The Tech E-Book

Amy Lane

• Herausgeber: Dreamspinner Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Can two quiet con men who lost their childhoods find their places as a part of a family—and with each other? Ever since he watched his father die, Etienne Couvier has kept to himself. Under the tutelage of his adoptive family, the Salingers, Tienne grows into a gifted forger and artist. But no matter how hard they try to draw him into their midst—and despite the singular pull their friend Stirling Christopher has on his emotions—he resists.   When computer tech Stirling lost his foster parents, he found shelter and love with the Salingers. Stirling knows firsthand what Tienne has been through, so when an attacker shatters Tienne's self-imposed isolation, Stirling urges him into the Salinger crew. Maybe they can finally explore the quiet attraction between them.   Then the Salingers announce their next project: an inquest into the mysterious deaths of Stirling's adoptive parents. They descend on the Caribbean for answers, with Stirling and Tienne the quiet centers of the human justice-seeking hurricane. As they stretch out of their comfort zones, they learn that being family means someone always has your back. Hand in hand, they'll solve the mystery. They might even be able to live with the consequences—as long as they do it together. Amy Lane's Long Con series follows a crew of civic-minded thieves on their quests for justice, adventure, and love. Fans of Leverage, heist movies, and romantic suspense will love The Tech.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Blurb

Dedication

The Beauty of Paper

Seasons Griftings

Caught

Slow Delicate Dance

New Life, New Worries

Solarium

Early Gifts

Adventure Ho

Grown-ups at the Party

Good Night Kisses, Good Morning Tea

Bennies

Stepping Outside the Van

Travel

Clear View

Into the Breach

The Watcher

A Very Bad Thing

Operation JUICY

The House of the Rising Son

Very Small, Very Large

To Live and Let Live

Ladies’ Tea with Julia

Keep Reading for an Excerpt from The Rising Tide

About the Author

By Amy Lane

More from Amy Lane

Visit Dreamspinner Press

Copyright

The Tech

By Amy Lane

A Long Con Adventure

Can two quiet con men who lost their childhoods find their places as a part of a family—and with each other?

Ever since he watched his father die, Etienne Couvier has kept to himself. Under the tutelage of his sponsor family, the Salingers, Tienne grows into a gifted forger and artist. But no matter how hard they try to draw him into their midst—and despite the singular pull their friend Stirling Christopher has on his emotions—he resists.

When computer tech Stirling lost his adoptive parents, he found shelter and love with the Salingers. Stirling knows firsthand what Tienne has been through, so when an attacker shatters Tienne’s self-imposed isolation, Stirling urges him into the Salinger crew. Maybe they can finally explore the quiet attraction between them.

Then the Salingers announce their next project: an inquest into the mysterious deaths of Stirling’s adoptive parents. They descend on the Caribbean for answers, with Stirling and Tienne the quiet centers of the human justice-seeking hurricane. As they stretch out of their comfort zones, they learn that being family means someone always has your back. Hand in hand, they’ll solve the mystery. They might even be able to live with the consequences—as long as they do it together.

Amy Lane’s Long Con series follows a crew of civic-minded thieves on their quests for justice, adventure, and love. Fans of Leverage, heist movies, and romantic suspense will love The Tech.

Here’s to better times, a happier future, a time when our children bring us joy and not worry. That time is not now—but it could be later.

The Beauty of Paper

Fourteen years ago—France

“NOW THERE, Etienne—do you see?”

“Yes, Papa.”

Etienne’s father was a slight man with unkempt hair that fell to his collar, a pointed chin, and wrinkles in the corners of fine brown eyes. Tienne’s mother had died when Tienne was very small, before the tiny family had moved to the coast using stolen passports.

“The light from the sun bounces off the clouds and hits the water so.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“And what do we use that looks like light?”

“White! White in the blue and white in the gray and light in the gold!” Tienne continued to sing to himself, painting the ocean view from the window of the seaside cottage looking off the coast of St. Tropez. While he did so, his father continued to labor painstakingly over an etching machine with a laminator and various colors of ink on beautiful rainbow paper. Tienne longed to paint pictures on that rainbow paper, but his father told him—repeatedly—that the paper cost very much money and the people who hired Papa to work on the paper would be very displeased if he ruined any of it before it had a chance to be used. Many other little boys might have tested their father on this, but Tienne’s papa was so very gentle and so very kind, and he worked hard every day. Tienne only wanted to please his father. He knew, even as a child of six or seven, that his father worked to feed them and that he wanted so much more for his son than he had for himself.

So Tienne sang softly to himself while his father muttered to the machine and the laminator and the instruments he used to etch letters and pictures into that glorious paper.

The slamming of the cottage door startled them both. Tienne’s brush went sideways, and he made a gasp of dismay, but his father grabbed his arm and tugged him away from the painting before he could complain. “Hide behind the couch,” he muttered. “Don’t say a word.”

“Papa—”

“Not a word!”

Tienne wriggled behind the couch and held his breath, unsure of what was happening, knowing only that his father had never spoken to him in such a tone, not once in all of his seven years.

“Couvier! Couvier! We know you’re in there!”

Tienne’s father’s voice was furious as he stomped across the floor. “You are never to bother me here in my home. Never.”

The next sound Tienne heard was the sound of fist on flesh—and then a returning sound. Had his father been hit? Had he hit back?

“All right! All right! All right! I hear you. Never come to your house. I get it. But Mr. Kadjic wants his stuff, you hear me?”

“The order is due tomorrow,” Antoine Couvier said coldly. “It will be complete tomorrow. I have been good on every order. I will be good on this one. But not if you come to my home, do you understand?”

“Yeah, sure, we understand.” There was the sound of patting down and straightening. “Remember—we don’t need to come to your house to make sure you pony up… or to see your pretty little son.”

Tienne held his breath in the silence that followed.

“You are threatening my son?”

“I’m sayin’, Couvier. Accidents happen. To everybody.”

“If they happen to my son, I will be sure every member of your organization spends every day of their lives in prison. You need me. You need my skills. I am the only forger for a thousand miles who understands the new electronic implants in official documents. You can have your papers today, if you like, but they will trip every alarm in the EU, and Interpol will be down your pants so fast you’ll wish you’d packed lubricant.”

