How to Rob a Billionaire

Doris Elizabeth Corday

Yep. It seemed I was done for.

Mr. Illion and his guards loomed like shadows, their presence suffocating the room as they blocked the only exit. I was still on the floor and angled my head to check the window in the living room.

Would I survive if I jumped?

Realizing I could get nowhere with a broken leg, I faced Mr. Illion once more.

"Who is this Doris you speak of?" I asked.

Mr. Illion's face stayed stone cold. He stepped further into my apartment, walking like he was inspecting a gruesome crime scene.

"Miss Corday," he began, his low and smooth, "I have sufficient evidence that one week ago, on the night of the twenty-fourth of September at an Illion company gathering, you stole a pocket watch from me called the Cronos. A timepiece now valued at fifty million dollars." He paused, his gaze narrowing as he caught the slight shift in my posture. "And unless you can pay me back right here and now, I will have no choice but to involve the authorities."

My breath hitched.

How did he know my name? My full name at that.

"What evidence?" I asked. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

No matter what, I cannot admit to stealing from this man. He killed a guy for attempting to steal from him. What would he do to me?

Mr. Illion skulked about, as though to see which part of the apartment was the messiest. I gritted my teeth at the humiliation.

"We do have evidence, Miss Corday," he replied without missing a beat. "Fingerprints, in fact."

"Fingerprints? I never—" I stopped the wrong words from leaving. "I've... never even met you before. What fingerprints are you talking about?"

The corner of Mr. Illion's mouth twitched up for the briefest second.

"When you stole the Cronos from my possession, you did leave fingerprints."

Impossible. There had been at least two hundred people at that party, and I'd been meticulous, blending into the crowd like a ghost. Elevator buttons? Cocktail glasses? Those prints would have been gone within seconds, smudged or wiped clean by countless others. There was no way he could trace this back to me.

This jackass was bluffing.

But the way he looked at me, like a wolf eyeing wounded prey, made the hairs on my arms stand on end.

"I've never even heard of your company gathering," I said, my voice defiant despite the pulse hammering in my throat. "Even if I was there, there were hundreds of people leaving their prints on everything. How could you pin something like this on me?"

Mr. Illion passed me and headed towards my bedroom. He lingered there, just long enough to unsettle me, before strolling back to the living room.

What the hell is this creep up to?

"It's simple..." he said, stopping in front of me and casting his shadow over where I sat. "There was one thing that nobody except you touched, Miss Corday."

"What?" I asked.

There it was again. The corner of his mouth curled up for a second. It wasn't a smile, not even close, but he was enjoying this. Every second of it.

"Me, of course," he said with a chilling calm.

"What?"

This had to be a joke. Did I touch him? Well, of course I touched the man but there was no way I was the only person that entire night that grazed his oh-so-expensive suit.