Chapter 12

Decked out with more killer heels again, with a pair of shady sunglasses and tight coat with a ribbon wrapped around my waist, I made my way towards the famous Italian café at the dockside, eyes on the two women chatting happily while dining on some light Italian snacks. My targets for the day; they were no simpleton as I brushed past their outdoor table, continuing down the street as if nothing happened.

The women stopped talking for a moment, and then conversation picked up again. I swerved into a corner, peeking back out to see one of them already reaching for the small vase that held a complimentary array of bright flowers. The other women continued talking, but it was obvious to me that it was done to just not seem too suspicious. A confused look hung on their faces when they say nothing in the vase.

The other woman who hadn’t been touching anything reached over and gently pushed around the flowers in the vase.

“There it is.” She announced with a little pride in her voice, and the other blonde woman rolled her eyes, reaching slim fingers to retrieve the fake flower.

Knowing that they’d found my little origami piece, I continued on towards the dockside, watching out at the ships dropping anchors.

“Hayley, my girl!” The brunette called after a quarter of an hour, running into me from behind and wrapping arms around my waist enthusiastically. I stumbled weakly at the physical assault, holding on tightly to the railing to stop myself from falling off my feet. Give me a break, I had only been discharged yesterday night, and the doctor had explicitly ordered that I was not allowed to overexert myself, or even be walking around for that fact.

“Jerlyn, my girl, let me go before I faint on you.” I laughed lightly as I plucked her arms off me, turning around to see Mabel, the blonde chick with unnatural height and heavy, perfectly toned eyes shadow that mesmerized anyone who met her eyes.

“Hey, Mabel.” I greeted as Jerlyn rushed to let me go, worry filling deep green eyes.

Mabel stopped a few steps away from me, not embracing me per se, but looking close to it. Instead, Mabel raised a finger and did an air-circle over me, as if in disdain.

“You’re too pale for your own good. Why are you out here?” Mabel frowned, and though I knew she cared, I could take care of myself.

“Darling girl, I’m fine. I heard from Tyler –he sent you girls here.”

“Yeah, to help with Hayden!” Jerlyn bounced up and down, clapping hands as if someone had just announced to feed her ice cream. Truly, sometimes I wondered if Jerlyn’s small-child exterior was a long-running mask or just the real thing. There was nothing better than getting her to pass off as an innocent, naïve woman who knew nothing of life.

“I know he meant well, but I don’t want you girls cutting on this, alright?” I gave a hint of a slight frown at them to show that I was serious, and I would get angry if they dared disobey.

“Then why would Tyler send us here? He sounded very serious when he told us you were hospitalized. We thought you were going to perish! We were going to murder Sofia for you!” Jerlyn’s drastic change in emotions would almost be funny if we weren’t talking about Sofia’s shooting at me.

“Yeah, we were going to. Then we realized Dorian and Hayden had already burnt Sofia more than we probably would think of. Did you ask that kind of ruthlessness from them? Because Dorian definitely doesn’t strike me as someone who would burn a woman so bad.” Mabel added in, leaning against the railing beside me.

“Maybe he’s pissed off at the woman who shot his teacher.” I shrugged, watching Jerlyn press a hand over her mouth, as if to stop a squeal from escaping. Did I mention she was really great at the childish girl act?

“Maybe this is a bad idea, Hayley. We love you –you know that. We don’t want you to go… you know… to the Otherworld…” Jerlyn whispered, shifting close as if she were speaking of a forbidden place that no one should be speaking of.

“Girls, girls…” I interrupted before either of them could go on again. This was exactly why I’d wanted to talk to them face-to-face. I knew they would try all means and ways –since a member of The Circle was sending them here with a mission –but I needed to tell them that it wasn’t going to work.

“I know what you’re going to say, actually. We know Hayden’s your precious baby. I know Tyler told you we’re here to convince you to give up saving your brother. But we think he’s kind of cute, and we want him out to con again. Maybe you can hook me up with him!” Jerlyn jumped up with a flourish as if she were exploding from some box with her ideas.

I had a sudden mental image of Hayden walking along the roads of New York with Jerlyn skipping along his side, jumping up and kissing him whenever she felt like it. They sure would make a cute couple –though I was sure my brother fell for mature, responsible girls rather than hyperactive ones.

