by Beth Rhodes
A blinking light on her right indicated her presence had been noted. She glanced at the string of numbers she’d written on her wrist and entered the code into the keypad. She paused, waiting for the light to turn green.
It didn’t.
“Shit.”
Sixteen seconds. She typed in the code again.
Nothing. “Fuck,” she breathed, and immediately thought of Malcolm, thought of how he monitored all his clients.
Eight seconds.
She pulled her knife from the strap on her leg and pried the cover off the keypad. At a glance and in the dark, the computer board looked foreign. She blinked, forcing herself to focus, found the video feed wire, and followed it over to the main power source.
Marie cut the wires…
And sealed her fate.
Inside, the dark foyer broke off into two hallways. The one on the right led to the front of the house and the main living area, whereas the one on the left led to the back of the house, the kitchens and servants’ quarters. Seeing the map in her head, she headed to the right and, within seconds, had reached the front hallway and the foyer.
The quiet sent a chill down her spine. Almost too quiet, and definitely dark. As she approached the foyer, she slowed and hugged the wall, then waited three seconds. As she was about to move, a sound stopped her. Click. A door opened and closed at her eleven, so she waited another three seconds. But no footsteps came her way.
She crossed the open space, took another three steps into the security hallway, stopped, took a slow breath, and waited three more seconds for her heartbeat to slow. When there was no sound behind her, she continued. It wasn’t far, and she came up to the door into security central.
Her thirty seconds was up, though. And as she opened the door, her watch vibrated at her wrist. Malcolm received a notification when the door opened. Now she had one minute—give or take—before someone would be here to check the mainframe. Time for lights out.
The knob turned easily in her hand, and she slipped in. Without hesitating, she sent a message from Dimitru’s account to Malcolm, girding herself against the guilt wanting to paralyze her, and reported in for Dimitru.
Testing your system. Shutting down for next ten minutes.
Plenty of time. She keyed in the command to shut down the entire system. The room stopped humming and silence settled on her skin, making her shiver. Creepy. As she opened the door, the message tone from her phone rang out. “Shit.”
She looked around. She hadn’t brought her phone…but there it sat on the small table next to the door. “No fucking way,” she whispered, grabbing it and silencing it. How the hell had she missed her phone? She hesitated from putting it in her pocket. Better to leave it. If it moved now, he’d know she was here. If it was found, Dimitru would know she was here.
Hell in a handbasket, Malcolm probably already knew. She turned the phone off and tucked it into her suit as she made her way down the hall, back to the secure room with Dimitru’s treasures.
The gallery had emergency floor lights, which lit her way to the pedestal at the back. She didn’t hesitate now. She’d lost too much time. She needed to be on her way. The pretentious, self-absorbed prick who’d stolen the bracelet from her family hadn’t even bothered to secure it. He thought his house was a fortress, his security system solid.
And it probably was…usually.
But not tonight.
The gold band, warmed by the velvet and lights, slid onto her arm and rested against the black neoprene sleeve. Two steps toward the door and, as if in slow motion, it began to open. She sidestepped to the shadowed cove off to her right.
Tall manservant guy came in with a flashlight and called over his shoulder, “Get the power back up and running.” He flashed the light across the room, and Marie crouched even further down, keeping still and quiet. She looked at the main entrance where the tall guy stood, studying the room as if waiting for her to make a mistake.
She swore silently, waiting for the vigilante to make his move.
When he did, her heart fell.
He stepped into the room and let the door close behind him. Then he touched his ear and spoke in a low tone.
Marie frowned, her head tilted to the side.
The man walked the perimeter, starting at the wall opposite her, and flashed his light across the floor. He checked each piece as he went. And when he got to the platform where the armband was supposed to lie, he made an agitated noise. “Well, great.” His British accent surprised her. “Two days. That’s all I needed. Now this cluster—”
She held her breath, and the door opened again. This time Burly Guy stepped through, his silhouette giving him away. “Dimitru wants an update.”
“The armband is gone,” the taller man said.
Without a word, Burly Guy walked back out.
Marie’s legs started to ache. Leave! she wanted to scream. The longer she was stuck in this position, the harder it would be to make a clean getaway. Hell, her clean getaway had ended when he walked in.
But if she could at least get away without being detected, that would be nice.
“You have no idea what you’ve done,” the man said, shook his head, and—as if he meant to—skipped over the last bit of wall and left the room. He hadn’t done a full scan. Nerves shot through her veins, but as soon as the door shut behind him, she was gone, out the back door, down the rear stairs to the loading dock. As she hopped down from the cement landing and ran for the tree line, the lights on the house came back on.
Crouching, she ran through the woods, ducking and dodging through the pines, and then stopping for a moment to acclimate herself and slow her heartbeat. Looking back one last time, she scratched an itch between her shoulder blades.
“I got it, Uncle Bert,” she said as her gaze fell to the armband. Her mother had worn it. Her grandmother had worn it.
She’d always left it behind, for school and college and even when she’d gone overseas last year.
And it had been stolen from her.