Tienne had to shove his fist in his mouth in fear. His father—his father—could talk to people like this, all in defense of Tienne.

“That is if we don’t kill you first,” the man snarled, but Tienne heard heavy footfalls and then the door slam. Tienne stayed hidden, keeping his breathing under control, until his father’s face appeared at the other end of the couch.

“You are okay?” he asked gently.

“Oui.”

“Good, then come quickly. You need to pack three changes of clothes, you understand? And a few possessions you cannot bear to be without. It all must fit in your school pack, and it cannot be too heavy.”

“My paints and pencils?” Tienne asked, feeling pitiful and trying manfully not to cry as he scooted out from behind the couch.

His father’s hands in his hair comforted him, and he worked hard not to tremble. “I will carry your paints and pencils,” his father said gently. “We artists cannot be expected to exist without them, no?”

“No.” Tienne offered his papa a timid smile and got a kiss on top of his head in return.

“Now go. Pack your treasures and your clothes.” He heard a bit of tortured parent in his father’s voice then. “Leave your schoolbooks. I suppose we shall obtain others, wherever we land.”

Tienne nodded, also sad. Other boys hated school, but Tienne loved it. He could read and write fluently in English and French beyond his grade level, but other things too—math, science—it was all beautiful.

“It is okay, boy,” Tienne’s father said to his retreating back. “We shall land on our feet, if only we will jump now!”

Nine years ago—Marrakech

“SO,” ANTOINE said, holding tight to Tienne’s hand as they made their way through the crowded streets of the bazaar. “What did you do today in school?”

“I kissed a boy!” he said excitedly. At twelve, he was well ahead of his peers, even in the Arabic language he’d needed to learn relatively quickly in the three years since they’d left Europe altogether and come to Morocco. Given that he was so far ahead of his peers in studies, Tienne had developed other goals.

He was not prepared for his father’s sudden tightness on his hand.

“That is fine if you like to kiss boys, Tienne,” his father said, pulling him to a quiet place in the bazaar right before their tiny apartment. “But here there are many devout Muslims who would kill you for doing so. Wait until you’re in a place where kissing a person won’t lose you your head.”

Oh. How disappointing. Tienne had liked the boy immensely—Kamel had such amazing dark eyes. “Where would that be?”

Antoine laughed softly. “France, my boy. It would be in France. Two more years, I think. Give us two more years here. I have our passports made and ready for us. We need to be ghosts for a little while yet.” His father was always so good at planning ahead.

“Being ghosts is not as much fun when there are no boys to kiss,” Tienne said glumly, and his father laughed.

“Quieter, my son, or we will be ghosts for real.” The rebuke was gentle, but Tienne took the hint. They’d been on the run for five years, since his father had betrayed Andres Kadjic. Yes, his father had finished the passports, but he’d purposefully included a flaw, a red flag, and some of Kadjic’s men had been jailed.

It had been, as Antoine had confessed one particularly miserable night during which they’d been camped on a street corner, hiding under the eaves to avoid the rain, a stupid thing for him to do.

But Kadjic had threatened his son, and Antoine had reacted out of panic.

“Understood, Papa,” Tienne said now, silently bidding the sloe-eyed Kamel adieu. “But someday…?”

Antoine smiled. “Someday you shall kiss anyone you—” He didn’t trail off so much as stop abruptly, his eyes widening at someone behind Tienne, his tanned face leeching of all color, as though he’d seen a ghost.

“My boy,” he said, voice unnaturally loud, “it’s time to pack for Casablanca.”

For a moment, Tienne was going to argue. But they’d moved from Casablanca, not a year ago! But then he remembered his father’s code. When they were going to run, always talk about the place they’d run from, not the place they’d be running to.

“Immediately,” he said, and without another word, he turned on his heel and went running up the tiny set of steps between adobe buildings to their one-bedroom apartment above the bazaar.

They were packed in ten minutes but spent the next five hours eating, drinking, and waiting for the cover of darkness. This time, as Tienne was bigger, he got to carry some of his father’s equipment and some of their art supplies as well as the requisite three changes of clothes. Tienne thought wistfully of the next time they could paint. After they found a place, there was always a frantic bit of activity as they forged passports and plane tickets and papers of provenance and whatever other criminals needed from them before they could finally settle down to what they both loved: art!

It would be a long time before they could paint together, he mourned, but still, he and his father turned their eyes to the horizon and the coming veil of night. When it finally came, they did not leave by way of the stairs, but out the window and up and across the roof, jumping two more roofs before they finally slid down a drainpipe.

And landed right in a group of men—slick touristy men wearing leather jackets and leather coats—and one brothel boy in loose harem pants and a velveteen vest.

“Hello,” said the inebriated brothel boy, who sounded much older than those men usually got. “What have we…? Andres, put the knives down. It’s a man and his son. Why would you—”

“Go, Daniel,” said the shorter, more muscular of the men in the leather jackets. He was clearly their leader, judging by the way the others kept seeking his approval as they shouldered Tienne’s father against the adobe wall of the building at their backs. He was squat, this one, dark-haired, with a brutally planed face, and he spoke with a thick Slavic accent. “You like pretty things. You don’t need to know the ugliness here.”

The brothel boy—but wait. He was older than most brothel boys. Perhaps he was simply a kept man—shook his head hard, as though trying to dispel some of the alcohol or whatever had impaired his senses. “Andres, you are not going to harm these people,” he said, pulling authority into his voice. “You cannot. It’s a father and his son—”

“A father who has put two of my men in jail by betraying me, thinking he was protecting his son. They will not live another day!”

“Then you and I won’t see another night,” Daniel said, pulling himself up to his full height and moving, almost imperceptibly, in front of Tienne. “I won’t sleep with a man who could do this—particularly not to a child, but not to anyone. So they saw jail time. It’s the logical end for our sort. You know it, I know it. If you threatened his son, he had every right!”

“Nobody does that to me and mine!” roared Andres Kadjic—for this was clearly the man who had sent Tienne and his father running for the last five years. “And no lover of mine stands against me. Not in public, not in private.”