“Wait, serious?” I hadn’t expected this. Mabel and Jerlyn were always under the order of The Circle, for they had been cons who had believed strongly in serving The Circle.

View The Circle as a ruling body –a government of cons. We weren’t controlling governments, we were just the elites, the tops. We came together and for any disputes between con artists that got too much attention from the general public or police in any part of the world, we would step in and solve problems.

Then, The Circle had their own followers. Since none of us could be allowed to have a student –save Dorian in my case –The Circle only consisted few of us. So we had followers –fans of our work, cons who desired to become one of us. Since disputes between cons were not exactly extremely headline-grabbing in this day and age, The Circle began mobilizing their loyal followers to do some of their job –but on a much smaller scale.

They sent cons to deal with cons who threatened to expose the existence of The Circle. They sent cons to settle dispute with cons. The Circle, between times, created heists so intricate that even I was awed –though I was part of its creation process too. It is really a wonder to see the result of a five world-class cons put together. The last heist The Circle had, an entirely government had been close to anarchy and eventually, leading to its fall.

No one trusted their banks and kept all money at home. That was the extent of our reach.

The Circle didn’t usually put hands in our individual, personal work unless it compromised the position of us being Circle members. That and the fact that I took Dorian under my wing. Usually, out of the fun of it, us cons being suspicious people by nature, one Circle member would direct their personal followers to spy on another member of The Circle, to update themselves whether any one of us were compromising our hard-earned title. It seemed almost as if we were forever trying to sabotage each other, but on the surface, we were nothing but the best of friends.

Especially Tyler. Tyler perpetually had a mask every single day, and he seemed to have a personal vendetta against the only female member of The Circle, me. He never failed to try to seize any opportunity to ensure my failure, but of course, from one con to another, I was sure never to fall to his tricks. Obviously, on the outside, Tyler pretended that I was his closest friend on The Circle.

I cautiously kept him at arm’s length. If there was something I didn’t need to entertain my life with right now, it was Yule’s vendetta against me.

“We’re absolutely serious, Sister. We’re actually tired of Tyler using us to get to you. We know you aren’t exactly our weapon, but Tyler doesn’t seem to get it. We agreed to come because we heard news of you getting shot. We thought you might need some help babysitting Dorian while you deal with your brother.” Mabel answered my surprised question, putting a hand on mine on the railing as if to tell me that they would always be there to support him.

I laughed slightly. “Dorian? He doesn’t need babysitting. He’s helping me out actually.”

Instantly, Jerlyn’s face turned into sad puppy’s one, beady eyes staring at me as she looked up at me. She was naturally small-sized, and in addition to the fact that I had heels on, Jerlyn was significantly shorter than both Mabel and me, helping with her sad-puppy look.

“So what will we be doing?” She asked forlornly, as if I had just told her that I was abandoning her forever.

“If you want, you can help me pull off heists that FBI gives great attention to. Hayden and I need to give attention to changing his handler for the moment. Trip up agent Rainer Clarke as best as you can, and give me credit for busting the works. I know it sounds bad, but I need to be the one handling Hayden and his anklet before I get him out.” I instructed, watching Jerlyn’s forlorn eyes widen with anticipation and excitement.

“You want us to con and get attention?” Mable asked with a partly confused look.

“Sounds bad when you say it like that, but yes. I need FBI to turn attention from how close Hayden and I are, and on the fact that we’re solving too many cases together for our chemistry to be ignored. You can help teach Dorian to play with the FBI head-on. He could do with a temporary change of teachers.”

Mabel raised a brow at me, letting go of my hand and stopping Jerlyn from jumping around with a hand on her forearm to stop her from attracting unnecessary attention.

“You want Dorian to learn from us? To make heists before FBI eyes?” Mabel asked, looking at me as if to ascertain if I was being serious.

“You could teach him to play FBI without plainly dancing and dangling his identity before their eyes. One way or another, his cover at the moment has perfect chance to turn con.”

