15. Emmett

Chapter 15

Emmett

Across the restaurant, Dante paused in kissing Jenn’s hand long enough to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. He smiled at her, and my fist sent a message to my brain that punching him would relieve a lot of my tension.

She was still wearing the navy blouse she’d worn to the gallery. The setting sun painted her with a soft glow, as warm as the blush that normally decorated her cheeks. If I were sitting across the table from her, I’d be able to see the candles flickering in her dark blue eyes. She’d be smiling at me, not him.

Her hair was tied back in a low ponytail, letting too many strands escape its hold. A knot tightened in my gut. Every one of them was a target for Dante.

“She deserves better.” My words came out closer to a growl than I’d intended. Hell, they came from my outside voice. Also not what I’d intended.

Rav nudged me with his foot under the table. “Jealous?”

Hardly jealous. Jenn deserved someone better than me, too. But Dante was a criminal, and she refused to listen to my warnings.

“He’s working with Fenix, for fuck’s sake.” I had the poker chip out of its home in my pocket, unable to stop clenching the tiny thing. “Why are we letting this go on? She should be on a goddamn plane home.”

“We already talked about that.” Rav shifted in his seat so I couldn’t see Dante anymore. “If Fenix wants her, she’s safer close to us, where we can watch out for her. And if I recall, keeping her here was your idea.”

How much had I missed while she was working through the afternoon and evening? What had Dante said? Had Enzo come back early? Jenn looked happy, which meant she was oblivious to what was really going on, other than the potentially fake painting. That was my fault, in part. We’d kept her in the dark about what we genuinely did for years.

I was the one putting her in danger.

“Have you figured anything out from the bug in her room?” I asked Rav.

He shook his head. “It was deactivated this morning.”

“After she checked out. It had to be for her. Fenix must be targeting her.”

“It could still be a coincidence.” Drew broke open a roll from the table and placed it on his bread plate. “It’s possible you were mistaken about who you heard at the gallery.”

“Not a chance.” I would have recognized Enzo’s voice anywhere. It was the same voice I heard in my nightmares every night, and the only one that would have caused me to cower like an abused dog. If Jenn weren’t in the mix, I would have launched myself out of the restroom at Enzo and… and what? I could barely stand while he was on the other side of a solid wall.

First, the taunt, then the fist. ‘You’d better hope your sister finishes the job quickly.’

It was four months ago. Let it go, Em.

Pathetic.

“Put a tracker on her,” Jayce said around a mouthful of food. She was on her third roll and had eaten half of Drew’s calamari, in addition to her own appetizer. “Worked for us.”

Drew grinned at her across the table, and she winked at him. “Not a bad idea. You packed a few, didn’t you?”

Jayce nodded. “Toss one in her purse, another in her pocket, just in case.”

Dante and Jenn’s food and a fresh bottle of wine arrived. What was his end goal? Obviously, he wanted to sleep with her, and she looked like she was about to go along with his stupid plan. She wasn’t the cheating type, though. She was pure and honest. She was loyal.

‘What do you know about loyalty?’ Mr. Thatcher’s words swirled around my brain again. How would he feel if he knew an antiquities thief was wooing his daughter? A man hip-deep in an organization that kidnapped and extorted to get what they wanted?

My own words began swirling. ‘Why did he do it, Mum?’

My mother had never answered the question. Never made excuses. And she’d never turned her back on my father.

What did I know about loyalty?

A lot more than most people.

“Em?” Rav nudged me again.

“What?” I snapped. Clearly, the conversation had carried on without me.

“Do we need to switch seats?”

Probably. “No.”

“Can we discuss this auction?” Drew patted his lips with his napkin. The former spy was good at keeping us on point. Nothing too personal—except for his constant subtle flirtation with Jayce—and he always focused on the matter at hand.

With Scarlett at home, keeping the team on task was supposed to be my job. Rav could usually be relied on to remind me, but he was more concerned about me than the job. He’d suggested we cancel the entire thing the moment I confirmed Fenix was in town.

Their presence wasn’t a surprise. But it had hit me a lot harder than I’d expected.

Drew continued, “The conversation you overheard indicated the scarab will be up for sale?”

I picked up my fork and moved my salad around. Anything to stop myself from looking at Jenn and her Fenix boy toy. “They’re moving it tonight. Since you didn’t find any evidence of it at Massimo’s, we’ll assume it’s at the gallery. If Jayce can find it before their truck arrives, we can be in Cairo by the morning.”

“Which leaves Jenn alone,” said Rav.

