Chapter 8

As long as Landon kept his hand on her shoulder, her fingers didn't tremble.

Merde. That wasn't a good sign. She should be chafing at the restrictive hold, not finding it comforting.

Then again, it was logical that while surrounded by three men who were all larger and stronger than her, that one of the three she knew was comparatively safe.

"This is the public dungeon, as well as the nightclub." Agent Rolf led them to the center of a massive, echoing space. On her left, the windows she'd seen from the outside of the building let in light, but it was muted. Massive semi-opaque panels were mounted to the inside of each window so while some daylight filtered in, it was muted and no one could see in, or out.

Good thing, since small stages spaced around the outer walls sported various BDSM equipment—two versions of a St. Andrew's Cross and stocks, or industrial looking structures made of black-coated beams and pipes. The far side of the large room, opposite the entrance, had a high DJ platform with a lighting rig suspended above it.

"I thought you said it was a private club." Colette hung back, worried that if she walked further into the room Landon would let his hand drop from her shoulder. She still needed the contact, at least until she was sure her hands wouldn't tremble. "At least on work nights."

"Friday through Sunday, this floor is open to anyone willing to pay the cover charge. Up there is always private."

When Rolf pointed, she looked up. She'd noted the high ceiling when they entered, but hadn't really looked at it. A few massive industrial fixtures and a plethora of lighting rigs were mounted to the ceiling, while ropes of black cables wound and swagged between the lattice-like metal trusses.

Except it wasn't a ceiling, it was a loft.

An open rectangle in the middle of the "ceiling" revealed glimpses of the roof high above, though she couldn't see much due to the dim light.

"The fun stuff is all up there." Andrei hopped up to sit on the edge of one of the stages, this one bearing a metal arch with chains and rope dangling from it like some industrial, fetish wedding arch. "That is also where we allow full nudity."

Colette casually slipped her hands into her pockets, then stepped away from Landon. She immediately regretted her decision and missed the comfort of his hands on her body. Making sure to exude casual confidence, she wandered around the space, her heeled boots clicking on the dark concrete floor.

She couldn't help but imagine people trapped in the various bondage and fetish devices—men, women, some naked, some fully clothed. In an odd way, imagining a person fully clothed on the St. Andrew's Cross made her swallow hard with fear, while the mental image of a mostly naked person in the same position was titillating.

Colette pressed her forearm gently against her side, which felt tender, but not wet. Hopefully Landon wrapping his arms around her earlier—and jamming her own arm against her injured side—hadn't ruined her patch job from yesterday.

A leg blocked her path, and Colette stopped short. She hadn't realized that she'd made it almost all the way around the warehouse to where Andrei sat on what she was now going to refer to as the wedding stage.

She looked from his leg—which he'd stuck straight out to block her path—to his face and raised a brow. Andrei smiled at her, and there was wicked promise in the smile. In another time, another place…

Colette's gaze slid to Landon, and a little shock ran down her spine when their eyes met. Her attention bounced back to Andrei at the sound of boots hitting concrete.

Andrei had jumped off the stage only to lean against it, his arms crossed over his chest. "It's like that, is it?" he asked.

"You think you have it all figured out?" she countered, irritated with herself for being so obvious.

"Not all of it. Not yet." Andrei straightened. "But I will figure you out."

Genuine amusement made Colette smile. "Better men, and women, than you have tried to figure me out." She rose on tiptoe, and he obligingly leaned down so she could whisper in his ear. "They've all failed. And you will too."

* * *

* * *

Landon's jaw tightened, his molars groaning, as he watched Colette whisper in Andrei's ear.

The flash of narrow-eyed calculation on Andrei's face before his expression smoothed out mollified Landon somewhat.

"You need to figure out her kink IQ," Rolf said quietly.

"Yeah, I got that." Landon knew this woman, and yet she was both a stranger and a mystery. Maybe he wasn't a complete asshole for his thoughts yesterday. Maybe she was in the lifestyle. She'd make a killer Domme, but several times his sub-dar had gone off. Yesterday he'd chalked it up to wishful thinking.

Powerful, high-tension people often sought a safe way to give up control. It was incredibly common for a Domme's subs to be male-identifying people with a lot of responsibility or high-powered jobs. The same was true with the flipped gender dynamic, though there were also plenty of women whose high load of responsibility wasn't directly tied to a job, but rather to the mental and physical workload of unpaid domestic and relationship labor.

Being a cat burglar was high-stress. Maybe Colette slipped on a collar to alleviate that tension.

"Do you want the room with the slave bed?" Rolf asked.

For a minute, Landon was tempted. Of the bedrooms up on the third floor, several were plain, almost spartan rooms that had just a bed and a bedside locker in them. Others had been outfitted as play spaces, with the plan that club members could rent the rooms by the night. One of the rooms had both a king bed and a "slave bed"—a single mattress with a metal four poster bed "frame" that looked like a tiny freestanding jail cell. All four sides of the bed were lined with metal bars, creating a cage around the bed, or a bed inside a cage, depending on one's point of view.