“And that would be why?” Mabel asked while making Jerlyn stand still with a stern expression. Mabel and Jerlyn were not related by blood, but they were the closest pair of sisters I knew. In fact, they were so close I sometimes wondered why they weren’t twins. Jerlyn seemed to always have an unspoken connection with Mabel, and where one was, the other was sure to know. They shared everything, clothes, and bags, home. They even shared their men.

“Let’s say that Dorian just broke up with an FBI agent who chose Clarke’s CI over him for a lover. He gets pissed, and to get back at an ex-con, turned FBI consultant, what else better than to turn con?” I began making slow way along the docks, watching the men working tirelessly unloading the containers, waiting for the two women to follow after me.

“Wait…You? You’re pretending to be incest?” Mabel was quick to jump to conclusions while I heard their soft footsteps following behind me.

“My name is Annabel Francis. FBI agent, dropped in from Bronx Homicide. My back story shall be that Dorian made me a success by pulling strings in Bronx. I screwed up, so Dorian helped me keep things under wraps and got me a place in New York White Collar. I turn my back on him, so he gets mad, and hires cons. That’s where you girls can fit in.”

“So… Miss Francis, how are you going to go about getting Hayden out of FBI?”

“Step 1 will be getting close to Clarke. He’s the only man who knows exactly what Hayden is capable of, and I need to throw Clark off Hayden’s tail. I need to be able to cover veils over his eyes. With the FBI, it should be easy. I set up a large con, make Hayden a captive, and fake his death. If it works, my capture will be faked. Eventually, the FBI will bury files of Annabel Francis beneath their countless numbers of paperwork. Hayden and Hayley will appear back to the con world.”

“That sounds a little easy, don’t you think?” Mabel asked, as if skeptical of my plan.

“Think easy first. Details come in later. First, I need to set things up. Can you girls keep Dorian busy for the moment? Keep him busy for these few months while I draw up details with Hayden. My brother is rusty in conning –so I must give him time to bring back his wits. Keep this from Tyler and The Circle, girls. I don’t want things to get complicated.”

“You can trust us to do that, my darling!” Jerlyn announced.

“Can I? You know you two are the two cons that have worked with me and stayed by me for long. Dorian –I can trust. Hayden –I can trust. But can I trust the two of you?” I stopped mid-step, turning on them so suddenly that I felt dizzy –not that I showed them any signs of my weakness.

Jerlyn looked shocked that I was asking that question, but Mabel’s face was emotionless, almost just a clean slate.

“As cons, I should know better than ask for your trust. But this is up to you. We are in a position that we can choose sides, Hayley. Tyler and The Circle have hold over us. But we love you like a sister. Frankly, I do not know what I would do if Yule comes now and tells me to spy on you. I cannot beg for your trust, but you can have my word that when I change sides, you will be the first one to know who to guard yourself against.” Mabel said frankly, in her matter-of-fact tone.

Jerlyn only covered her mouth and nodded to everything Mabel said. Like I said –the two of them were lucky. They knew that no matter what, they could trust each other.

There was a time where I could trust someone with my life. Now, that man was gone, and in his place were Dorian and Hayden. But my trust in Dorian and Hayden –much as I would have liked it to be better –was not exactly unshakable. Dorian, no matter how much he’d been with me, no matter how much I’d brought him close to me, could backstab me. Hayden would have reason to –for I’d abandoned him once.

I could never be sure. I could never find a man who I could trust to not switch sides on me.

If there’s anyone I trust not to backstab me now, it’s Rainer Clarke.

That had been what Hayden had told me. Rainer. Rainer had been the agent that Hayden trust would never turn his back on him. Rainer, Hayden’s friend. Hayden’s handler.

And here I was, making Hayden turn his back on Rainer, who has been there for my brother since Day 1 that I backstabbed him.

“For now, then. For now, I’ll trust you girls.” I agreed, and turned, walking away, thinking hard.

Hayden had always had a soft heart. Like Dad never failed to point out, Hayden had soft fingers but softer heart. Could he steel it enough to betray Rainer, the only man he trusted not to turn backs on him? Could he –being a conman again –backstab Rainer Clarke?

Were I in Hayden’s shoes, of course I would. But I am not Hayden. I could not make decisions for my twenty-four year old brother. I needed to know.

But first of all, I needed to know Rainer Clarke. Inside out.

Then we could start the war.