“Good point. Staying in town would be a risk, but our best course of action would be to fly Jenn out with us.” Our private jet was in Nice, a forty-minute drive away—alternatively, a seven-minute helicopter ride. Everything would be easier if I told her the truth, but her reaction would introduce too many variables into our plan. “Plan A, we get it tonight and lie low afterward. As soon as she’s done with the painting, we leave.”

“Plan B, the auction?” asked Drew.

I nodded.

Rav said, “Brie’s team didn’t find any indication of a legal auction this weekend.”

“Which means…” I speared a radish, not planning on eating it, then placed the fork on the side of the plate. “It’s probably going to be at the Casino Rocher.”

Jayce fidgeted in her seat, eyeing the food being delivered to other tables. “Why at a casino?”

“It’s not quite a casino. At least, it’s not only a casino.” I slid my chip back into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I opened the satellite map, zeroing in on the old town. “Monaco-Ville is the historic district, built on the rock they call Le Rocher, where the original stronghold was built in the thirteenth century.”

“We visited there yesterday.” Drew and Jayce had gone sightseeing while they were off the clock. “Toured the Oceanographic Museum and watched the changing of the guards at the Prince’s Palace.”

“The best strongholds have emergency tunnels, both for soldiers to escape if they’re overwhelmed or for the populace to get into the stronghold if the city is attacked.” I pointed to a spot directly west of Monaco-Ville. “The caverns under the Exotic Gardens are a big tourist destination. It’s all roped with rough steps and paths for people to follow, but if you go deep enough, there’s a connection between those caverns and a large one inside Le Rocher.”

Rav frowned. “And you know all this because…”

I raised an eyebrow at him, knowing he knew the answer. “Because in the end, it houses one of the world’s most interesting casinos.”

“And black market auctions?” added Drew. It sounded like a question but obviously wasn’t one.

“The native Monégasque people aren’t legally allowed to gamble in Monaco. The Casino de Monte-Carlo was originally built in the mid-nineteenth century to help get the country out of debt, and they didn’t want their own people to go further into debt by gambling their money away.”

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way?” asked Drew.

“Exactly.” My gaze inadvertently wandered over Rav’s shoulder, to where Jenn was enjoying her meal. She hadn’t turned in our direction once, and Dante hadn’t seemed to notice us either. Focus, Em . “They hold special events—poker pots so high they’d make your eyes water, betting on the behaviors of people they watch through closed-circuit feeds, and adrenaline raffles—for the insanely wealthy. There’s plenty of gray market activity. Far more than black most of the time. The police visit occasionally, ensuring there’s no violence, weapons, or whatnot, but they otherwise turn a blind eye to what’s going on.”

Jayce sat up, leaning forward to whisper. “And if I don’t find the scarab tonight, we break in and take it?”

“Plan B is winning it at the auction. But yes, Plan C is breaking into the auction site.” I zoomed in closer to the Oceanographic Museum. “There’s one entrance in the public elevator here. And another one…” I swiped and pinched until I had an image of the back of the Museum. The Rock’s face jutted out of the water, with the back of the building continuing straight up from the cliff. I pointed at a door at the base, close to sea level. “Here.”

“With guards?” asked Jayce.

“Yes.” I zoomed out again and pointed at the Exotic Garden. “Which means we need to find one of the tunnels from the public caverns.”

“It won’t be a service tunnel built out of concrete, will it?” Drew’s jaw clenched as he eyed Jayce. He hid his worry for her well, but I could still see it.

“There’s some element of spelunking required.”

“Sweet!” said Jayce, bouncing back into her seat.

“They take their security very seriously.” I picked my phone up, and the next step in the plan formed in my brain as I spoke. “The regular entrances include metal detectors to ensure no one brings weapons in, and you need to check your digital equipment into Faraday cases so no one’s snagging blackmail material inside.”

Rav sat back, folding his arms. “Which means no comms.”

Our digital communications all ran through our phones. If my phone was inaccessible and no one had another Reynolds phone nearby, my earpiece wouldn’t work. “We never break rule number one.”

The first rule on any op for Reynolds Recoveries: Never turn off your earpiece.

We instituted the rule after one of our jobs went horribly wrong, and we lost Noah.

And now he was back, screwing with us.

Such irony.

“Will mentioned a prototype recently.” I tapped his profile on my phone and held it to my ear. “Hopefully, it’s far enough along we can use it.”

He answered on the first ring. “One sec.” His voice grew muffled. “It’s work. I know it’s late. I need to take this. Yes, it’s—Katie—no, just give me—yeah—five minutes.”

A door closed on his end, and a long, slow breath came over the line. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Katie flew in this afternoon.” His younger sister lived in Seattle, the last I’d heard. “She had some sort of blowup with her husband and is using me and Mum as an excuse for some time away from him.”