“I’m not your lover, then,” Daniel said. “I don’t want a thing to do with you. If I hadn’t been drunk off my ass, I would have seen you for the brute you are—”

Kadjic’s hand came out, brutally fast, a backhanded fist that drove the slender Daniel to his knees. “You think I am a brute now?” Kadjic said with a sneer. “Before this night is over, you will know me for what I am. But first—”

He turned to his men and nodded at Antoine Couvier, and his man yanked a knife across Tienne’s father’s throat.

“No!” Tienne screamed, and he saw the whole world as in slow motion.

The man who’d killed his father dropped Antoine’s body as it still spurted blood and turned toward him. At the same time, Daniel, Kadjic’s lover, who would probably share Antoine’s fate before the night was out, leaped at the man with the knife and looked Tienne dead in the eye, screaming, “Run!”

Tienne took off, running faster then he’d ever imagined he could, thinking he felt the hot breath of the man with the knife on his neck. He ran until he could run no more, finally taking shelter in an alleyway, where he sat with his back against the wall and sobbed.

The next morning, he awoke hungry, thirsty, and terrified. He knew this city, but he did not know where to go for help. He knew his father’s friends, but he did not know if any had betrayed him. He knew who the authorities were, but so many were not to be trusted.

He had his pack, though. He and his father split their cash now, so with his cash and his passport and ID, he could at least get out of Marrakech and go to….

Where? Back to France, perhaps? He and Antoine had been happy in France. But Kadjic had been there too. Prague? Kyiv? Amsterdam? There were cities they hadn’t been to—perhaps Kadjic wouldn’t be in Amsterdam?

It was then, as he was rummaging through his pack, that he made a terrible discovery.

As he’d fled, the man with the knife had probably taken a swipe at him. There was a slice down the pocket of his backpack, and the bulk of his cash was gone, as was a tube of green paint that had apparently been slashed as well.

He was broke.

He was found.

And Kadjic’s people were probably waiting at the mouth of the alley, intending to gut him like a fish.

He stood, frozen for a moment, until a young man appeared, right where Tienne had thought to see a mobster with a knife and an Uzi.

Instead, the man held a sizable wad of cash in many denominations, every paper covered with galway green paint.

“Looking for this?”

The man spoke English with a clear lower-class accent, and Tienne searched his face for any trace of a sneer or mockery. What he saw was a handsome young man, maybe ten years older than himself, with short brown/red hair and brilliant blue eyes, looking at him levelly as though assessing Tienne for damage. He held his robe back so Tienne could see his badge. It said something about Interpol, but Tienne didn’t care.

He spat. “I know nothing about that,” he said, not meeting the young man’s eyes. Crooked authorities—he’d seen his father pay off his share of people with badges.

“Do you know something about the man who almost died to save your hide last night?” the young man asked softly. “Danny Lightfingers?”

Daniel. Tienne bit his lip, and his voice caught. “He is alive?”

“Aye,” said the young officer. “Barely. I wanted to stay by his side to make sure Kadjic’s boys didn’t go after him again, but he told me to come find you. Turns out he has his own damned money to travel with, and he gave me permission to use it to get you to safety. You going to let me do that?”

Tienne met his eyes, knowing his own were overflowing. “Where is safe?” he asked gruffly. “They killed my father. Where is safe?”

“Would you believe Chicago’s safe?”

Tienne squinted at him. “America?”

“Aye.”

Two days later, with a neat haircut and dressed nicely, his luggage chosen to match, Tienne still didn’t believe it. After flying for what felt like days, he was greeted at the gate by a woman—ah, such a beautiful woman. She wore her hair in a chignon and dressed like the women of France, in a summer dress with an elegant clutch bag.

“Etienne Couvier?” she asked softly, and he looked around, over both shoulders.

“Oui. But my papers, they say—”

“Bertrand Lautrec,” she murmured. “I am aware. But I know that sometimes it’s nice when somebody says your name. Come with me. I’m Julia Dormer-Salinger, and you may call me Julia.”

“Am I to live with you?” he asked, confused. All he’d been told was that he would be safe. After five years on the run with his father, his twelve-year-old self couldn’t imagine this woman could keep him safe.

She smiled at him gently. “I have a son, and his friend practically lives in our house. I wouldn’t mind a third. Would you like that?”

He frowned, understanding from her tone that this was a surprise idea for her.

“What did Daniel plan?” he asked, remembering the brave man who had still been recovering from the injuries Andres Kadjic had given him even as Tienne had flown away.

“Art school,” she said with a little shrug. “I’ve secured a place for you at a rather prestigious boarding school, if you like.”

And part of Tienne wanted badly to go with this lovely, kind woman to her home, where there were other boys his age. But everything was so strange—down to his hair and his clothes and the clipped sounds of English in seven different accents gunning by his ears.

Art he knew. Art was his last link to his parents.

“Art school, sil vous plaît,” he said politely.

She smiled sadly. “You can visit us during breaks if you like,” she said and then frowned. “But let’s not tell Felix where you’re from, yes?”

“Who is Felix?” he asked.

She grimaced. “My soon to be ex-husband. But don’t worry. We adore each other.”

Tienne frowned at her, turning as she did to walk through the airport. “Then why are you…?”

“Getting a divorce?” she asked, laughing. “Because women are really not his type. Is this the only luggage you have?” She indicated his roller board and matching satchel.

“Oui,” he said, remembering sadly that after his backpack had been slashed, he’d only had the clothes on his back. The young police officer had needed to buy many clothes in Marrakech’s modern department stores to fill the small case. “Who is his type?” Tienne asked, thinking about his one kiss, and how he badly needed to know if he could die here if he mentioned who he wanted to kiss.

“Men,” she said simply. “In particular, one man, whom he’s pretending he’s not in love with anymore.”

Tienne frowned. This sounded terribly tragic. “Who is this man?”

She tilted her head. “You should know, my boy. He’s the one who sent you to America and told us to make sure you had a home.” She bit her lip, uncharacteristically diffident. “Did you… did he happen to say anything to you? About us, I mean?”

Tienne laughed humorlessly, remembering that one moment in the alley when a man he’d never seen, never met, had jumped on top of a man armed with a knife and defied his very dangerous lover to save Tienne’s life.

“We had no time to talk,” he whispered. “He… he saved me. From dangerous men. But then his friend helped me get far, far away.” He saw her obvious disappointment, though, and thought of something to say. “He must have trusted you very much,” he added. “Because if you were dangerous to him too, you could easily hurt him.”

