Page 18 of The One-Night Heist

Yet he had no problem telling me…

Some might consider using that as dirt, but outing someone wasn’t my style. A person’s sexual orientation and gender identity were their business alone, and unrelated to whether or not I thought they were an asshole.

I’m an equal opportunity hater.

What did come up with my latest Google search were results for “Giancarlo Luxford girlfriend”—multiple photos of Giano at various charity events with fashion model Anastasia Bosco on his arm.

Interesting…

It certainly wasn’t a problem if Giano was bi, since that’s how I rolled, but he gave the impression of someone who’d been dragged to a family function against their will in every photo with Anastasia. Meanwhile, he’d looked at me with a predatory focus—like he wanted to eat me up and wash it down with a nice, long… drink.

The feeling is, unfortunately, mutual.

This attraction could be a problem. I usually didn’t mix business with pleasure, because that’s when things got messy in ways that royally fucked up the job. If I decided to sleep with him—and who was I kidding, of course I would—the affair would need to be treated as just another part of the deal.

It would also need to stay a very discreet, dirty little secret.

And something tells me Giancarlo Luxford would have no problem with that.

I ignored the twinge of inconvenient emotion trying to surface at that thought and focused on the facts. Our conversation tonight—written back and forth on a single sheet torn from his leatherbound notepad—had mostly focused on what Giano would pay me for making the art temporarily disappear, along with a loose plan of meeting again to discuss next steps.

Understandably, he had to get back to schmoozing with his rich bitch guests, and we both agreed it would be better if I snuck out via the service entrance before the press arrived and started taking photos. If word got out that I’d been at his little art party, it wouldn’t take long for scrutiny to fall on me as an obvious suspect.

As he’d led me down the back hallways of his ridiculously spacious apartment, I showed him how to permanently delete our texts and call log from his phone and helped him download Signal as an encrypted option for future text conversations.

Because ya boy doesn’t do phone calls.

Giano took all my expert advice in stride, but by the time we parted ways, I could see his cool cucumber mask beginning to crack.

If I’d suggested checking for bugs and buying a burner, he may have evaporated completely.

He didn’t need to be worried—not at this stage anyway. Once we’d ironed out the details for our next meeting, I’d burned the evidence of our incriminating conversation with his fancy monogrammed lighter.

The same lighter that’s now rattling around my pocket as a keepsake.

Oops.

At this point, the bus reached the end of its route. I hopped off and walked a block before descending into the stifling heat of the subway, miraculously leaping onto a B train right as the doors were closing.

I’m never this lucky.

The entire situation with Giancarlo felt too good to be true, especially with the tension simmering between us tonight.

With how he’d let me… handle him.

I dropped my head back against the smeared glass this time, willing myself not to get a boner two feet away from a drunk passed out across the grimy seats.

It was no use. By the time I emerged at Grand Street, I couldn’t hustle to my Chinatown apartment fast enough. After wrestling with my key in the janky lock for a solid minute, I was inside, and the first thing I did was remove my suit jacket and carefully sling it over one of the two chairs at my tiny kitchen table.

I sighed in relief, but before I could walk away and fully undress, my work phone—because no way in hell was I using my phone for police business—lit up with an incoming message.

Motherfuckers.

The only reason I looked was because I desperately wanted to be thinking about anything except Giancarlo Luxford and his sex potion cologne still hanging over me like a mystical cloud.

Of course the text was Agent Markel telling—not asking—me to join him uptown at The Andervelt Museum at 4:00 p.m. to discuss a recent robbery with the director.

Ooh!