Angel Thief Read Free Page A

Vince Ablett, drug lord, arms dealer and trafficker in people and jewels. That would be a true betrayal of the Archivist Guild rules.
    She would not enrich evil.
    Vince turned away.
    So easy? Sara looked at Filip and tugged at her hand. Vince had lost interest or decided an angel was beyond even his powers of intimidation. She was free to go.
    Filip ignored her. He was frowning at Vince.
    “I have two wishes remaining.”
    “Oh God,” Sara breathed.
    The man had retrieved Filip’s djinni bottle from some secret niche. It curved comfortably in his hands, old blue glass, rare and beautiful. It was an obscene prison for Filip’s spirit. No one should have so much power over another person.
    If Vince used his second wish to order Filip to compel her to answer his questions, then she would scream for help. Her pride was less important than freedom and decency, and preventing an evil man from profiting from angelic knowledge.
    “To own an angel is a rare privilege.” Vince smiled. His square fingers stroked over the djinni bottle as his gaze stripped her. “I will enjoy it.”
    Sara stared at the man who wanted to cage her and enjoy her as a possession to be gloated over. He was loathsome. Revulsion curdled into physical nausea.
    She leaned closer to Filip and waited for him to explain how she could be rescued any time, thereby voiding any wish to hold her.
    He smiled and stayed silent.
    Outrage replaced revulsion as she realised this was a game to him. She was a game to him. Filip was using her to trick Vince into wasting a wish.
    She stepped away from him.
    His smile broadened. He flexed his arm and brought her back against his side.
    “Snake,” she whispered. Proximity to his beautiful body wouldn’t seduce her a second time. Had he intended to exploit her the whole time he was kissing her, inciting her, watching her climax? She curled her fingers into a fist and slammed it into his flat stomach.
    She hit solid muscle. He’d been ready for her and tensed his muscles. Damn him. Now her knuckles hurt.
    “Violence, angel?” Filip rubbed his stomach and grinned at her.
    “I wish—” Vince began.
    His phone rang. Not the landline, but a cell phone on his night table. The ringtone made a shrill demand for attention, cutting through the tension and making Sara aware of the wider world and the darkness pressing against the uncurtained window.
    “Keep her here,” Vince said and answered the phone. The blood drained from his face, then rushed back in an angry surge of red.
    Angels had good hearing. So did djinn. Everyone in the bedroom heard the kidnapper’s words.
    “I have your daughter, Vincent Ablett. Jay, speak to your father.”
    “Dad, I’m scared. He—”
    “My name is Baz Khan. I don’t expect you’ll remember it, Mr. Ablett. I was one of many Afghans who paid you to smuggle us into Australia. My wife and son drowned when your overcrowded, unfit boat sunk off the Indonesian coast. I lost my family, my future. I want you to suffer. I would enjoy killing your daughter. I have a camera to record it. You could hear her scream, see her bleed.”
    “God in heaven,” Sara gasped.
    Filip’s arm tightened like a vise around her.
    “But I would enjoy killing you more, Mr. Ablett. Come to Melbourne. I will phone again at dawn. If you arrive at the location I specify within an hour, I will accept you in place of your daughter. If you try anything, Jay dies.”
    The kidnapper disconnected and the only sound in the room was Vince’s harsh breathing. He dropped the cell phone onto the bed. “No.”
    Oh, my God. Sara stared at the father who could leave his daughter to die.
    “Djinni, my second wish.” Vince’s hands strangled the old blue bottle. “Rescue my daughter, Jay. Bring her safely back here. Tonight. Then I’ll go after this Baz Khan.”
    Sara breathed again.
    “No problem.”
    The laconic acknowledgement of Vince’s wish was as Australian as Filip’s drawl. If it hadn’t been for the fact that