Her expression grew, if anything, even sadder. “And Felix and I have,” she said softly. “But again, that is not your story. Come. The only interview I could get you for the school I have in mind is this afternoon. I know it’s quite the whirlwind, and you won’t have a chance to come home and meet the family, but if it’s art school you want, it’s art school you shall have.”

And that was that.

Years later, after he’d met Josh and Grace and their friends, and had spent summer and winter holidays with Julia and Felix, enjoying their company very much, he would wonder at his choice.

They’d offered him family as often as they could. They found out his birthday and sent gifts or took him out to celebrate. He spent part of his holidays with them and received presents. He even painted them pictures. A part of him yearned more than anything to make himself comfortable in their home, to lie about on the couches with Josh and Grace and their friends Stirling and Molly and play games and chatter and live in their pockets as they lived in each other’s.

But he’d seen his father die, and that wound, that terrible wound in his chest, it was still open, and he was still desperately afraid.

He made it through boarding school instead, and then into the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, with an emphasis on oil-on-canvas paintings. It was there that his original calling, the one his father taught him, came into play.

It helped that one machine, one stamp, one printer, one jar of ink at a time, he’d begun to build up his collection of forging equipment again. Everything from estate sales to government clearing houses and Army/Navy stores gave him items he needed, and without thinking of the reason, he spent much of his allowance on the tools of the trade he’d employed with pride as his father’s journeyman.

And then he hit college at seventeen, and that foresight and patient collecting paid off.

It seemed that many teenagers were desperate to have beer.

“Tienne?”

Tienne looked up from the desk in his dorm room, where he sat with his forging equipment, and wondered if he could will the ground to simply swallow him up.

“Josh?” There, large as life—and sixteen—stood the son of his benefactors, along with Josh’s best friend, Dylan “Grace” Li.

Tienne had seen Danny since that night in Marrakech—many times in fact. He’d shown up the day before Tienne’s birthday dinner with the rest of the family, or the week before Christmas. Once a year he showed up a few days after Josh’s birthday, and Tienne had understood that this was part of Danny and Felix’s doomed love affair. Felix and Julia lived in a mansion, raising Josh and Josh’s friend, Grace, while Danny snuck into their home like a thief and spent time with the boy he loved like his own son.

And also with Tienne, whom he treated with kindness and affection and unfailing thoughtfulness.

Tienne would look at him and see his father—not perfect, but kind. Fierce when he was needed to protect his child. Pining for a lover he could never have, although Tienne’s father had lost his mother in death.

He would have gone with Danny, no matter how imperfect his life may have been, but Danny was hoping Tienne could have the family Danny left behind.

Tienne was not good enough for that family. He thought Julia and Felix and Josh lived a fairy tale life—right up until Josh Salinger made his way into Tienne’s dorm room/workshop when Tienne had all his forging equipment laid out on his floor.

“Hey, Tienne,” Grace said, peeking from behind Josh’s shoulder and blinking at him in delight. “Good to see you. You’re a criminal too?”

Josh elbowed him, and as compact and graceful as Julia and Felix’s dark-eyed, dark-haired son may have been, the elbow was no joke. “The only criminal thing I’m going to do today is drop you off a building if you don’t shut up,” he said.

Grace—ethereally beautiful and a constant pain in the ass—smiled with all his teeth. “You promise that and promise that, and not once have I been dropped off a building.” He blinked his tawny eyes at Tienne, and his smile relaxed. “And dropping me off a building doesn’t change the fact that Tienne is here, making fake IDs, when your mother swears he’s an angel who can do no wrong.”

Josh laughed, but the look he turned toward Tienne was kind.

“You couldn’t be that bad if Danny sent you,” he said, and Tienne felt his face turn red.

“How do you know—”

“Danny and I write,” Josh said, surprising Tienne very much. Josh put his finger to his lips. “Shh. It’s supposed to be a secret, but everybody knows. One of those weird family things. Anyway, he asks me how you’re doing and worries because you’re alone. He really does wish you’d take my mother’s invitation to heart, you know. She wouldn’t offer if she didn’t mean it.”

Tienne flushed more and looked away. “I….” He didn’t know how to say that he didn’t know what to do with that much kindness. Instead, he scowled and peered back at Josh through the hair that had grown long again. “But what are you doing here? I…. You… why do you need my services?” he asked finally, resorting to the language of thieves because he had nothing else to explain this.

Josh looked exasperated—but not with Tienne. “Thank God, I got a tip from a guy at our school that ‘some guy at the AI is the best.’ Genius here”—he nodded at Grace—“left our last set of IDs in the club. I had to cancel all the cards I used with them too!”

Tienne blinked, stunned at this level of thievery from someone his age. “Who made you fake cards!” he cried.

“Oh, they were real cards,” Josh said, affronted. “They were made out to fake names. Are you kidding? Felix showed me how to hide my money when I was ten.” He sighed. “I was going to go after Danny, and he was trying to show me how hard it would be to trace him. I learned a lot the summer Danny left.”

Tienne frowned, putting the timeline together. If Josh was sixteen now, and Danny had left when he’d been ten, then he must have been gone the better part of a year before the encounter in the alleyway.

Uneasily, he wondered if Felix and Josh knew how close Danny had come to death that night, on Tienne’s account, and decided he wouldn’t ever tell them.

And then what Josh said really caught up with him.

“Your father knows how to… to lie. To scam? To steal?”

Josh laughed kindly. “Well, yeah. Uncle Danny taught him and my mother all they know. But what you’re doing here….” He trailed off delicately and made motions with his hands.

And Tienne couldn’t help it—this was the first honest thing he’d been allowed to say about his father since he’d arrived in America by plane. “My father did this,” he said. “It kept us fed and gave us money to paint.” Some of his joy faded. “In the end, I think it got him killed.” He shook that off. “But I never knew your family… they would understand.”

Josh crouched down and regarded Tienne closely. “Was that why you never moved in like my mother wanted?”

Tienne shook his head, unable to explain, and Josh let out a sigh. “Never mind,” he said, giving Tienne the uncomfortable feeling that Josh knew much more that he wasn’t telling. “Forgive me for prying. Now, if you could get Grace and me our IDs, and some for Stirling and Molly too—hey, do you do fake credit cards as well?”

