Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,129

pounds from Moray’s flatware alone.”

Dare steepled his fingers together and stared over at his partner, the man he’d known since he was eleven . . . the same one who, just three years older than Dare, had shown him everything he knew. Who’d revealed every secret and helped Dare build the future and career he had.

“As I understand it, Bolingbroke should be vacating his London townhouse,” the other man was saying. “He and his wife are expecting another child.”

“What do you intend to do?” Dare asked, watching his partner closely.

“What I always do.” Avery shrugged. “Or perhaps I should say what ‘we’ always do.” He looked briefly in Dare’s direction. “Of course, I’m happy to cede the assignment to you. I’ve never been greedy where you were concerned.”

No . . . Avery hadn’t. It was why Dare had remained partners with him longer than any thief in the Rookeries worked with another.

“And given the bastard’s crimes and the . . . personal connection, it would be only right to leave the honors to you.”

Dare simply stared at him for a long while, watching as Avery picked up the packet, opened it, and went on to silently read contents he no doubt had already memorized.

“Why did you do it?” Dare asked quietly.

The other man stopped reading and looked up. “I already told you, because of the fact you were—”

“Was it the money? The desire for power?”

Avery stilled. The other man glanced briefly down before meeting Dare’s focus once more. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said carefully, setting the packet down.

It was Avery Bryant’s only tell. That half-of-a-second look away, so quick that if one blinked one would miss it, and also, one Dare knew because of how damned close he’d been to the thief.

“You bastard,” Dare seethed. “You betrayed me, connected yourself with Diggory’s remaining thugs, struck a deal with Wylie . . . all to see me hang. Why?” he whispered. “Whyy?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Avery snapped. He reached for his packet, and Dare caught the folded sheets, beating the other man to it. His former partner glared. “I took you in and taught you everything I knew, and allowed you to become what you did, and this is how you repay me?”

“Is that why?” Dare asked quietly. “Because I surpassed you, and you finally saw a way to reclaim the power you’d been without for so long?” Now it made so much sense. The other man’s attempts at getting Dare to settle into his life hadn’t been the encouraging words of a friend. They’d been the greedy attempts of a man protecting his territory. “Tell me you didn’t work with Swift. Tell me.”

Avery flattened his mouth into a tight line.

Oh, God. The bottom fell out of his stomach, as he had confirmation of everything he’d only just suspected. “You did.”

“Abaddon Swift controls the streets Mac Diggory once did. It was nothing more than a business decision, Dare.”

Nothing more . . . than a business decision.

He’d partner with the man responsible for killing Dare and Temperance’s baby . . . who’d beaten Temperance endlessly as a young girl. A curtain of black rage fell across his vision, momentarily blinding. “Get the hell out,” Dare said when he trusted himself to speak. Avery had kept him alive when by all rights he should have been dead, and that was the only reason Dare let him live now. “Abaddon’s already been rounded up by the law and will be serving his time far away. Unless you care to join him, I suggest you get yourself from my sight and never come near me or mine again.”

The color slipped from his former partner’s scarred cheeks. “You would just . . . end our friendship.”

“We were never friends,” Dare said. “We were partners. I’ve had only one friend, and it wasn’t you.”

Stiffly, Avery rose. “I’ve always done what I needed to do in the name of survival. You should not only know that already but also understand it.”

“I’ll never understand you or any of the decisions you’ve made.” And he’d certainly never forgive them. He tossed the packet at the other man, and it hit Avery square in the chest.

His former partner caught those pages and looked down. “How did you . . . ?”

“Figure out it was you?” he supplied. “The clues were always there that you were poison to me; I was just too blind to see it.” And he wouldn’t have, had it not been