But now she had it back…and it warmed her arm. She slid it higher, over her elbow, where it hugged her bicep. She grabbed the windbreaker off her seat and snaked her arms through the sleeves as a shiver ran up her spine. She sat, and her hands shook on the steering wheel as she spun the tires out on the dirt road and the car bumped onto the edge of the road and headed west.
Toward the coast.
***
“Can I get you something to drink?” Uncle Bert stepped around Malcolm to the fridge. His movements were jerky, set with nerves. When a clap of thunder rattled the eaves, he jolted and looked up, muttering about the damn rain and an omen.
Malcolm merely grunted, remaining still with his arms crossed over his chest, as he leaned against the kitchen counter. He was ready to wait as long as it took. He checked his watch. Eleven p.m. The system at the estate had been up and running for the last hour and a half. “Sit down and relax, Uncle Bert. I’m sure Marie will be here soon, and all my questions will be answered.”
“She should be back by now. She called me. Said she was on her way.”
“You worried?”
Bert gave him a scowl. “Don’t pretend you aren’t here because you know.”
He shrugged. “She made me a part of it when she went back for the armband.”
Damn armband.
“No. She would never implicate someone she cares about.”
Marie had gone in—without him. She’d used him, used his position at Hawk Elite, used his goddamned software. Anger bit into him. Cared about him? “I don’t think so.”
The old man shuffled by him to the cabinet in the wall. “Țuică?”
Malcolm lifted a brow. “No,” he said, not taking his eyes from the door. He forced himself to be calm and ran through every scenario of what could happen next. He wanted to yell, loudly and for a long time. He wanted to get his hands around her pretty little neck—
“Uncle Bert!” The front door slammed open and then closed with a thud
.
He didn’t expect the relief that flooded through him, made him relax, and had all of his thoughts about revenge wiped clean from his brain.
Marie exploded into the kitchen, a grin on her face, her hair a mess and soaked from the rain. Mud covered her skintight black pants. Her eyes were bright, alive with triumph.
That did it, brought back the necessary frustration, the enmity he’d been working on for the past four hours.
She skidded to a halt. Her mouth dropped open before she closed off all those emotions. “Malcolm? You’re here.”
Anger rolled through him. He was afraid to speak.
“Malcolm came by to check on you, Marie.” Bert wrung his hands, obviously not sure he should move forward to greet his niece.
“You missed your flight?” she asked. “What about the IT job?” Marie walked over to her uncle, giving Malcolm an accusing scowl at the same time. “Hi, Uncle Bert. How you doing? You okay?”
Malcolm watched her. Something was different. Something—besides turning to crime again—had happened here in the short time he’d been gone. There was more, though. As he watched them together, he saw what he’d been blinded to by his lust and attraction, by the fact she was a woman…
She looked exactly like her uncle.
He sighed. “Fuck.”
“Hey,” she objected.
Dimitru had known. He’d known from moment one who Marie was. No doubt in Malcolm’s mind. “Did you get it?” he asked.
“I don’t know what—”
“Marie.” He stopped her with a barely restrained growl, which made her uncle stand up straight and move in front of her.
“Now see here. You won’t talk to her that way in my house.”
Malcolm’s patience was running very thin. He didn’t take his eyes from Marie, the warning in them apparently getting across.
“It’s okay.” She patted her uncle’s shoulder then gave it a squeeze. “Leave us for a few minutes. Malcolm and I need to talk.”
Bert looked from Marie back to Malcolm. “If you hurt her, I’ll kill you.”
He pointed to Malcolm and then hobbled out of the kitchen. He seemed to have aged since Malcolm arrived, and the reappearance of his dear niece revealed how much bravado he’d been maintaining. Now, his shoulders slumped.
“What did you do to him?” Marie marched toward Malcolm and poked him in the chest with a finger. Malcolm grabbed her wrist and pulled her up against his chest. Every soft curve gave in to his solid form. Her eyes went wide then lit with the same fire he’d seen at the hotel when they’d been lying naked together in bed, when she’d ridden him on the Harley.
He quickly let her go and returned her scowl.
“I didn’t do a damn thing to Uncle Bert.” He paced away from her as the implication of what she’d done resurfaced and made him so mad he could spit. He ran his hand through his hair. “Where is it?”
“What?”
“The armband.”
“I can’t tell you. I’d have to kill you.” At least she wasn’t trying to lie.
“This isn’t funny, Marie. Dimitru—”
“Dimitru is probably drunk and fucking right now.”
“He is powerful and connected and crazy.” Malcolm stepped up to her and gripped her arm, but—feeling the anger surge—gentled his touch. “He’s under investigation by the FBI. Bringing kidnapped women—and girls—into the country. He might like your armband, Marie—” For some reason, her betrayal sat heavier in his stomach than lies from any other woman. Though he’d never trusted her one hundred percent, he’d wanted to. “Where.”
It was a statement, not a question.
“I can’t tell you.” She bit at that soft, fleshy lip of hers, the first sign of worry crossing her face. “Are you going to tell Hawk? Never mind,” she said, waving off his answer as she bent over and began the process of removing her shoes. “Don’t answer. I’m sorry.”
But she didn’t seem too sorry. She seemed harder and colder than he’d known her to be in the past year and a half.
