In the periphery of my vision, I saw Marius cock his head at his phone.
“Huh.”
I frowned, picturing gold ingots. Precious jewels. A briefcase of nuclear codes.
“Oh.” Bene’s eyebrows shot up as he checked his screen. “That’s what we need to extract?”
Roux nodded.
“Well, that’s different,” the lion shifter murmured.
Henrik didn’t seem interested, but when Bene angled the phone toward him, his eyes widened.
“Oh.” He drew out the word into several syllables, clearly impressed.
Okay, my curiosity was officially piqued.
Mercenaries and criminals,I reminded myself.Guaranteed jail time.
Grabbing my plate and mug, I turned back toward the door.
Bene squinted at his screen. “A painting. With squiggly trees. Doesn’t look too valuable to me.”
“What is that? A Picasso?” Marius rumbled.
“Not Picasso, you fool. Van Gogh,” Henrik said.
I stopped in my tracks. A real Van Gogh orlikea Van Gogh?
Bene shrugged. “Hell, I could paint in better focus than this.”
A comment I’d heard in a dozen museums in front of real masterpieces.
“Okay, okay.” I gave in. “What is it?”
Bene covered his screen. “Thought you weren’t interested.”
I wasn’t. Was I?
“You don’t want to see it,” Marius assured me.
I reminded myself that I didn’t. Except, suddenly, I did.
Roux held his phone against his chest. “Sorry. If you’re not involved, you don’t need to know. Nothing personal.”
The more he refused, the more I wanted to see the damn thing. Just to satisfy my curiosity.
I motioned to Bene. “You’ve insulted my coffee machine for a whole week now. You owe me.”
He shot Roux an apologetic look and turned his phone toward me.
I stared, then sat down. Hard.
And, yikes. If Marius hadn’t stuck a chair under me, lightning-fast, I would have been ass-down on the floor.
“What is it?” Marius asked from what seemed like a hundred miles away.
I stared at the picture, then him, then back at the picture.
