A bang. A blaze of light. Footsteps. You feel fire on your cheek and cold deep in your bones. Your hands are chained over your head and your feet dangle, barely touching the floor. You open your eyes and wish you hadn’t.
“I thought you’d be dead by now,” Mr. X says from the door of the meat freezer.
“Give me a little credit,” you say. “I grew up in Chicago. Have you lived through a Chicago winter? My grandmother made me play outside when it was so cold my eyelashes froze together.”
“And you had to walk uphill both ways in a snowstorm to get to school?”
“I didn’t go to school. I couldn’t see.”
“Funny. You’re a funny guy.” Mr. X walks into the freezer flanked by two extra hench people. You are flattered that he needs four henches to protect himself from you, considering you’ve been badly beaten, and you are chained up in a meat freezer, well on your way to hypothermia.
Mr. X has a cane, but no limp. A head, but no hair. He is tall enough not to be short, but too short to be considered tall. His face is as round and red as an overripe plum, and his lips so thin, they beg for Botox. Taking a page from the Villains-R-Us manual, he has a thin mustache and a thick goatee. The last time you met, he had a thick mustache and a thin goatee. The new look is an improvement.
“Funny enough for you to let me off the hook?” Mr. X hates it when you joke around. Torture time is supposed to be serious.
“Where’s the necklace?” He leans so close, you can smell his fetid breath. Someone didn’t brush his teeth this morning—maybe ever. If you purse your lips, you could spit in his face. Not that you ever would. Your grandmother taught you that a gentleman never spits.
“I told your hench people who took it.” You study the face that has haunted your dreams for over ten years—the face of an enemy who was once a mentor and friend. Over the years he’s had you beaten, whipped, buried—that’s another story—and shot. And then there was that time in the desert with the honey and the ants, and the night he caught you in bed with his sister . . . although to be fair, you’d just pushed him over a waterfall and thought he was dead. But you digress. There is a word for men like Mr. X: nemesis.
Mr. X has aged since your last encounter. His facial hair is graying and has crow’s feet at the corners of his soulless black eyes. His gray suit has lost the fight against business casual, with a baggy eighties silhouette minus a sense of purpose. His pants are pleated for comfort and wide down the leg, pooling around box-toed shoes. A double-width Mickey Mouse tie is attached to a billowing silky mauve dress shirt, and his belt has a shiny gold buckle engraved with a big X to mark the spot. Villainy might pay but it can’t buy a sense of fashion.
“That necklace was a fake,” Mr. X says.
“No. Really?” You feign as much shock and surprise as your frozen face can muster, although your primary concern is down below. Your balls are so cold, you can’t feel them. Your only chance of continuing the family line is soon going to be limited to special snowflakes and talking snowmen in funny hats.
“You knew that.” Mr. X sips coffee from a cup with the name Susan scrawled across it in black pen. He’s never told you his real name, and you are excited at the little glimpse into his true self. He doesn’t look like a “Susan” to you, but you don’t like to judge.
“How’s that trenta double-blended extra-hot mocha . . .” You read off the cup. “Twelve pumps sugar-free pumpkin-spice, twelve pumps sugar-free hazelnut, twelve pumps sugar-free caramel, twelve pumps sugar-free vanilla, five pumps toffee nut, two heaping scoops of matcha, a splash of soy, coffee to the star on the siren’s head, two raw sugars, extra whip, a sprinkle of cinnamon, a drizzle of caramel and . . . just move your thumb so I can read the rest . . .”
“No foam,” he offers.
“I’ll bet that’s what all the girls say.”
Mr. X isn’t amused. “This is entirely unnecessary.”
“I must agree. Why do you need fifty-three pumps when it only takes one if you do it right? I’ll bet the girls say that, too.”
“I think he needs an incentive.” Mr. X gestures over his shoulder, and one of his hench people—every good villain needs a solid half dozen—walks into the freezer. He is nondescript as hench people usually are. Medium height. Medium build. Brown hair of medium length cut into a cringeworthy eighties mullet, although he is slightly better dressed than his boss. Skinny black jeans and a black mesh tank never go out of style if you weigh barely 130 pounds and are covered in ink from your high school rocker days. His straight nose and unscarred skin tell you everything you need to know even before he slaps you across the face. Were you ever that green?
“Your newb doesn’t seem to understand how an incentive works.” You explain slowly and simply so everyone can understand. Also, you are so cold, it’s hard to talk. “I would have to know where the necklace is to be incentivized to give up its location. Torture me all you want. I can’t give you information I don’t have.”
Mr. X shrugs. “Torture it is.”
The newb is wearing brass knuckles a few sizes too big for his skinny little fingers. Still, he has a good right for someone so small and thin. Pain explodes through your body. You double over, struggling to keep your feet.
“To be honest, I’d call that a disincentive . . .”
He throws three more punches, aiming not for your stomach but for the crown jewels. Nausea rises in your gut and blackness claws at your vision. Forget the snowflakes. You’ll be lucky if it rains.
You lift your legs and awkwardly kick at his chest. Not your finest moment but you can’t give up the fight.
Another hench person joins the party. He moves in with a length of rope, grabbing your feet and tying them together. He is blond and built like a linebacker with muscles so thick he has to wear a shirt with the sleeves torn off and shorts with an elastic waist.
“That’s not playing fair,” you say. “Four against one? I’m not even using my hands.”
“Give me that chain.” Mr. X holds his hand out and the newb scurries to do his bidding. You’ve always wanted a henchman or two. It would make the work that much easier.
“I’ve never been into the whole whips and chains thing,” you say. “But to each his own.”
“Where’s the fucking necklace?”
“Can I be blindfolded for this part?”
Mr. X raises the chain and swings with all his might.
You black out. Again. You have to stop making it a habit.
Copyright © 2023 by Sara Desai
To exonerate her best friend, one woman must mastermind a jewelry heist during the wedding of the season in this hilarious romantic-comedy caper from the author of The Dating Plan.
Simi Chopra is on a bad-luck streak. She’s lost yet another job, her student loan debt won’t stop growing, her basement apartment is a certifiable flood zone, and now her best friend has been accused of stealing a multimillion-dollar diamond necklace. To put it lightly, she’s desperate for a break—that’s right when Jack waltzes out of the bushes and into her life.
Jack is just as charming as he is mysterious. When he offers to help her find the missing necklace and steal it back, Simi jumps at the chance to clear her friend’s name and collect the substantial reward. But every good heist needs a crew. All she needs to do is transform a ragtag group of strangers into an elite heist crew, infiltrate a high-society wedding and steal the necklace from a dangerous criminal before the happy couple say "I do." Meanwhile the bride is keeping secrets, a detective with a slow-burn smile keeps showing up at her door, and the ultimate robbery might not be the wedding con, but the way Jack is stealing her heart.
Romance | Multicultural Indian [Berkley, On Sale: July 18, 2023, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593548509 / eISBN: 9780593548516]
Sexy Romantic Comedy
Sara Desai has been a lawyer, radio DJ, marathon runner, historian, bouncer, and librarian. She lives on Vancouver Island with her husband, kids, and an assortment of forest creatures who think they are pets. Sara writes sexy romantic comedy and contemporary romance with a multicultural twist. When not laughing at her own jokes, Sara can be found eating nachos.
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