Page 22 of Heist in Paradise

I frowned at her. “A cover for what?”

Her smile sharpened. Sometimes I forgot who she was before she joined my crew. Then she smiled like that, and my balls shriveled up into my stomach. “Go see for yourself.”

That was how we ended up in Salvadore’s office. Like the rest of the house, it was charmingly rustic, with panoramic windows on one side and floor-to-ceiling timber shelves on the other. A large, Narnia-style wardrobe stood next to the door, clearly antique and very expensive. But that wasn’t the main attraction.

Fixed on the wall behind the large mahogany desk was our painting. It wasn’t as large as I’d expected, though it was no motel art. It was also bright and abstract, and a bit of an eyesore compared to the rest of Salvadore’s collection.

I found Madoc sitting cross-legged on the desk, looking up at it with the kind of rapt attention most would devote to their favorite soap. I was overly aware of Olivia, the unknown addition to our party, examining the bookshelves with the same level of attention.

My thighs hit the desk as I stood behind Madoc. “What’s the verdict?”

“Ugly,” Madoc said without turning. I leaned over his shoulder and saw him fiddling with Olivia’s knife. It didn’t bode well for her if he’d claimed it. “You threw up.”

I reared back, abruptly self-conscious. Madoc turned his head and smirked at me. “Feel better?”

“I won’t until we’re gone.”

“That could be a while.” Madoc’s gaze zeroed in on Olivia, who had turned away from the books and stood at the window looking out. I didn’t blame him. She was nice to look at. The sun made her skin glow and found the streaks of copper in her hair. Her legs were something else. Long, shapely. Weapons in their own right. I forced myself to look away, straight into Madoc’s cutting, glass-green eyes. The same weird heat boiled between us and, as usual, I backed out.

Zola bumped into me hard and pointed at the painting. “Go on. Take it down.”

Callum did the honors. As soon as he lowered it gently to the floor, we stared, speechless, at the wall behind it. No, not the wall. The safe.

“Huh,” Ryle said with a slow nod like it was exactly what he expected. “I guess he does have some secrets.”

“It’s digital,” Zola said, even though we were all familiar with safes. In fact, we’d made a decent living from cracking them. I slanted her a look, and she met my eye smugly. “Waterproof, fire-resistant, pry-resistant with a three-strike lockout mechanism.”

“So we need the code.” Ryle started to root around the desk. “What are the chances he wrote it down on a sticky note?”

“Slim.” Zola crossed her arms and leveled Olivia with a cold look when she wandered over. “He used a hundred-million-dollar painting as a cover. Whatever’s inside is clearly very valuable. There’s no way we can crack it in under six hours.”

To her credit, Olivia didn’t look perturbed. “I thought you guys were, like, professional burglars?”

“This isn’t some spy movie,” Zola scoffed, examining her claws. Us men in the room exchanged wary glances, gonads mutually retreating.

Clearly, Olivia didn’t have the same instincts. She met sass with sass, cocking her hip against the desk. “Really? A band of thieves? A locked safe? A hundred million dollars? Seems pretty 007 to me.”

“Bond girl,” Nate whispered. He flinched back at Zola’s dead-eyed glare.

“We don’t just turn up and crack a safe, sweetie,” Zola said, smiling. “It requires weeks of planning. Manufacturers’ instructions. Meticulous background research on the mark.”

A flush stained Olivia’s cheeks at the patronizing tone.

Smelling blood, Zola went in for the kill. “But who am I to stop you? Please. Go ahead. You’ll have three attempts before the lockout mechanism is triggered.”

“How…” Olivia’s voice cracked. She straightened, clearing her throat. “How long does the lockout last?”

“Could be a few hours,” Zola said. “Could be days. It could also send an alert to the owner’s phone. In fact, I’m certain it does.”

Olivia’s mouth twisted into a thoughtful frown. I half-expected her to burst into tears (Zola could make grown men cry), but Olivia proved once again that she wasn’t predictable. She broke into a wide grin, appearing positively chuffed by the news. “He’s definitely hiding something.”

“It could be anything,” I said, hating the way my gut twinged at dampening her happiness. Buzz kill. “It doesn’t prove he kidnapped your sister.”

“It might,” Olivia said, practically bouncing on her toes. Then she noticed Madoc and her knife, and landed flat on her heels, her eyes storming over. “That’s mine.”

Madoc flipped the knife casually in his hand like a toy. “This old thing?”

“Give it back.”