Tienne glanced up happily. It was a newly acquired skill. “Indeed!”

“Excellent.” He gave a rather quiet smile then. “And I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to tell my father about your little enterprise. No, no, don’t worry. He won’t ask you to do anything you don’t want to do. But that way he’ll be ready with lawyers should you get busted, you know, that sort of thing.”

Tienne sniffed. “Of all the things my father and I worried about, police were not among them.”

“Professional pride,” Josh said, and he and Grace nodded with such understanding, Tienne wondered what sort of “profession” they’d been active in. “We get it. But there can be dangerous people in these gigs, and if Dad knows now, he can help get you out of a mess. And if you keep wanting to do it, he can get you business. All sorts of things. He has friends who need green cards, passports for people who would like to see their families. He really doesn’t like the guy he uses now—says he’s way too seedy, and my dad doesn’t trust him. So if your work is any good….”

“We were the best,” Tienne said without conceit. “It has taken me some time here. Your papers, your electronics, they’re different. But my father was the best, and I worked with him until….” He swallowed. “Until I came here.”

Josh laughed. “Well, excellent. You know, it would figure. I didn’t think Uncle Danny would take someone boring under his wing.”

Tienne had laughed then, taking it as the compliment it was. But as the years progressed, and Felix brought him more and more business, all of it protected under a layer of anonymity, none of it as edgy and dangerous as his father’s business with Kadjic, he came to realize that it had been yet another sally of the Salinger family, trying to let him know he was not alone.

It was not until Danny’s return—and his and Felix’s rather spectacular reunion—that Tienne truly began to take that idea to heart.

Seasons Griftings

“HEY, STIRLING, whatcha doing?”

Stirling Christopher looked up from his massive computer setup in the Salingers’ mansion and wrinkled his nose at his sister.

“Baking cookies,” he said with a completely straight face.

Molly laughed outright, because she was the only person in his life who had ever consistently gotten his sense of humor.

“I want snickerdoodles,” she said seriously, bending over his shoulder and peering at the screen in front of him.

In a panic, he changed screens with one hand while holding his other hand childishly in front of the window. “Three weeks before Christmas and you’re looking at my computer? What’s wrong with you? I’m shopping!”

She clapped her hand over her eyes and turned her back, taking this seriously, which was one of the things he really loved about her. “Sorry!” she said. “So sorry! I didn’t think.”

“Well, not all of us get our shopping done by October,” he muttered, making sure that none of the windows with pertinent items were on display. It wasn’t that Molly was picky—it was that she was awesome. She’d basically walked up to him in the foster home when she was eight and he was six and announced to everybody that if anyone was going to pick on him, they’d have to walk through her to do it.

And she’d been that person in his life for the past fifteen years.

So much so, that when the Christophers had been planning to adopt her, she’d grabbed his hand and dragged him to their second meeting—the “Hey, these people are interested, be your best self” meeting, and told them in no uncertain terms that she and Stirling were a package deal.

He’d been mortified. He’d tried to explain to her that hey, everyone wanted the precocious redheaded girl with the no-bullshit walk and the imperious manner. She was desirable. The little brown boy with the tightly kinked brown hair and gray-green eyes who rarely made eye contact was not nearly wonderful enough to add to their instafamily.

But the Christophers were, well, different. They had money, lots of it, and their one child was grown and off doing rich and powerful things. They’d found they wanted a family—children to do things with, to take shopping and fishing and to sports games. Children to spoil, in short. And Molly’s hand on his, her insistence that they were too siblings—that had touched them.

He’d expected to be an add-on to the family, an afterthought. An “Okay, if we have to have that other kid, we will, but we really want the beautiful girl” kind of thing. But he hadn’t been. He’d been as celebrated as Molly. His adoptive father had realized he wasn’t a hunting and fishing kind of kid, but instead liked games and numbers, and they’d spent long weekends watching sports games and keeping book. Stirling had made predictions. Mr. Christopher had made bets and then given Stirling the money—or added it to his trust fund—and they’d spent quiet, happy time together, loving the same thing for different reasons.

Then Mrs. Christopher and Molly would get back from shopping or gallery openings or seeing a show, and they’d have dinner together and….

He pulled his mind back from the happy part of what had started out as a rough childhood and focused on Molly. Their adoptive parents had died, together, under mysterious circumstances on what was supposed to have been a second honeymoon in the Caribbean, the summer after Stirling and Molly had graduated from high school. Molly had stuck with him through that, and together they’d landed at Josh Salinger’s place, his parents—old friends of the Christophers—more than happy to take them in. They both had money, lots of it, and an apartment in the city that they shared if they wanted, but the sense of being with a family? Neither one of them was turning that down.

Molly had been in the foster system two years longer than Stirling, and neither of them, not once, took for granted family dinners or a place to go on Thanksgiving that truly welcomed them or traveling with people who spoke their language. The Salingers weren’t a conventional family—not by any stretch of the imagination—but they loved Stirling and Molly for exactly who they were.

Stirling was a talented hacker and an absolute whiz with money, and Molly was one of the best con artists in a generation.

And Danny, Felix, and Julia would know, because as far as Stirling could figure, they’d pulled off one of the biggest cons ever. They’d conjured a life together out of hope and sheer need.

So money they all had, but family they never took for granted. And it was Christmas, and a special one at that.

Josh Salinger was getting better.

For the past six months, he’d been battling leukemia, and for a while, it had looked as though the light of the Salingers’ lives, the boy who’d drawn together the disparate group of rogues and thieves who made up their crew and family—was going to break all of their hearts.

But a bone marrow transplant from a newly contacted relative had turned the tables. Josh was still sick—and he had one more round of chemo to go, one that would end the week before Christmas—but the prognosis was good. He’d been told that he had another six months of sleeping a lot and getting his appetite and strength back, but if his blood counts came back normal after that, he should be free and clear.

The family’s relief was acute—and not just Julia’s, Felix’s, and Danny’s. The crew he’d pulled together to help bail Felix out of a jam in March had been absolutely dependent on his wellness, and now that it felt as though he’d recover for real, Christmas had become a thing they absolutely must celebrate.

