Eva jumped aside as Jack and the guard crashed into the dresser. The sound of breaking wood filled the room as the dresser broke apart beneath their weight. Neither of the men seemed to notice. They hauled themselves to their feet and resumed fighting. Blood dripped from the corner of Jack’s mouth, and the guard’s eye had already begun to swell shut. Yet they didn’t slow or stagger as they brawled.
At this rate, they’d tear the house down around them before she could find the evidence.
“Damn,” she muttered to herself, glancing around the chamber. “Where the hell is it?”
Her gaze caught on a small door that presumably led to a closet. Flinging it open, she found several men’s jackets hanging there. Useless. But on the floor of the closet …
There sat an iron strongbox, roughly the size of a traveling valise. Two locks secured its lid, and handles were on either end of the strongbox, making it relatively easy to transport. But the strongbox wouldn’t be traveling anywhere in a hurry—a locked chain secured it to a metal ring mounted to the wall.
She crouched down and removed her lock picks from her handbag.
Fire suddenly spread across her scalp as someone gripped her roughly by the hair and jerked her back. “You ain’t getting in there,” snarled the guard.
Her eyes burned, and her hand came up automatically, grasping her own hair to lessen the force of his tugging. Twisting around, she jabbed the fingers of her free hand into his unprotected windpipe as he bent over her. He gagged and his grip on her hair lessened. She kicked at his knees at the same moment she brought the side of her hand down onto his forearm.
Howling in pain, he released her. And then he wasn’t there anymore. Jack slammed into the guard, tackling him to the ground. Jack pinned the bully’s arms with his knees as he knelt over him. If Jack had been fighting viciously before, he was rage personified now, his face dark with fury as he landed blow after blow to the guard’s face.
Though the sight was brutally fascinating, she had her own task to accomplish. She turned back to the lock fastening the chain to the strongbox. Forcing herself to ignore the wet, crunching sounds of Jack’s fists pounding into the bully, she worked her picks on the lock. She’d never before had to pick a lock when someone in the same room was administering a relentless beating, and she strained to sense the tiny clicks and barely perceptible movements of the lock’s mechanism as Jack unleashed the full extent of his fury on the guard.
The man’s groans stopped, but Jack’s assault didn’t. She glanced over her shoulder. The bully was unconscious, blood flowing from his nose and mouth. But Jack kept going.
“Jack,” she said sharply. “He stopped fighting back.”
Snarling, Jack whipped up his head. The moment his gaze fell on her, the mask of rage fell away.
“Don’t add murder to your list of crimes,” she said.
“He … hurt you.” His words were a low rasp.
“I hurt him back.”
His scowl slowly faded. “So you did.”
“Now stop distracting me.” She turned back to her work, fighting for calm when she felt anything but. He’d been on the verge of killing the bully, and all because the guard had tried to harm her. He’d been callously efficient when fighting with the other guards, but this had been personal.
The lock’s tumblers clicked into place. She unfastened it, separating the strongbox from the chain that bound it to the wall. Her arms strained with effort as she struggled to pull the heavy container out of the closet. It might be the size of a valise, but it was far heavier, as though someone had packed the case with bricks instead of clothing.
“I’ll see to that.” Jack grabbed the strongbox’s handles and hefted it easily.
Getting to her feet, she said, “Now you’re just showing off.”
He started to grin, but winced from the cut at the corner of his mouth. “I want a look at what we’ve got on Rockley, but we ain’t opening this here.”
“A neighbor may have notified the constabulary,” she said in agreement. “Between the gunfire and this”—she gestured at the ruined bedchamber, where every single piece of furniture had been destroyed by Jack and the bully—“we’ve made enough noise to summon the entire Metropolitan Police. The army, too.”
She stepped around the prostrate form of the guard, and together she and Jack left the bedroom. They hurried down the main stairs, Jack in the lead as he carried the strongbox. The house stood silent. Either everyone had fled, or the women cowered in their rooms.
Eva and Jack reached the ground floor. The front door was only steps away. But as they crossed the foyer, Smashed Face charged. Jack didn’t slow his steps. He swung the strongbox at the attacking guard. The metal container caught the bully right in his gut. He grunted and careened backward, gagging. As she and Jack sped through the front door, the bully didn’t try to stop them.
