Page 1 of Stolen Princess

1

FERRIN

Nothing spurs chaos like darkness. My father was a mean bastard and a feckless drunk, but every now and then, he’d throw out pearls for me to scoop up. That was one of them.

“Lights and cameras out in sixty seconds,” comes the voice through my earpiece as I glide through the room, moving from case to case, eying the sparkling gems that gleam and glow against their perfectly angled light until I get closer to the case I’m here for.

“You’ll have sixty seconds before the alarm triggers and the backup comes on after that,” Sven tacks on to his twin’s prompt as if I didn’t already know this. As if we haven’t gone over this plan no less than a hundred times, run it through in multiple stages with multiple contingency plans and routes, and mapped out every last detail for the last three months.

Granted, that’s not a lot of time when planning a heist of this magnitude, but fuck it. We had a deadline that couldn’t be changed. Not the first time I’ve smashed and grabbed.

I shift along, coming to stand before the case housing two items. One is a fake. The other is real. It’s the real one I’m here for, but I plan to take both. You’d never know the other is a fake unless you know the truth behind Princess Desta’s tiara, which few do. I happen to be one of them.

I’m here for the Necklace of the Empress.

It carries the largest, most symmetrical pearl in history, attached in a drop pattern to a flawless eighty-carat pear-shaped green diamond that curves up into branches of different-shaped and sized flawless diamonds. The estimated value of the piece is somewhere around a hundred and twenty million. The reality is, it’s priceless given its origin. It was fashioned for the first queen of Messalina and has lasted through the centuries.

The tiara, on the other hand, which boasts the Emerald of Egypt along with other large, flawless diamonds and gemstones, would be the prize if it were real. I’m still fucking furious about it, especially after seeing the replica now. I can’t believe that hag nicked it from my safe. It had to have been her. No one else knew I had it. Not even Lars and Sven, whose house the safe was in.

Lars’s voice crackles in my ears, drawing me back. “Three. Two. One. Lights out.”

A heady cocktail of adrenaline and endorphins zips through my blood, speeding up my heart and making my skin hum. I tap the button on the side of my glasses, and they switch to night vision just as the lights flicker out. Shrieks and startled gasps surround me as people panic.

“Minute timer started,” Sven announces, and I get to work, ignoring the rush and bumping of bodies, screaming women, and crying children. The guards shout out, demanding that everyone stay still and not panic. Obviously no one listens.

I reach beneath the table and feel my way until I locate the wire before I slip my knife through it, severing the connection. Then I pound my gloved hand up with as much force as I can, knocking the case loose and unlatching the hinges. Shooting back upright, I remove the heavy plexiglass case, snatch the necklace and tiara from their holders, stuff them into my ultra-deep pockets, and get myself the fuck out of here.

I duck my head and rush in behind a couple, pulling the silicone nose, cheeks, lips, and chin from my face, removing the fake teeth, and my wig as I shuffle along with everyone.

“Twenty seconds.”

I straighten up, remove my glasses, and swing around to the back entrance the janitorial staff uses just as the lights flicker back on and the cameras are live once more. The alarm sounds, blaring and flashing red lights overhead. A new set of screams pierces the air, muffled by the heavy industrial door I’m on the other side of. It’s a long hallway, all white walls and concrete floors. I grab the plastic bag from beneath my hoodie, hold my breath, and open it up, hastily shoving my disguise inside before resealing it and dropping it in the incinerator chute.

The bag is lined with hydrofluoric acid, which will eat the silicone and other fibers while destroying any DNA. There are no cameras in this hallway, but I still keep my head down as I take off my hoodie, revealing my janitor costume complete with an ID badge hanging from my waist. I apply my other set of prosthetics to my face, mashing the nose on and smoothing out the wrinkles. Then I pop in the new fake teeth.

“Where are you?” Sven murmurs in my ear. “Police are less than a minute out, and security has already held everyone who entered aside.”

“I’m at the back door. Is it clear?”

“Yes.”

Better fucking be.

I crack the door and peek outside. Empty, but the sirens are loud, both from inside and outside of the building. I pull a cigarette from my front shirt pocket and light it even though I don’t smoke. I move along the side of the building, smoking while casually speed walking toward the parking lot.

“Hey, you there.” A voice comes from behind, speaking in Italian.

Fuck.

Slowly, I turn to see a uniformed security guard.

“What’s all the commotion?” I ask, also in Italian, taking another drag of my cigarette.

He eyes me up and down, then notes my badge. “Someone cut the power.”

My jaw drops. “No. For what?”

“Some jewels were stolen. You see anyone suspicious?”