Stirling was excited, and he didn’t often get excited about holidays. He wanted to get every member of his larger newfound family something perfect. Something that would make their lives better. Something that would tell them all that he appreciated them, because like the Christophers, who had first taken him and Molly in, not one of them treated him as an add-on, an inconvenience, or “that computer guy.”

But imagination was not his strong suit, and shopping was driving him batshit.

He looked up from his computer screen miserably and said, “You can turn around now. It’s all hidden. What’s up?”

Molly’s expression was sympathetic. “Still looking for something wonderful for Felix and Danny?” she asked.

Stirling scowled. “They have everything,” he muttered. “And what they don’t have, they can steal. And what they won’t steal, they’ve probably already stolen and replaced because it wasn’t fun to own anymore.”

Molly laughed appreciatively and sprawled on the couch he kept adjacent to his computer setup. The basement apartment had been designed for Josh and his friend Grace to use as a gaming center. It had kickass Wi-Fi and access to several different servers with different IP addresses. Sometimes he planned and executed cybercrime from the place, because he could. Siphon some money from the oil companies to give to environmental causes? Why the fuck not?

He liked to think of himself as a very sneaky Robin Hood. “Well, yes,” she agreed. “They’re not into possessions so much as experiences, but….” She raised her strawberry-blond eyebrows in a way that suggested she had an idea.

Her ideas were always the best.

“What do you have in mind?” he asked, grasping for hope.

“Well, three things.” She smiled and pulled on what he liked to think of as her “corporate maven” posture. She was an extraordinary actress, and although she loved the stage, her real love was human theater. “The first being that Danny and Felix love art. The second”—she ticked them off on her fingers—“being that Danny and Felix particularly love art created by someone they know and care about.”

“Uh-oh.” Stirling knew where this was going.

“The third thing being that Julia has a personal errand she wants me to run this morning that might coincide with both those things.”

“Papers?” he asked, trying not to let his interest in the boy he’d been thinking about show. “Papers” was the nickname they’d given the young man they turned to for forgeries, whether painted, printed, or government-regulated. He was a shy young man with a narrow face, dreamy blue eyes, and a quiet, observant manner, who had absolutely fascinated Stirling since he’d first met Tienne Couvier/Bertrand Lautrec in high school.

“Yes,” Molly said archly. “Papers.”

“Molly, no.” Stirling hid his face in mortification. “He doesn’t even know I’m alive.”

“How do you know?” she demanded. “For all you know, he’s giving you the same looks you give him. You’re both just… I don’t know. What was that quote from Dickens? ‘As solitary as a pearl.’”

Stirling rolled his eyes. Their legitimate jobs were in a local theater—he did light and sound engineering and Molly acted her heart out. Together they’d been in at least three productions of A Christmas Carol.

“As solitary as an oyster,” he corrected blandly. “And yes, I know. Neither of us are talkers.” He let out a pained breath. “It’s so awkward. I… I….” I break out in a sweat and want to kiss him all over and touch him and smell him and oh my God he’s so pretty!

“Want to have his babies,” Molly stated flatly.

“Want to know him better,” Stirling said with as much dignity as he could muster.

“So you’re coming with me to make sure everybody’s passports and IDs are ready?” Molly asked, as though he’d said anything remotely like that.

“Let me shower,” he told her, not sure if it would help.

She grinned. “You’re wearing the cashmere sweater, right? The navy one with the matching hat and scarf? Because there’s some rocking texture, and you know, he’s such a specialist with paper and such, I bet he’ll notice.”

Stirling tried not to preen. Molly sewed her own clothes—her wardrobe was absolutely luscious—but she also helped Stirling pick out his. Long ago, back when they were still in foster care, she’d realized that bright colors bothered him. He liked them in art or on stage or screen, but he hated them on his person. But she hated seeing him in something plain. As soon as they’d been adopted, she’d gone on a quest to make sure his wardrobe had simple, strong colors, but complex, soothing textures. A cashmere sweater with a simple knit/purl pattern would ground him and give him something to touch, something to soothe, in case the world got too bright and loud.

“I’ll wear that, then,” he said, his heart aching a little. What could he get her for Christmas? Dammit!

“Okay! You go shower. I’ll go upstairs and get a list from Julia—I’m supposed to go over the list with Papers, and then I’m supposed to convince him to come over for Christmas Eve and Christmas. And we’re going to have a full house, so he may be down here on the couch in the den, so you know.”

Stirling nodded. He’d been semiprepared for that. His apartment had its own bathroom and even a mini fridge that the kitchen staff kept fully stocked with bagels and Red Bull, per his request, but Julia had warned him that the one caveat to the invitation to stay in the Salinger home was that if things got tight, he’d have to share his bathroom. He’d had no problem with that. The den itself was frequently used by the crew to plan jobs, and his bathroom was fair game then as well. He let Molly decorate it, and the staff kept it clean, and he could deal with someone else in there without hyperventilating.

But he tended to like things how he liked them and hated them to be moved.

Oh God—he was such a freak. But if he was spending that time with Papers….

“Are you sure he’ll want to see us?” Stirling asked, hating himself for his insecurity.

“He’s expecting us,” Molly said patiently. “Felix commissioned him to make us all new IDs, as sort of a pre-Christmas present. And you’re like bait to get him to come stay for Christmas.” Her expression turned thoughtful. “I have the feeling that Danny and Julia have been trying to pull Papers into the house for a long time. They worry about him being alone too much. Which is sort of how they feel about you, little brother. Let’s get a move on.”

Stirling grunted, not really in argument but in dissatisfaction as to how his end of the argument had gone. It really sucked to not ever win a fight with his sister.

“He doesn’t even like me,” Stirling muttered.

Molly guffawed. “No! You were there last time!”

His cheeks heated in mortification. He’d shown up at Tienne’s West Loop apartment with Molly, trying so hard to squash the little butterflies of hope in his stomach.

To his intense dismay, a young man had walked out, much older than Stirling and Molly, handsome, with black stubble and black hair coating the backs of his forearms. He was wiping his face lewdly with the back of his hand.

He’d given them both the once-over and snorted.

“Neither one of you are going to get that one hard again.”

