Page 58 of These Reckless Hearts

“Because their job is to trail you,” he informs me, voice pitching higher.

“Apparently not just trail me,” I counter.

“The ring, Dakota!”

“It’s Spanish,” I tell him. There’s no reason to lie; he could easily find the information out on his own if he wasn’t so preoccupied with us. “You know you can hire another researcher?”

“I don’t think that will be necessary. Stone will return home soon.”

I laugh, the sound bursting from my lips, sending pieces of cracker everywhere.

He scowls at me in disgust. It’s not the face that makes me pull myself together, it’s the fact that he believes Stone will go back to him. He doesn’t think he’s pushed it too far already. That’s just...crazy.

“You kept his mom hostage.”

“I wasn’t going to do anything to her,” he retorts. “I was teaching her a lesson since she didn’t fulfill her end of our bargain.”

“Maybe she liked my father better than you?”

Lance stands, hands flexing at his sides. He marches toward me and hovers until I lift my head back to stare into his depthless eyes. He winds his hand back and slaps me across the face. I choke, spluttering to regain my breath with crumbs of food inhibiting every intake of air. My cheek blooms with fire, but I level a glare at him when he returns to his chair like nothing happened.

Stone’s mother used my father to get away, and I see why in front of me. He’s careless and heartless, too full of his own self-worth to be concerned with anyone else’s. He tugs his suit coat together, buttoning it up to appear more professional. Again, he crosses his legs, sliding his joined hands over his knee.

He is a monster in a business suit.

“About the ring, Dakota....”

I place another cracker in my mouth, chewing it painstakingly slow. I eye him up and down before swallowing. Then, I tell him the story of the ring—at least what we were able to unearth. I tell him about the Queen and the adventure the treasure took from Spain toward Mexico and why it got stuck in the Superstitions. “That’s all I know,” I finish.

“Did you find out how much it was worth?”

My stomach tangles into knots. If Lance sells my ring, there’s no chance of us getting it back. It would be lost forever. “You took out our jeweler, remember?” He glares at me, so I think fast. “Plus, we weren’t sure if we needed it to find the treasure’s location. It might point to something. There had to have been a reason why my family kept it.”

I watch as the understanding glints in his eyes, and I close my own when I think that it might be safe for a little while. Sure, we’ll still have to steal it back from Lance, but at least it won’t be lost in a black market dealing. That’s the only way to get rid of something like that; the moment he mentions it’s part of the treasure officially, the government will want to get involved.

“Now tell me about the gold nugget.”

His demand reminds me again just how much I lost when he had his men infiltrate Jacobs Manor. He paid our security team for the footage. He gave us the perfect distraction, and we led him right to the most precious thing we had. It kills me to talk to him about this, and I know my father is definitely rolling over in his grave. A Jacobs now has the one thing that the Wilders always had above them.

At least they don’t have the map. I can breathe easy about that.

I lick my lips, setting the crackers aside for a moment and drinking the salty taste out of my mouth. “The nugget is separate from the treasure,” I tell him. “It was part of my family’s gold vein from the same era. We held onto it to compare the gold we find to the gold in the cave, to make sure we’re in the right area when the time comes.”

“Fucking Clark Wilder,” Jacobs tsks. He almost seems impressed. Enraged, sure, but impressed all the same. I doubt he ever believed my father was a worthy adversary, but none of that matters anymore anyway. “Did you get the gold tested?”

I shake my head. “We didn’t have anything to compare it to yet.”

“And all that was buried in the back of your family’s land this whole time?”

“All that,” I disclose, confirming his suspicions while keeping secrets of my own. I can’t let him think that there’s anything else, though he’d be a fool if he wasn’t suspicious. If his team has been following us, they might know about the lantern, even though we took every possible precaution to keep our dealings hidden.

This time around, our precious find is sitting in a safety deposit box in a bank. We weren’t going to take any chances of that getting out, too, even though that’s of more historical value than intrinsic. Still, it means something to me. It means that my family isn’t a bunch of crackpots. They actually had a vision to help us find the treasure all along. The squares and x’s are a part of that, too. I just need my team back to figure it out.

“Now, tell me about Stone, Wyatt, and Lucas. Are they okay?”

Lance chuckles darkly. The deep noise guttural and sinister. “I’m not done yet, Dakota. I have more questions.”

The way he glares at me makes me queasy. “You said you’d tell me if I answered your questions. I answered two, and you haven’t answered one of mine. Are. They. Okay?”

---