Page 71 of Princess of Thieves

Zayn’s eyes widen, and now it’s his turn to laugh. “Damn, she’s got you.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay,” Rob says with a laugh, leaning forward to pour himself more wine. “Poor little rich boy, et cetera, et cetera. We’ve been over this. Ancient history.”

“Yet it never gets old,” Will chimes in from the end of the table, raising his glass with a sly smile. He’s cleaned up after the earlier chaos, now lounging in a polo and linen trousers, scale-free and wingless.

Rob rolls his eyes, but Zayn takes over, his voice more serious now. “Nah, Rob’s right. He proved me wrong for sure.” He pauses, glancing over at Rob. “He had my back in there, even when it would’ve been easier not to.”

Now Rob looks a little self-conscious. “Just a couple of bucks in your commissary account. I got sick of eating all the Little Debbies myself.”

Zayn brushes him off, looks at the rest of us. “Couldn’t afford to call home,” he says. “Came back all hangdog, mumbling something about it to this guy, thinking he was gonna slam me for being a sad little mama’s boy, or whatever. Next time around, there’s five hundred bucks in calls on my card, and it sure as hell didn’t come from my family.” He looks back at Rob. “That’s decency, man. Plain and simple.”

The table falls quiet for a moment, everyone digesting that. I try to picture it—a teenage Rob, in county jail, befriending another scared kid who’d later end up chasing me down a country road.

LJ leans back in his chair, arms crossed, and his eyes flick to Zayn with that same hard, unblinking stare he uses when he’s about to get to the heart of something. “What were you in for?”

I cringe, feeling the tension shift again. It’s one thing to talk about jail in vague terms, but this feels like a breach of etiquette, somehow. Too personal, too loaded. I glance at Rob, hoping he’ll intervene, but he doesn’t. He just watches, curious, as if he’s waiting for Zayn’s answer too.

Zayn, though, doesn’t flinch. In fact, he chuckles and leans forward, resting his forearms on the table. “Don’t you know that’s the one thing you never ask, man?”

LJ shrugs, unbothered by the weight of the question. I, on the other hand, try to distract myself by taking another sip of wine.

“Nah, I’m just messing with you,” Zayn says, his smile fading as his tone shifts to something heavier. “Aggravated assault.”

Tuck looks up from his plate, clearly intrigued. “Assault?”

Zayn nods, his expression hard. “My stepfather.”

The silence is taut as we all take it in. Zayn, though, sighs, like it’s a story he knows too well, has come to terms with.

“Tale as old as time, right? She shacks up with a guy who’s no good, drinker, gambler, all of that, and he starts bleeding her dry for her disability checks. Lights go out, fridge goes empty, he doesn’t care. But then I start getting older, bigger. My kid brother does too. Then one month my mama saves her check for Malik, to pay for his peewee football stuff, and her man didn’t like that too much. He goes to hit her and I...” His voices catches, and he swallows. “I dunno. I just... snapped. Got him off her, but by the time the cops showed up, it looked bad. He pressed charges.”

My stomach knots.I know what a woman who needs to get away from a man looks like.

“And they believed him?” Will asks, skepticism lacing his voice. Zayn says nothing, just gives him a leveling look.

“Yeah, they believed him,” he says flatly. “Black teenager turns violent? It’s exactly what the cops wanted to hear. Said I’d attacked him unprovoked, that me and Malik were involved in gangster shit, going down a bad path, the whole nine fuckin’ yards, and my mama was too scared to say anything. It was his word against mine, and he was the one bleeding from the head, so...I was the one who ended up in cuffs.”

There’s a weight in his words that silences the room.

“Anyway,” Zayn says. “I told this guy what happened”—he glances at Rob—“and he said to fight for my case, that I wasn’t stuck.”

Rob shrugs. “You weren’t. You just needed a reminder.”

“Yeah, that and a couple of bucks.” Zayn’s lips quirk into a faint smile. “Somehow,” he says, with exaggerated disbelief, “we ended up with a fancy lawyer who actually knew his shit. Got my mom to come forward and tell the truth, make sure she got a restraining order. And they let me go. No charges, no record, clean as a goddamn whistle.” He dusts off his hands and laughs a little to himself. “Justice served, I guess. But see how much I trust the law anymore.” He lets out a low whistle. “Not too damn much, that’s how.”

Tuck frowns. “But it all worked out like it should have.”

“Yeah, ‘cause money got involved.” Zayn glances at Rob and shakes his head. “Not that I’m not grateful, but.”

“Hang on.” LJ cocks his head, arms folded. “You don’t trust the law,” he grunts. “And you become a cop?”

Will nods. “I’m kinda wondering the same thing myself.”

“As am I,” Rob says, turning to Zayn. “More than a little suspicious, my friend.”

“Hey, no, I get it.” Zayn waves a hand in the air. “But look. You know who out there in Sherwood’s hiring? Not too damn many folks. Especially if you look like me. My mama can’t work anymore, my brother’s off trying to get a degree. It’s a government job, all the overtime I want, pension coming to me one day, and...” He blows out a breath. “Figured being inside the system means I can make sure it doesn’t fuck over the next guy. Keep an eye on shit.” He turns to me, his warm brown eyes intent. “Which is how I hear about this missing girl.”

“Me,” I say, feigning innocence and pointing to myself. “Where’d I go?”

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