One boot came off, and she tossed it toward the back door. Her head stayed down as she unlaced the second boot. Her hair fell forward and mopped at the floor until she rose and tossed the second boot in the same direction. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going back with you to Hawk Elite.”
Finally, she looked him in the eye.
He saw regret cloaked in sadness.
“You’re going to have to call the police, because I’m not giving my family’s two-hundred-year-old gold armband back. Not now. Not ever.”
Chapter Seventeen
Her stomach hurt so badly when he stood there, silent and stoic. God, why didn’t he say anything? But then the anger took over. She owed him nothing. Her affection for him, for the company, for Hawk had always been too good to be true. She knew why she was here, and it had never been long term.
She definitely shouldn’t have invited him into her home. If she’d been smart, she would have kept more of a distance. This was totally her fault. “I’m sorry—”
“Dimitru is going to know it was you, it was Hawk Elite Security, who came and stole from him. Are you really going to do this to Hawk, who dragged you off the street in Germany and saw something more, saw honor? You will ruin his reputation, ruin his business.”
Her brain stalled at his words, at the sound of disappointment in his gravelly tone.
Marie twisted her hair up at the back of her head and pulled the holder from her wrist to tie it in place, all the while thinking. “I’ll go public.”
“And put a target on your back?” Anger vibrated through him, shocking her a little.
“What do you want?” Her hands fisted at her sides. “This feud between my family and Vladimir’s has been going on for centuries. I came to Hawk because of his connection to the Dimitru estate. I needed to reacquire the Bălan armband.” Determination built inside her. “I will not apologize. I will not hide behind Hawk Elite. I will not let you and some misguided sense of honor force me to give back what is rightfully mine, my mother’s.”
She pounded her fist against her chest as emotion swelled through her, made her heart hurt. She’d spent her whole life fighting for what was hers, including the respect due her. She’d finally found it with Hawk—a place to call her own, a way to use her skills within the law. She’d fought for her family’s heritage, fought to stay with her uncle when the courts would have torn her away and shoved her into the system.
“I have what is mine, and I will never give it back. Dimitru will never get it back as long as I am breathing.” Her voice had gone hoarse. In frustration, she wiped at a stray tear, shocked to feel the wetness on her cheek. “Damn you, Malcolm, for making me care,” she finished softly.
“I have to call Hawkins,” he said, as if nothing she’d said made even a little bit of difference.
She stood straighter, lifted her shoulders back, and nodded. “I’ll call him myself.”
Then she walked by him and left the kitchen for her small room at the top of the stairs. After the weekend with Malcolm, she couldn’t help but see it through new eyes. It was probably time to redecorate.
Not only her room, though.
She needed to redecorate her life.
Resignation had her sitting down on the end of the bed. She leaned her elbows on her knees and pressed her fingers into her temples and forehead. Seeing Malcolm made her heart race. Elation followed quickly by regret and anger had obliterated the triumph of acquiring the armband.
Lifting her sleeve, she traced her fingers over the gold now wrapped around her upper arm. It was tight, too tight to leave it there for too long, but it made her feel safer, knowing no one could see it.
A text sounded on her phone. She picked up the slim device and checked the screen.
Do it.
Malcolm, from downstairs, waiting for her to call Hawk.
Her chin trembled. She’d messed up, and even though she’d known the job had to be done, she hadn’t expecte
d the feeling of deep failure. The plan had been to drop off the radar, not face the man who’d grown to be like a father to her.
She pulled Hawk’s number from her contacts and a high-pitched beep sounded throughout the house. It sent a jolt of adrenaline rushing through her veins as she jumped up.
“Uncle Bert!”
She hadn’t even known he still had the alarm system working at the house.
“We got company, Marie.”
“What’s going on?” Malcolm was taking the stairs two at a time as she came to the top.
Uncle Bert moved to the living room, to the old gun cabinet in the corner. “Looks like we got trouble. Did Dimitru follow you home?”
Fear streaked through her. “No way. He wasn’t even home when I went in tonight.”
“You know what to do.” Uncle Bert tossed her the shotgun, which she caught in midair next to Malcolm’s head. Tucking it under her arm, she waited for the box of ammo.
But Malcolm snatched it first. “Talk.”
“We have four minutes.”
“So, we think he’s going to come in here, guns blazing, to kill of the rest of the Bălan family in one fell swoop?”
She sent a pointed look his way and then at the ammo before tossing the shotgun to the bed. “Load the shells, would you?”
“Shit,” he hissed under his breath. “You can’t very well kill our client, Marie. I really can’t let you.”
“We have a way out,” she said as she pulled one of her dark sweatshirts over her head and windbreaker. She didn’t want Malcolm to know where the armband was at this point. She’d meant to show it to her uncle and then take it to their hiding place, the one deep in the ground.
“Vehicle?”
“Sort of. Out back.” She opened her closet and grabbed the handgun from the case on the shelf. Malcolm had armed himself as well: a knife at his waist, and she knew there was one on his calf, too. She could picture him a little more Neanderthal with blades tucked at his back, and it caught her breath.
“Pistol?” she asked.
He shook his head, grabbed her bag, turned, and called down the stairs to her uncle, “We’re moving now.”