They hastened out into the street. Whistles and the clanging bell of the Black Maria police wagon broke through the night’s silence. She and Jack ran in the opposite direction, toward the hansom they’d hired for the night. The cab waited for them in an alley, and moments after they’d clambered into the vehicle, the strongbox settled across Jack’s knees, the driver snapped the reins and they were off. If anyone looked askance at a woman riding in a hansom, Eva didn’t give a damn.
She’d just stormed into a brothel to steal incriminating evidence from an embezzling nobleman. Reputations were just bits of tissue paper in comparison.
She didn’t relax against the seat until they were well out of St. John’s Wood, with no sounds of pursuit. Only then did she give a long, slow exhale.
Jack’s smile flashed in the darkness. “Haven’t had that much fun since all three O’Leary brothers challenged me in the ring.“
Given what she’d just witnessed at the brothel, she had no doubt how that fight had concluded.
“It’s serious business, what we do for Nemesis,” she answered. Then grinned. “But that
was
fun.” She couldn’t admit that to anyone—except Jack. Yet the excitement of what they’d just done continued to course through her.
“Could use a pint after a dustup like that,” he said with a grin.
“Me, too,” she said, wistful. But there’d be no drinks until after they reached headquarters.
“We could share a pint or two at the pub.” His expression sobered. “What I said before, about you trying to gull me—”
Her mood plummeted. She glanced away. “Don’t.”
He put his fingers on her chin and turned her to face him. Rough, the pads of his fingertips against her skin, and his eyes were dark as mystery, filled with fire. Heat settled low in her belly.
“Goddamn it,” he rumbled. “Listen. I’m … sorry about what I said.” He shook his head. “Where I’m from, ain’t no one as ruthless and manipulative than women. Men got nothing on them. But the women, they have to survive, any way they can. That’s what I know.”
“I’m not like them,” she said tightly.
“You ain’t like any woman I’ve met,” he answered, heated.
His gaze searched her face, and she marveled at the contrast between the man who’d relentlessly cut through the guards at the brothel and this man, who looked at her with desire and admiration. Yet they were the same man. Brutal but honorable in his way. Capable of base violence and fierce emotion. Including the emotion he felt for her.
“I
am
sorry,” he said. “I oughtn’t have said that to you, and I hate that I did.”
She clasped his wrist and leaned closer. Then kissed him. Because she had to. Because every part of her wanted it, wanted him. She tasted his blood in the kiss, metallic and earthy.
His grip on her chin tightened, and his growl traveled from deep in his throat into her with low, dark reverberations.
“You’re like no one I’ve ever known, either,” she whispered against his mouth.
“A pair of rare birds we are,” he agreed. “Not birds—wolves. Rare wolves.”
She glanced down at the strongbox. “Wolves who are in possession of dangerous, perhaps even ruinous, information.”
Both his eyes and teeth gleamed in the shadows. “A wolf’s got to have fangs.”
* * *
At Nemesis headquarters, no one wanted to wait until morning to open the strongbox. Everyone gathered around Eva as she sat at the parlor table, using her picks to open the two hefty locks securing the strongbox’s lid.
Jack leaned against the wall, holding a damp cloth to his busted lip, watching. Impatience burned at him to see what, if anything, the coffer held—but he didn’t want to be one more body breathing down Eva’s neck as she worked.
It was a damned pretty neck, though. What he wouldn’t give for a proper time and place to run his mouth over it, breathe in its scent. But proper times and places were in bloody short supply.
All he could do was wait and seethe, slowly torn apart by his hunger for Eva and his need to learn what was in the coffer.
Could be that the strongbox contained nothing more than a few dirty French photographs or letters from mistresses. If that was true, then everything he and Eva had done was for nothing, and they’d be no closer to destroying Rockley than they’d been at the beginning. No—they’d be worse off, because they had nothing to hold over the bastard, their hand played.
He wasn’t the only impatient one.
“Give us a go at that,” Marco urged. “I cracked the Turkish embassy’s safe in Paris in less than three minutes.”
“If you’d stop chattering at me,” she said without looking up, “I’d get this done much faster.”