Bemused on Molly’s part, and dismayed on Stirling’s, they had walked into the apartment to find Tienne shamefacedly zipping up his trousers and washing his face in his kitchen sink.

“I’m sorry,” he’d muttered. “That was… unanticipated. If you could, please, the packages are on the table. Simply take them and go.”

And with that, he had fled to his bedroom in a huff.

Molly grimaced. “Little brother, I don’t think we walked in on what you thought we walked in on.”

Stirling gave her a flat glare.

“No,” she amended. “I mean there was sex, but I don’t think…. At least it didn’t seem to me as though it was necessarily welcome sex.”

Stirling’s eyes widened. “You mean he was….” He couldn’t make himself say the word.

She shook her head. “Maybe? There’s a line. It’s hard to explain. It’s just… you don’t understand.” She sighed and plopped down on his bed. “When you are lonely and emotionally vulnerable, sometimes someone will want sex, and it may not be what you want, but it’ll be… something. That guy, the way he left Tienne, the look on Tienne’s face—Tienne didn’t want whatever happened. But maybe he was lonely and wanted something, and that’s what was there.” She snorted. “The guy was a bastard to take advantage of it, that was all.”

Something awful stirred in Stirling’s chest. He’d stayed celibate for a lot of reasons—the biggest being that he was so very guarded. He didn’t want to do something so intimate with his body unless he was intimate with the man’s person as well. But Molly had embraced sex with all of the bravery and precociousness she’d shown the world since birth, probably, and she’d had experiences that Stirling hadn’t.

Apparently, this was one of them.

“You…?” he asked, rubbing under his neck. “This happened to you?”

She gave a sad little shrug. “A couple of times, before Josh rounded us up this spring. It’s one of the reasons I was so excited to move in with Felix and Julia, I think. I… yes, everybody’s gay here except Julia, but I also have a house full of brothers who adore me. I don’t need to have sex because I’m lonely and there’s nothing else to do. I mean, I wouldn’t mind having it so I could have a good time, or even meet someone worth having it with. But not because I’m lonely and sad. But think about it. There’s having a lover, and there’s doing what I think Tienne was doing before we walked in. Tienne wasn’t happy with that—it’s why he blew us off and ran into his bedroom. Maybe….” She held her hands open in an “anything goes” sort of gesture. “Now scoot! It’s an hour into the city, and I want to stop for lunch after we have our meetup.” She smiled dreamily. “Deep dish at Lou Malnati’s, you think?”

Stirling nodded. “I think,” he said, and although he was aware she’d changed the subject to make him more comfortable, he was grateful. He couldn’t fix Molly’s loneliness; he couldn’t fix that she’d been in a place where she’d been that lonely. She was always, always his big sister, and while it seemed like she held nothing back when talking about her personal life, he was very, very aware that she kept back anything that would worry him. Her long-standing habit of protecting Stirling from pain or upset would have kicked in, and he would never have known she’d felt that way if she hadn’t felt the need to give him some insight on why his hopeless, stupid crush might not be so hopeless and stupid.

He was helpless to do so many things—get Tienne to notice him, help with his sister’s love life, find out what had happened to their parents two years ago. The absolute very least he could do was take Molly out for pizza and make her smile.

OR MAYBE let her kick the shit out of someone.

Chicago’s West Loop was known for its trendy restaurants and links to the tech world. The apartments there were upscale and high tech, and Tienne’s building was no exception.

It was also, Stirling had always thought privately, very anonymous, but then, unless you got to see the inside of Tienne’s apartment, he would fit that bill too.

Once you crossed the threshold of the tastefully appointed hallway with pristinely white walls, you ended up in a vast open-area living room/kitchen with framed art on the walls that ranged from brightly colored forgeries of Monet, Matisse, and Gauguin and other impressionist greats to delicate illustration plates that only a very few would be able to tell weren’t the work of William Blake or Arthur Rackham.

Normally such a cacophony of color would have appalled Stirling, but something about Tienne’s presentation of the works was so balanced, so tasteful. The frames were plain, good quality, and sturdy, and there was enough negative space between each work to put the focus exclusively on the work itself. It didn’t bother him.

The furniture was Stirling’s favorite type—solid, simple design with leather upholstery, the soft Italian kind. Everybody at the Salinger mansion had come to visit Papers at one time or another, and all of them had reported sitting on the comfortable couches and simply contemplating their favorite painting, Stirling included.

His favorite paintings were, he suspected, not forgeries at all, but original works. He hadn’t yet worked up the courage to ask Papers about them.

But that was Tienne’s living area. His kitchen area was a tiny office of forgery equipment, from laminators to embossers, and Stirling suspected he kept minimal food in the refrigerator and mainly paper in the cupboards.

He’d certainly been thin enough for Stirling to count his ribs the last time they’d been there.

And nobody had seen Tienne’s bedroom—not even, Stirling suspected, the rather coarse gentleman who’d been exiting as they’d arrived last time.

They didn’t catch the SOB leaving this time—but somebody was in there, somebody dangerous.

“No!” Tienne’s softly accented voice was flat and angry. “No, I will not. Not again. I did work for you, but that is not work. I will not be pawed by you to convince me. No. Do you think you are the first man of your sort I’ve encountered? I said no!”

This was followed by a crash loud enough to make Stirling and Molly stare at each other in alarm.

“Stay here,” Molly muttered, putting both hands on Stirling’s shoulders and shoving him back against the wall of the hallway.

She pulled a Taser out of her purse with absolute confidence before lifting a booted foot—it was snowing outside after all—and kicking the door down like a pro in an action flick.

Stirling gave her a thumbs-up, and she stalked in.

“I thought so,” she growled. “You. Get out.”

“Who in the fu—”

But Molly took zero shit and gave fewer fucks. “You can leave voluntarily or my family can carry you out pissing down your own pants, asshole. Your choice.”

“I will be back!” the man snarled before rushing out the door.

It was the same man as before, and as he turned down the hallway, Stirling stuck his foot out and caught the man in the ankle, sending him sprawling, landing on his chin hard enough to bite his tongue.

Molly and Tienne stuck their heads out of the apartment in time to see him scramble to his feet and turn a hunted look over his shoulder, blood seeping from between his lips.

“I’ll be back!” he cried. “I’ll be back to fuck you all!” he finished before turning to run down the hall.

Stirling met Molly’s eyes and then Tienne’s, but Tienne shook his head miserably.

“You should go,” he murmured, retreating into the apartment. Molly followed him, and so did Stirling, because leaving him alone after that was so very much not going to happen.

“Who is he?” Molly demanded as they marched in. Tienne paused to take in the lock she’d broken and gave her a look full of recrimination. She pulled out her phone as she spoke and waved her hand. “Leave it. I’m texting Danny to come fix it. If I can bust in like an action hero, the lock wasn’t good enough.”

Tienne’s eyes widened. “No!” he cried, almost like a child. “No, do not call Danny, I beg of you!”

“Danny will fix it,” Stirling said, trying to soothe him. “Danny’s good at that. He wants to do it.”

But Tienne wasn’t hearing him. “No, no. Do not bother him. He doesn’t need to come help me from my stupidity. He has paid enough for my life already—”

Stirling and Molly exchanged a flickered look. Oh? Gossip they didn’t know? “You will explain that,” Molly said, and Stirling nodded.

“No.” Tienne looked to him for support, but oh no. He did not like this situation any more than Molly did. Yes, he had a crush—it wasn’t going away—but more importantly, Tienne was one of them. Part of their crew. And if he’d been shadowy and on the fringe by choice, that did not negate the fact that Julia had asked him to be in the house over the holidays.

“Yes,” Stirling replied in answer to that speaking look. “I am not okay with picking up our passports and going. You aren’t some random criminal, Tienne. You’re one of Julia’s and Danny’s criminals, and that’s a whole different thing.”

Tienne scrubbed at his narrow face with shaking hands. His long sandy hair, usually held back by a band at his nape, had come loose, and it covered his fingers as he tried to hide from the world.

“It was stupid,” he said, his voice broken like rocks. “His name is Levka Dubov. I met him at a gallery, and he said he was looking for someone to help him with visa applications.” His narrow shoulders shook as he stood. “I thought he wanted actual help with the applications.” He wiped his eyes with his palms. “I don’t know how he knew me,” he muttered. “But he said once he’d been told to look out for me. He knew about my father, knew what I did. I… I work with such a select clientele, you understand? Your crew, yes, and maybe three or four others. But he came over the first time—” He gave them both a look of such terrible bleakness. “—and you interrupted him then too.”

“Oh Lord,” Molly said unhappily. “Tienne, why didn’t you say something?”

Tienne shook his head. “Danny, he already saved my life once, and at such a terrible price. He sent me here, gave me people to look after me. How could I let him know I was in with mobsters again? I….” He let out a breath and straightened his spine. “Just… go. Take your papers and go. Don’t say anything, just—”

But Molly already had her phone out. “Stirling, help him get his things. Danny can move his paintings—there’s storage places all over the Art Institute, temperature and humidity controlled. It’ll be fine. Let me get Hunter and Chuck. We need to relocate you stat, and he sounded European to me.” She looked at Tienne. “Eastern European. Russian? Czech?”

“Serbian,” Tienne told her dazedly. “He claims to know Kadjic, and he’s Russian. But no. Why are you calling all these people to my apartment? What are you—”

Molly scowled. “Julia said it. She said it a thousand times. She said, ‘That boy needs mothering. I don’t know how to get him to stay.’ I thought she was exaggerating, you know, because she thinks we all need mothering, and Good God, we’re in our twenties. But you know what? Her instincts were right on. Go pack up, Tienne. You’re coming home with us, you’re staying through the holidays like Julia had planned, and we’re going to find this guy and put him out of action if I have to take out a contract on him with my own money.”

Stirling grimaced. “Hunter wouldn’t take your money,” he said logically. Hunter was, technically, a mercenary soldier, but he had more in common with good guys than bad guys. From what Stirling could see, Hunter was the one person he knew who was patient enough to date Josh Salinger’s best friend, Grace, without strangling him.

Molly’s scowl intensified. “Then he’d do it pro bono. Now scoot, Tienne. I’m about to talk about you, and you don’t want to be here for this.”

Stirling didn’t touch people without some serious buildup beforehand, but he stood back and gestured imperiously for Tienne to pass in front of him while Molly got on the phone and worked miracles.

“Oh God,” Tienne muttered as they crossed his living room area. “I… all these paintings. They’re forgeries, but they’re mine, and—”

“They’ll still be yours,” Stirling soothed. “We’ll put them in storage until you’re ready to move into another apartment, or back into this one. Or Danny will rent you gallery space. Or… well, something.” He was really interested in what Tienne had said about Danny saving his life and paying “such a terrible price,” but he knew they had other priorities right now. “Come on. In an hour this place is going to be crawling with people trying to get you to safety. You want to be ready.”

They had reached Tienne’s bedroom door when he whirled and looked Stirling directly in the eyes. Stirling wasn’t great at this, but he’d practiced with Molly, Danny, and Josh—and, more recently, Carl, the crew’s legitimate businessman, who was a deft criminal and a stand-up guy.

Tienne’s eyes were this stunning Caribbean blue, and even though technically Stirling knew that eye color was a simple genetic fact over which the recipient had no control, he was still breathless because they were so pretty.

“I worked very hard,” Tienne rasped. “I worked to pay Mr. Danny back, but he didn’t want my money. I worked to carry on my father’s business, but I don’t like most of the people in it. All I want to do is paint, but all I can sell are forgeries, and that man, that terrible man, knows the man who killed my father, and he thinks he has license to my art and my papers and my body—”

“The hell he does!” Stirling’s chest hurt—it ached with the idea that Tienne had been touched by the man they’d seen coming out of his apartment the month before. “Dear God, Etienne, why didn’t you tell us?”

Tienne cast him a tortured look and then stomped into his room with Stirling on his heels.

His bedroom was… simple. A plain wooden queen-sized frame sat in the corner, the bed neatly made with an off-white comforter and off-white sheets. A matching dresser stood kitty-corner to it, and a wardrobe—also matching—sat across. The bathroom was attached, and Stirling knew that the towels and linens would be absolutely as simple.

The bedroom window extended across almost the entire wall, and most of the room space was devoted to an easel and an artist’s table, complete with every color in every medium from palest taupe to most exhausting scarlet.

Painting.