Will’s temporary situation in London had started with his father’s funeral and comforting his mother for a couple of weeks. During that ordeal, he’d discovered they’d hidden her early-onset Alzheimer’s from the rest of the family. Over the past year, he’d become her near-full-time caretaker.

He’d only let it interfere with a few ops, and the team had rallied to cover for him. But tough decisions were in his near future.

“I would have thought the extra help would be welcome?” I said.

He groaned in frustration. “She’s a nurse, so she can manage everything, but she’s insisting I take a vacation.”

“You need one of those.” Even though the timing was shit for us.

“Not while you’re in the middle of a— Sorry, you didn’t call to hear me complain. What do you need?”

A little quid pro quo. I needed something from him, and he needed a distraction. “We’re going somewhere we won’t have access to a phone, so I was wondering?—”

“Can you wear a watch?” His voice brightened. “I have a prototype we can hook up to one of our earpieces and amplify its secure signal.”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

“It still needs a little work, though. Who’s going to wear it?”

“Me.”

Will chuckled. “I warn you, the prototype is only an Omega, so you may hate it.”

“I’ll be wearing a tux. Promise me it won’t stand out.”

“Black leather strap and face with gold accents. You’ll look great.”

“I’ll suffer. Can you ship it tonight?”

“One sec.” Will grew quiet. Maybe checking something on his computer. Maybe checking the prototype.

I glanced over Rav’s shoulder. Dante had moved his chair closer to Jenn’s. Another course was being delivered, along with a new wine.

Son of a bitch.

“Will, do you have any jewelry for a woman with an embedded GPS tracker? Or something you could easily add one to?”

“I do. For Jayce?”

“It’s for Jenn.” I closed my eyes, forcing myself to stop looking at her enjoying her time with him . “With Fenix involved in the gallery and her working there, I’d feel more comfortable if I knew where to find her at all times.”

“I have a few options.”

“My watch will also need to work underground. May not get a strong cellular or satellite signal.”

“It’s not ready for that, but I should be able to…” Will trailed off, muttering to himself. He was likely already pulling tools to start the job.

“How much time do you need? I want it for the initial recon tomorrow afternoon.”

“It’ll be tight. I was working on the scarab decoy, but I can put that aside?—”

“We might need the decoy.”

“Hmm… I can work through the night, but…”

“If I send the jet, can you hand everything to them at the airport in the morning?”

“Doubt it. But here’s what I can do: Katie wants me to get out of town for a few days and relax. How about I pack up the tools I need and hop on the jet myself? I can work on the flight and make any tweaks required tomorrow afternoon.”

That was the best idea I’d heard all week.

Once Will and I finished sorting out the details, I texted everything to HQ so they could coordinate with our flight crew. My luck was definitely turning around. Will had the equipment we needed, and his sister’s visit had come at the perfect time. He even had something to help with the Jenn situation.

“Will should be here sometime tomorrow morning. If Jayce finds the scarab tonight, we’ll fly to Cairo and then home as soon as Jenn’s done. Otherwise, we’ll scout the Casino Rocher in the afternoon and discuss our next steps.”

“This was supposed to be an intel-gathering trip”—Rav leaned closer—“not a heist.”

Exactly why the scarab decoy wasn’t ready yet. We’d thought he had a month or more before needing it. This op was evolving quickly.

“Then they decided to auction it off.” I shrugged. “Friday night, it’ll change hands and vanish. We’d have to start this entire job over again from scratch.”

“Contact the police about the auction,” said Rav. “They can recover it.”

“I told you.” I leaned forward, matching him. “As long as the Casino follows certain rules—no violence, no human trafficking, no prostitution, no drugs—they operate with impunity. If we tip the police off, someone tips off the Casino. The auction doesn’t happen, and the scarab’s gone.”

Rav was right to share his concerns. We were moving fast, juggling more risks than even I liked.

Fenix’s appearance had been our top concern, and they were in Monaco. We’d discounted the possibility of Massimo working with them, since Noah—who also worked for Fenix—gave us the tip. He’d told Scarlett in June that the group was fracturing. I just hadn’t expected it was fracturing so much that Noah would sic us on his opposing faction.

But what I wouldn’t announce to the table?

If we had a chance to shove a wedge into their organization—the one who’d destroyed my life—I was prepared to face all those risks.

Jenn laughed at something. From all the way across the restaurant, I recognized the sound. I didn’t look. I didn’t want Rav to know she was a factor in my decision. Fenix was screwing with her now. It wasn’t only about me and my team. It was about people we cared about.

I didn’t give two shits about our client anymore.

All I wanted was to ruin the men who’d ruined me.