“Shut it and let the lady work,” Jack snapped.
Marco scowled at him, but at least he stopped talking.
Finally, the telltale snick of the locks opening sounded in the quiet room. Everyone crowded closer to the table, Jack included, as Eva opened the lid. Tension was sharp and tight when she held up what was inside.
Stacks of paper.
“What are they?” Harriet demanded.
Eva sorted through them. “A list of London’s most elite courtesans, and their even more elite clients.”
Simon plucked that sheet of paper from her fingers. “Top-ranking ministers, heads of major corporations, bishops.” He whistled. “This could wreak considerable damage if it fell into the wrong hands.”
“’Course that’s why Rockley has it,” Jack muttered. “Anyone tries to make a move against him, and he’s got ’em by the stones.”
Eva held up two official-looking documents. “Deeds. One to a property here in London—a town house in Knightsbridge by the looks of it—and a house in Somerset.” She studied them closer. “The name of the deed holder has been left blank.”
“He must’ve swindled them from someone,” Lazarus suggested.
“It’s a veritable trove of villainy,” Harriet said, shaking her head.
Jack clamped down on his edginess. “None of this’s what we’re looking for.”
More silence as Eva rifled through the papers. It seemed Rockley had gotten involved in a sodding heap of crime, or at least liked to hang on to evidence of other people’s offenses for his own use.
It took them nearly half an hour to go through all the documents, sorting them, studying them.
Finally, Eva said, “Yes. This.” She untied a cord binding a set of papers. It appeared to be columns of numbers, with notations scribbled beside the figures.
“Is that it?” Simon demanded.
“A full accounting of the government contract for the cartridges.” She scanned the documents and muttered a curse. “That son of a bitch. He and Gilling took more than half the money allocated for the production of the cartridges. Rockley got the lion’s share, but Gilling made a profit, too. With the rest, they purchased substandard manufacturing materials from foreign suppliers. Bills of sale, as proof.” She pointed to several sheets of paper.
Simon examined the bills, and his upper-class features twisted with a snarl. “He fucking sold out British soldiers. How many men died because of him?” He flung the papers onto the table. “I’ll kill him.”
Jack smiled grimly. At last the toff understood the fury and need for vengeance that ate at him. “Get in the queue, mate.”
Slowly, Eva got to her feet. She gathered all the papers and set them back in the strongbox. “No one’s killing anyone. We’ve got the evidence we need against him, and we’re going to make use of it. He will be made to pay for his misconduct.”
He bristled. “You sound so bloody calm about it.”
“I’m feeling anything but tranquil,” she answered, meeting his gaze. In the lamplight, she looked carved from golden marble. It was the coolness, he realized, she used to shield herself, a kind of armor she made with her mind. The more the world threatened to shatter apart, the calmer she became. “He’s kept a good record of his crimes—and there are many. When it comes time to lead the charge against him, I’ll be right there, sword in hand.”
Her voice was flat, detached, but he understood now. He saw it in her eyes, and could feel it in the fury that turned her so perfectly still—when it came time for Eva to unleash the fierceness within herself, God help whoever stood in her way.
And damn him if he didn’t want to be there to see it.
* * *
Returning to her simple, ordinary rooms after the events of the night felt as though she were visiting someone else’s life. And she was—except the life she visited was her own. There, on her table, were lesson plans and books. There, propped upon the mantel was a photograph of her parents that had come in their last letter. Unsurprisingly, her father and mother looked stern and righteous as they posed outside the school they had built in the depths of Nigeria.
Their letter, penned by her mother, was tucked into the top drawer of Eva’s nightstand. Once again, her mother had urged her to join them, to give up tutoring for a higher calling.
Your talents are too exceptional to be wasted on the bored daughters of the bourgeoisie,
Elizabeth Warrick had written.
There is a young missionary here who is in search of a wife and helpmeet. I should be very happy to pass along your permission for him to write to you. Use your life for some greater purpose.
Eva hadn’t yet replied to the letter.
Clad now in her nightgown but unable to sleep, she strode to her desk, preparing to finally answer. Yet before she wrote a single line, she flung her pen to the desk and leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling.