with that kind of smile, Cozen might have felt a twist in her stomach—unsure of how to react to a handsome man grinning at her.

  But she was no longer a young, simple girl—twenty-five years on earth had brought with it a sense of understanding, and difficult life lessons for Cozen. Smiles from this man did little for her. Smiles from anyone did little for her.

  “Well?” Cozen asked. “Your nickname?”

  “Nope,” Ace said.

  That was that.

  “It was supposed to be the last time, though,” Cozen said quietly as she peered back over the water. Outside the café overlooking part of South Beach, she should have been enjoying the cold margarita in her hand, and letting the stress fall from her shoulders. Instead, she was going over all the reasons she had decided to come here when Ace sought her out for another job. “At least,” she added, shooting Ace a look, “it should have been the last time on this continent for a while.”

  Ace grinned like he understood, but quickly sobered as he looked into his glass of whiskey. “This job was by special request.”

  “It’s always special when the Astors call someone in to do a job.”

  At the mention of the family who had asked for Ace—a broker, of sorts, in their underground world of criminal kings, thieves, and far more—to bring in a thief worth their weight when it came to a heist, the two quieted.

  “My last heist was in Boston,” Cozen said. “Two years ago.”

  “Mmm. A Van Gogh, right?”

  How did—

  “You didn’t broker me that job,” she said.

  Ace cocked a brow, saying, “No, but I know the person who did. Don’t know specifics about who hired you to retrieve the painting for them, mind you, just that it was successful.”

  “You know enough.”

  “Maybe there’s a reason I had to pick you for this job, Zen.”

  Cozen straightened her back a bit on the reclining lounger. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re a very specialized thief being that you … integrate into a mark’s life, and leave quietly. You gain a mark’s trust, and then most times when an item is stolen, they don’t even look at you. Not even after you’re gone.”

  “Fair,” she said.

  It wasn’t a lie.

  “The Astors needed a specific thief—one that could do this kind of job without the fanfare of making a scene, and causing trouble in the underground world, if you get what I mean.”

  Cozen lifted a single brow because this was the first she heard of this. “And how does that Van Gogh job come in to play?”

  Ace sucked air through his teeth, and glanced away. “I got video of the party that night from a friend of a friend when I went asking about the job—you know who hired you, so put it together.”

  Anger flitted through Cozen.

  She somehow hid it well.

  “You know that’s dangerous for someone like me,” she said quietly. “To go around asking about a thief like that, especially one like me.”

  “As I said,” Ace murmured, “this is a special job. They need a certain kind of thief that will integrate into the mark’s life, and extract what they want without cause for concern or issue. They don’t want a scene. They know it might take some time, and so, they sent me looking for the right thief. I knew it was you.”

  “Don’t ever go asking about me to other brokers again,” she warned.

  Ace nodded. “Yeah, I got it. I am curious, though.”

  “About what?”

  “The Van Gogh heist. One of the few paintings I know you’ve stolen.”

  “The owner sold it during a rough patch.”

  Ace shot her a look.

  Cozen shrugged. “Basically, the bastard sold it to keep it out of his wife’s hands during a nasty divorce.”

  “Ah. And what, he couldn’t get it back afterward?”

  “No.” Cozen smiled, sly and slow. “The wife wanted it back. A gift from her father, apparently. Three million for a successful heist on a painting the size of my head, Ace. I was done after that one. I should have stayed done.”

  “Then why aren’t you? I could have offered the job to someone else had you refused. I am the broker, Zen. I know other thieves who could have figured this out, and successfully got the job done.”

  Tension curled around her shoulders.

  Unease settled in her gut.

  Longing burrowed into her heart.

  “Maybe it’s me,” she murmured.

  “You?”

  “I like the chase. I get a high from the thrill. I should say no, and be satisfied with the security I have in my life, but I can’t. I need the next challenge.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  Before the two could talk more, a ring broke their attention away. Sitting higher on the reclined wicker lounger, the Blackberry vibrated and rang until it slid down to Cozen’s waiting hand on the fourth ring.

  It wasn’t a call.

  Just a message.

  The Astors will see you now, it read.

  “The Astors call,” Cozen said heavily.

  Ace was already standing and discarding his unfinished whiskey. “Never make that family wait. I swear there’s nothing they hate more.”

  “I’ve only met them once, and that was at a third-party event. Are they as excessive a
nd extravagant as everyone says?”

  “Yes.”

  Ace didn’t even bother to explain more of his confirmation. Her curious look did nothing to urge him on, either.

  Just a simple yes.

  “You know, Zen,” Ace said as they navigated their way down the beach, “I do like that you went back to your natural hair color. The russet makes you stand out in a sea full of blondes here.”

  His hand came up to touch one of her free waves, but she was quick to react with a swing of her hand. She caught the side of his hand with her own, twisted his arm back, and yanked it down to his side without ever breaking stride beside him.

  “Shit,” Ace hissed.

  Cozen let him go. “Don’t touch me.”

  “I meant no harm. And damn, I can’t give you a compliment, either?”

  He rubbed his hand, and his eyes burned with fire.

  Cozen smiled, and looked over the pretty, colorful streaks in the sky. “I don’t need your compliments, Ace.”

  “You know what, better I don’t even act friendly with you.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You know why, Cozen.”

  Yeah, she did.

  “You were warned once, Ace,” was all she said.

  He didn’t even reply.

  Excessive and extravagant did not do the Astor mansion justice, as far as Cozen was concerned. Tucked away on Tahiti Beach Island Road of Coral Cables, the three-level, two-wing monster of an estate looked to be the largest home in the area. And the most private, considering the carefully placed shrubbery and towering trees looming all around the property.

  “We’re not going in?” Cozen asked as Ace directed her down a pathway along the side of the east wing. “What, they don’t want people to see the inside of their home?”

  “This place is nearly thirty-thousand square feet,” Ace muttered. “They almost always hold their meetings in the back where they can overlook the ocean. Sure, we could go through the house, but it’ll take twice as long to navigate.”

  Windows looking inside the Astor mansion covered the east wing. Cozen caught sight of crystal chandeliers the size of small cars, and displays of wealth in every corner.

  “Has no one told them that showcasing their wealth is a bad thing in a world like ours?” she asked.

  Ace chuckled, and his gaze drifted to the right. “I don’t think the Astors are very concerned, all things considered. They are the largest gun trafficking family in the world at the moment. It would be stupid of anyone—even a thief like you—to assume they go without protection.”