But she wasn't a prisoner, and he had no legal right to lock her up. He'd argued with Anu yesterday that her disappearing act was grounds for them to arrest her, but his director disagreed. He needed to treat her like a protected witness, and that meant the slave bed was out.

Regretfully, he shook his head. "No. Don't two of the regular rooms have a connecting door?"

"Yes. The old administrative and foreman's offices."

Several of the rooms upstairs had been here when they bought the warehouse, and it made sense that the front office would have had an internal door to the manager's office.

"We'll take those."

"We'll take what?" Colette asked, hips rolling as she walked over.

Andrei had hopped up on the closest scene stage once more, his elbows on his knees, his gaze focused on Colette in a distinctly predatory way.

"Discussing sleeping arrangements."

Colette raised a brow and then glanced at the ceiling. "How does one get up there?"

"The stairs in the hall, or the private elevator. Both require a key."

Colette turned in a slow circle, then faced Rolf. "It's a nice club. Good set up, and I assume you have excellent taste in DJs?"

Rolf looked briefly disconcerted. "Er, yes. I believe so." He glanced over at Landon who raised his hands in a shrug. Booking DJs wasn't his thing. They hired a company to run the nightclub side of it.

"None of this explains exactly why Interpol owns a BDSM club. What do you, Agents Pederson, Leonard, and Malik, use the club for?"

"That's not something you need to know." Rolf was back to his usual stern, stony self. "The facility is secure, even on the nights when we open this floor to the public."

"Entrapment then," Colette's lip rose in disgust. "You're specifically targeting ‘alternative' people with the theme of the club, luring them in and then…offering to sell them drugs? Arresting them once they purchase?"

"That's not what we're doing," Landon snapped, feeling vaguely guilty even though he had no reason to.

"Then what are you doing?"

"Enough, Colette. We're not going to tell you because one, you're not an agent. And two, you're a fucking criminal, and you'd go tell all your criminal friends."

As soon as the words were out of Landon's mouth, he looked at Rolf. That might…

Rolf's eyes were narrowed in thought. They'd have to talk about this later.

"For now, let's go upstairs," Landon said. "You can see where we'll be staying."

"And where you'll be working." Andrei hopped down and sauntered over, eying Colette with exaggerate interest. "I can't wait to see you in uniform."

* * *

"So what do you steal?" Andrei asked as they exited the main part of the club back into the hall.

"I've never stolen anything." Colette smiled at the agent, who matched her energy with his return smile.

Beside her, Landon snorted.

"She walked into the UK NCB, right through security, with the Saudi diamond."

Andrei whistled. "You're not going to like Saudi prison."

"I've never been to prison, but it sounds like you speak from experience?" Colette simpered at Andrei.

Landon let out a sigh as he gripped her shoulder. She felt instantly better.

"Stop for a moment, please." Rolf actually physically stopped, turning to face her, then looking to Landon. "Why is it referred to as the Saudi diamond?"

Landon crossed his arms. "Because it was stolen from a Saudi prince." He cocked a brow at her.

"Perhaps I should tell the story?" she suggested with a smile.

Landon's gaze drifted to her mouth, and Colette's smile widened.

He motioned for her to go ahead.

"In the early 90s," Colette started, "a Thai man was living in Saudi Arabia, working as a housekeeper and gardener in the home of one of the princes. He figured out that the prince often left his in-home vaults, of which he had several, unlocked. The man needed money to pay off gambling debts, so over the course of several weeks, he took items from the vaults and smuggled them out with the cleaning supplies and garbage."

Landon, Rolf, and Andrei were all watching her silently. It was a little unnerving, so Colette smiled, forcing herself to project casual confidence.

"He shipped several hundred pounds of jewelry back to Thailand, before leaving the country himself. Not long after, the thefts were discovered, and it was relatively easy for Saudi officials to identify him as the culprit. Meanwhile, back in Thailand, the thief had no idea how to sell items of that value, and ended up selling them to a jeweler." Colette shook her head in disgust at the man's lack of professionalism. "Selling them for less than one percent of their actual value."

Landon snorted.

Colette looked over at him, one brow raised.

"The face you made when you said that. It looked like the idea physically hurt you."

"It did, it really did." Colette sighed.

"Thief snobbery," Rolf rumbled.

"I'm a gem expert. Seeing gems, especially rare ones, mishandled hurts. Nothing to do with stealing."

Landon snorted again.

"But to continue, the Saudi authorities went to the Thai authorities, who gathered up all the stolen pieces and returned them." Colette smiled. "Except that every piece was fake."

"So the Saudi prince had fake jewelry in his safe?" Rolf asked.

"No, no, no. The Thai authorities…" Colette grinned. "…allegedly, hypothetically, kept the real jewelry and returned replicas. Apparently, assuming the Saudis wouldn't question them. Several wives of high ranking members of the Royal Thai Police force were photographed wearing pieces of the stolen jewelry after everything was supposedly returned. There's more to the story—murder, intrigue, corruption—but what's important is that the real jewelry is still out there. And the most famous piece that was taken was a fifty-carat blue diamond. Hence, the Saudi diamond."

"Relations between Thailand and Saudi Arabia have been strained since this incident." Landon picked up the story. "Saudi Arabia stopped issuing work visas to Thai nationals, which was a massive hit to the Thai economy at the time."

"The 90s." Andrei pursed his lips. "You didn't steal it. You're too young."

"There's no question about who the original thief was," Landon said. "The mystery is what happened to the jewelry once it was confiscated in Thailand."

"If the diamond I brought you is the Saudi blue diamond, returning it to the Saudis will have geo-political implications. Relations between the countries are still strained to this day."

Rolf looked to Landon. "Your NCB has a plan?"

Landon's jaw muscle twitched.

Hehe.

"Returning the gem without any information about where it's been would be…problematic."

"Wait, so she gave you the gem, but hasn't told you how or where she got it?" Andrei asked.

"There was a story about a client who hired her." Landon dropped his hand from her shoulder to scrub it over his face. "The client's name just happens to be the same as a character in a book about a jewelry heist."

Andrei cracked up. Full on lean-against-the-wall-hands-on-his-stomach laughter. He looked approachable like this.

Not that Colette had any intention of approaching him.

She turned to look at Landon, only to see him frowning, his gaze flicking from her to Andrei and back.

"And you believe she's also the one responsible for the theft from the British Museum?" Rolf asked.

"Yes. She was an intern there at the time, but the circumstances around her internship were murky."

"Murky?" Rolf clearly disapproved of the word.

"Murky," Landon reiterated, though he looked slightly embarrassed.

"Not a precise term." Rolf shook his head, but then looked at her. "A good agent thinks you committed serious crime."

"I can't control what your agents think."

"You should care what they think."

"I didn't say I didn't care." She cared more than she should about what Landon thought. "I'm a certified gem and jewelry appraiser with a specialization in antiques and artifacts. Yes, I interned at the British Museum, which is where I met Investigator Malik, but he was Detective Malik back then."

"You're holding the information you have hostage to force Interpol to protect you," Andrei finally straightened from his laughing-induced lean. "What is it they say in English? Game recognizes game."

Colette's smile was entirely genuine now.

"She's going to give us the real, true information on where she got the diamond, so we can return it," Landon said.

"Some information," she said. "I'll tell you what I know, but I don't have a complete provenance going back to the time of the original theft."

Once it had finally made it to the black market it had been bought and sold countless times. Three days ago, when she'd been hiding in a backpacking hostel in eastern Germany, she'd heard that it was on the market, and snapped it up so she could use it to approach Landon.

She shoved her hands into her pockets, and in her peripheral vision he noticed Landon noticing the move.

Rolf looked like he had more to say, but shook his head and finally turned away. "Come."

Colette started to balk at the order—she wasn't a dog—but Landon's hand on her back urged her forward.

At the far end of the hall was a narrow black spiral staircase. She leaned in and looked up. It wound up and up into the darkness.

Rolf tugged a chain from under his shirt, a key dangling from it. Colette studied it out of the corner of her eye.

Merde. It was a cruciform key. Most door keys were pin-tumbler lock style—a flat piece of metal with grooves and notches cut into just one side. A cruciform key was shaped like an X when viewed from the end. Rather than two edges for cuts and biting, a cruciform key had four. And from what she could see, it looked like all four edges had some notching.

They weren't impossible to pick, but they were damned hard, and unlike a normal key, she couldn't run down to the corner locksmith and have a duplicate cut in under five minutes.

Rolf went up first, Andrei after him. She hesitated, heart beating hard inside her chest.

"Regretting manipulating me?" Landon said.

His voice came from right beside her and she jumped, not having realized he'd leaned in so close.

"Don't flatter yourself," she snapped, "I manipulated all of Interpol, not just you."

She felt his chuckle as much as she heard it. "Admit it, you're in over your head."

Colette swallowed and closed her eyes, bending her head forward so that her hair curtained her face, hopefully hiding her expression. Two breaths and she got herself under control.

She shook back her hair and turned to look at Landon.

He had one hand braced on the spiral staircase as he loomed behind her. With her head turned, face tilted up, their lips were mere centimeters apart.

When he exhaled, she felt the soft brush of air against her sensitive lips.

His eyes were so dark that normally it was hard to distinguish pupil from iris, but this close she could see that there were three distinct rings of color—chocolate brown around the pupil, then a narrow, lighter band the color of expensive whiskey, and then a solid dark outer ring.

He frowned as his gaze slid down to her lips, and for a breathless minute she thought maybe he'd kiss her.

Landon jerked back, breaking the spell. Colette swallowed her disappointment.

"Enough stalling," he said. "You made this bed, now you're going to have to lie in it."

She'd much rather lie in whatever sort of bed they had here, than end up tied to Damien's bed.

Again.