EPILOGUE

SUTTON

Nine Months Later

Paris was overrated.

Baguettes were great the first time I ate one, but after eating them every morning with a different stinky cheese, I was beginning to get sick of it.

We were in Paris for work. That's right. I was traveling the world now. My job was easy. I hacked security systems, which were so unbelievably easy now that I had the software. And Danya was the muscle.

There were more people on the team. The driver, the contortionist who moonlighted as a cat burglar, and then the main guy, he was this confidence con man who pickpocketed people for a living before we were all pulled together.

It was easy money, and when we weren't working, we got to play around in the cities we'd burglarized.

We were days away from leaving Paris. Thankfully. The next stop on our tour was Rome, specifically, an old archive in Rome where they store a wealth of items. I was still working on my big heist of stealing from the Levan family in Manhattan, but in the nine months I'd uttered what I wanted to do, I hadn't made any progress at all. Their security was tighter than a virgin ass without lube.

Danya had become somewhat of a soft romantic. He'd changed a little, but he was still hard and rugged where it counted.

He'd prepared us a picnic basket. Strawberries, a baguette, more stinky cheeses, and of course, champagne from the Champagne region in France. I had expensive tastes now. I suppose I always had expensive taste; it was part of my heritage.

We sat out near the Eiffel Tower, as did everyone else in France it seemed.

Danya set a blanket out and a little cushion for my booty. "I'm protecting the goods," he said. "You're always on that ass, I don't want it getting flat."

"Pop the champagne," I said, looking in the basket.

"Relax," he said. "I'll get there." He pulled out the two champagne flutes.

He popped the cork as I continued to stare in the basket. There was something under the baguette, it looked like a slip of card. "What's that?" I asked, reaching in.

"No, you're gonna spoil it," he said.

"Spoil what?"

He reached into the basket. "Fine." He held something in his hand as he poured the champagne. "I'd do it differently, but you're impatient."

"It's still there," I grumbled, staring at the half-covered slip of card, trying to make out what it said. "It's—"

"Will you marry me?" he asked.

Turning my head, he was on one knee and presenting an encrusted silver band at me. "I—"

"Yes or no," he said.

"Obviously," I said, still focused on the paper in the basket.

He chuckled. "What are you looking at?"

People around us started to stop and watch the proposal.

I grabbed the card. "The Zodiak Agency," I read. "Oh. I think it's for both of us."

"Take the ring," he whispered. "People are gathering."

"Yes," I proclaimed. "Yes, I'll marry you!" I shouted so everyone heard.

They cheered and applauded, but I was quickly focused back on the card that had been at the bottom of the basket.

"I've heard about them," I whispered.

He slipped the ring over my ring finger. "Me too," he said. "I don't know what they'd want with us."

"I thought they were a myth," I told him. "A shadow agency."

On the flipside of the card, there was more information.

‘Sutton & Danya, you're both invited to quit your life of crime. Your skills are much better served with an agency like ours. Leave this in plain view on the windowsill of your apartment if you accept. If you decline, we might have to one day stop you.'

My throat grew dry. It was a threat. Almost.

We both looked around. I didn't know how it had gotten in there, and neither did he.

Either way, we both needed to wet our throats with the champagne.

"What do you think?" I asked him.

"I've heard a lot about them," Danya said. "They were told as horror stories, the Zodiak Agency would come after families and kill everyone there. But always a myth. No trace. No evidence they even exist."

"Except this," I said, fanning the card in his face. "And why wouldn't they want us?" It was nice to be wanted, but not nice to know we were being watched. "I'm good at hacking, and you're a great shot. You even managed to hustle that professional dart player. I don't think he'd seen so many bullseye hits."

It was a choice we both had to make.

It threw a wrench in the works.

"First, we should celebrate our engagement," he said. "We can talk about this later. I have conflicted feelings."

"Ok." I leaned over the picnic basket to him and gave him a kiss. "FYI, I'm not eating anymore baguette or cheese, but you can feed me the strawberries, please." I sat back and stuck my tongue out to him.

"What would we tell everyone?" he asked, clearly not taking his own words about talking later. "I think we should do what we're doing. We've got our goals. You've got your goal. Remember. I think it's less dangerous if we keep doing what we're doing."

I nodded. I was easy like that. "I'm still waiting for my strawberry," I said, trying to distract him.

He smiled at me, grabbing a fresh strawberry from inside the basket. "Open wide," he said. "Wider. Come on. I know you can do it."

"Ahhh."

The strawberries were deliciously sweet and juicy. I could've eaten those without ever stopping.

He stuck half a strawberry in his mouth and leaned in close. I bit the other half of the strawberry, our lips meeting in the middle to kiss, exchanging the redness from the strawberry on our mouths.

"We have bigger things to think about," he said, once more bringing it up. "Like, planning a wedding now. And I think we should visit your mom. She might be able to help with the security on your grandparents' accounts."

"You're right," I told him. "I bet she can."

It was a perfect end to our Parisian stay, and a successful heist. I admired the ring, wondering if it was one of the stolen pieces. I hoped it was, because it felt expensive. Now, he needed a ring, but perhaps not one for his hand, but one for his cock.

"I love you," he said.

"I don't know, that sounds a bit gay," I giggled.

"Well, Paris is probably the gayest place in the world, so I don't see a problem with that."

I rolled my eyes at him. Sometimes my humor went way over his head. But I loved that about him.

"I love you too," I said. "But I love diamonds more. Hint hint. When we get married, I want a diamond. A big one."

"You're such a size queen," he said. "But anything for you."

THE END