Chapter 7

SEVEN

I wokefrom a dead sleep and knew immediately something was wrong.

Felix wasn't next to me, and when I reached out, his side of the bed was cold.

"Fuuuuck!" I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and threw back the covers. How had I let something happen to him when he was in my house?

Then I took a breath and opened my senses, reaching for the thread of connection our fated bond had created. He was frustrated, but he was safe.

And I knew where he was.

I grabbed a pair of sweats and made my way down to Julius's office.

The lights were off downstairs, but the blue glow of a computer monitor filtered into the hallway through the open doors.

For a moment, I just stood there watching Felix as his fingers flew over the keys. Then I realized what was on the screen, and my heart fell to my toes. Still, I didn't want to scare him, so I cleared my throat once, then again when he didn't turn.

Felix swiveled around in the chair, locking eyes with me while he minimized the window he had open.

"Nero. Shit. What are you doing down here?"

I crossed my arms and leaned against the doorjamb. "I woke up, and you weren't there. I panicked."

"I was just, uh, doing some research."

"Yeah, I saw. Research on my family."

He looked down at his hands. "It's not like that."

"Yeah? Sure looks like it."

"Here. Sit." He kicked the extra chair at the desk out. I didn't move. "Please. I want to talk to you about something."

"Fine." I wasn't sure why, but seeing Felix digging into my family felt like a betrayal. Or maybe it only felt that way because there were skeletons in our closets that didn't need to be let out.

Felix restored his windows and beckoned me to move closer. "I'm guessing you already know about all this."

On the screen were pictures of each of my brothers with their greatest hits detailed underneath. Cal's work with an assassin group credited with taking out several high-profile political targets that would have created totalitarian and oppressive regimes if they'd been allowed to come to power, his name credited for making the kill shots. Quin's art gallery and the backroom deals he did passing stolen art through the gallery as a fence while making sure other items quietly made their way back to museums. Julius's Robin Hood-ing, robbing from the rich to give to the poor with a few careful hacks while shutting down money-laundering schemes and predatory financial practices.

And there I was.

For the last decade, I'd stayed out of the world my grandmother had trained me to be part of. She had the greatest cover of all time, but I didn't fit into that world. I wasn't smart enough, and I sure as fuck wasn't refined enough. I was better at the smash and grab than stealing antiquities from people with too much money to know what they had in their collections.

So I'd gone straight. And yo ho ho, it had been the bounty-hunting life for me since. I still used the skills I'd learned at her side, just in a different way.

I couldn't say I liked seeing the evidence of my crimes displayed in black and white. To be honest, I wasn't even sure how Felix had found out about any of it. Julius had promised it was all buried.

Which meant if we thought Julius was good, Felix was better.

He looked at me, but I didn't move, and he closed a few of the windows, revealing two more.

My parents and my grandmother.

Fuck.

"You told me your parents died on an archeological dig."

I shrugged and still said nothing.

"They were thieves, weren't they?"

Still nothing.

"And your grandmother. She's an art thief."

"Was." The word slipped out before I could think about it. "She's retired. And mostly we?—"

"We?"

I pointed at the screen. "I know you saw what I've done."

He smirked, looking a little smug, no doubt because he'd hacked into Julius's cache of information without breaking a sweat.

My heart was hammering in my chest, and I ran a hand over my face. What if I told the truth and Felix left? It was a damn good thing I hadn't claimed him with a bite earlier because it would suck plenty if he walked away now. If I had bitten him, it might kill me. "We only stole things that belonged in museums from private collectors who acquired them through the black market. My parents stole from dig sites before black market dealers had a chance."

"Still, if this list is accurate, your grandmother is responsible for some of the biggest heists in recent history, even if they went unreported outside certain circles." There was awe in his voice, and I felt like the earth was tipping under my feet.

"You're not pissed you're staying in a house with a bunch of criminals from a long line of criminals?"

Felix shrugged and gestured to himself. "Hacker, remember? I can color outside the lines. Plus, it seems like a solid eighty-five percent of what you guys do is for the good guys. And that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

I raised an eyebrow, not sure where this was going.

"So Cal got fired today, right?"

"Yes."

"And Julius and Quin already kind of do their own thing?"

"Mmmhmm."

"And I noticed when I was poking around that you have a PI license."

"I do. I don't really use it."

"But that's what I'm saying. You could."

I shook my head. "I don't und?—"

"You and your brothers should form your own covert ops group. I could be your guy in the chair and run the missions. Your very own Felix Smoak. Julius can help. We can find leads and vet targets, and you guys could be your own op shop."

The laugh that slipped out was swallowed up by Julius's soundproof walls. "Who is Felix Smoak?"

"The character is actually Felicity Smoak." Still didn't ring a bell, and Felix sighed in exasperation. "You're fated mates with a bona fide nerd now. We're gonna need to work on your pop culture references. Felicity Smoak, aka Overwatch, is the Green Arrow's girl in the chair. She does all the research and runs remote support for the team's missions. Not exactly how she was portrayed in the DC comics, but the Arrowverse is perfection, so straying from the source material is acceptable in this case. But we're getting off topic." Felix shuffled some papers around and came up with an old envelope from a utility bill that had chicken scratch on the back. He held it out to me. "I'm serious. Look."

"I can't read this. Is this your handwriting?"

Felix snatched the paper back. "You can call yourselves ORCA. The Organization for the Return of Criminals and Assets. Which is also funny since you're all?—"

"Sea pandas?" I finished, and Felix smiled.

"Not what I was going to say, but exactly! We could find jobs that play to all your strengths."

"And what if I don't want to be in the field anymore?" Maybe this was my chance to slow down or to do what I was good at in a different way.

"Then you don't have to be. We can work together. You and I can find the clients. I know you still have contacts."

He was right, and this wasn't the worst idea. I was kind of surprised none of the four of us had thought about it before.

We all tended to work a smidge outside the lines of legal, but we'd never been caught with our hands in the cookie jar. And sometimes we did help each other out—Julius hacking banks to help me follow the money and track down a skip, Cal watching an important shipment for Quin, Quin getting a target Julius was following to invest in stolen art.

The more I thought about it, the more Felix's idea made sense. "I don't hate it. I'll think about it, and we can talk to my brothers."

"We?"

"It's your idea. They'll probably be more likely to agree if it comes from you."

Felix beamed. "Good." He stood, then straddled my lap, settling his body against mine and leaning his head against my chest.

I really didn't hate Felix's idea, and I had a feeling my brothers wouldn't either. Our family had made a name for ourselves skirting the lines of the law.

But if we were going to do this, Felix was going to have to tell us more about what was going on because our first mission was going to be keeping him safe and helping him solve whatever case he'd been working on that had put him in someone's crosshairs.

For now, though, in my arms and softly snoring against my chest, he was safe. For tonight, that was more than good enough.

We could deal with the rest tomorrow.

And we would.