Page 21 of These Reckless Hearts

Lucas smiles and leans forward to punch Wyatt in the arm. “Look, you finally drove Stone insane. He’s at a loss for words.”

“He’s just mad he didn’t say it first.”

Stone meets my stare in the mirror again, features softening. He understands that I need some time. The flowers were a nice touch, and the idea to pay our own security team to watch over the jeweler was also spot on. Now I won’t be consumed by guilt that he might die because of us. But my heart needs to do a little more mending and forgiving.

Stone’s phone rings, and his car flashes the number. I only seeSecuritybefore Stone yanks the car to the side of the road, kicking up dirt. He slams on the brakes, and Lucas holds his hand out to shield me.

“What the fuck, bro?” Wyatt growls as he grips the dashboard in front of him.

“It’s the security company to the house,” Stone grits. He presses the answer button, and a recorded voice fills the car alerting us that the police were dispatched to our house due to a zone alarm trigger. “Fuck!”

The ring.

Stone pulls back out onto the road. The tires finally grab the cement, and we peel out. We’re about ten minutes away—too long to get there in time to do anything if someone has broken in. If Lance’s team were listening in on the jeweler, they know about the ring now, and it would only stand to reason they would try to steal it.

“Stone....”

“I know,” he growls. His eyes narrow as the car revs underneath us. “They won’t touch the ring. I promise. That house has maximum security.” He takes a curve too fast and the wheels screech against the road before he straightens the car again.

“What if they get to it before the police get there?” Cole seems to think Lance hired ex-military personnel. If they’re that good, they could be in and out before our second-rate law-enforcement show up.

“They won’t find it,” Stone promises. He doesn’t meet my gaze in the mirror again which makes my stomach clench, fear dousing me in ice until I’m shaking.

Lucas rubs my back, and I swear the drive is the longest seven minutes of my life. When we get there, a Clary police car is in the driveway. He waves Stone down at the start of the cement walk that leads to the front door—which is wide open. “This your house?”

Stone completely ignores him. He exits the car and runs into the house, leaving Lucas and Wyatt to deal with the uniformed cop. I try to run in with him, but Wyatt grasps my hand to keep me from doing so. The patrolman tells us we’ve had a break-in, and that there’s no one in there anymore. He wants to know if there was anything that was stolen. Lucas asks him for his card and tells him they’ll get in touch if they find anything wrong. The deflection is just a story. If the ring is gone, law enforcement won’t be able to do anything about it.

The cop doesn’t have a card, so Lucas puts the officer’s number in his phone. I swear, Clary police wouldn’t know their asses from holes in the ground.

Stone comes back out as the squad car pulls out of the driveway. A moment later, he gets a text. He reads it with a frown. “It’s our security team sending us an update,” he explains.

“The ring, Stone,” I remind him, practically jumping out of my skin. It’s my most prized possession. I can’t lose it. Especially not to Lance Jacobs.

“It’s there.” Stone drops the phone to his side and makes his way to me. He places his arms around my shoulders and squeezes. “It’s there. I saw it. They don’t know where the safe is, and even if they did, it would take a bomb to get it open. I promise you. I wouldn’t have put it in there if I didn’t think it was secure.”

I sigh, relaxing a little with that knowledge. We all stride up the front walk to find the main door dented near the lock. “Fuckers,” Wyatt growls. “It’s a steel fucking door.”

“We’ll get a better one,” Stone assures, flicking his gaze away from it as if it’s the least of his worries.

Wyatt whistles, shaking his head as he inspects the damage. “The side of the house is damaged, too.”

“Our security was already here before the police came. No one left anything. No recording devices. No bugs. They’ve watched the cameras, and it was a team dressed in black, completely trashing the place. More than likely searching for the safe.”

I step further in and gasp at the wreckage they left behind. The sofas are overturned. Paintings that were on the wall are now on the floor, ripped away haphazardly.

“They didn’t take anything,” Stone reads, still staring down at his screen as if he’s giving us the highlights from the report.

Shit in the kitchen is pulled out of the cupboards, and drawers are lying on the floor. I start down the hallway and notice the same with our rooms. They’re ransacked. Things all over the floor, torn away from the walls and out of dressers. They really looked everywhere for the safe.

“They were systematic,” Stone calls out. “Professionals. I’m going to call the housekeeper and tell her I need her to work some overtime, and I’ll call a handyman for the door, too.”

I lean against the glass wall to my room, thankful that it’s only a bit of mess we have to deal with instead of the soul-crushing idea that they got the ring. Or anything else that was in my family’s hidden canister—our legacy.

I pull the sheets back up on the bed, making it as best I can. Then, I work on the closet and dresser until everything is packed away again. I work on my en suite next, which wasn’t really touched except for towels littering the tile floor.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Stone tells me as I walk back into my room.

“I know. I just....” I shiver. “I couldn’t stand to think someone was in here, messing with my stuff.”

---