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Well, except for West. He was way too quiet, and his eagle eyes saw too much.
“Returning to your earlier comment about your uncle,” Kairo segued into the reason they were all there in the first place.
“Yes,” Ehren said. He took a deep breath and moved to the edge of the sofa cushion where he sat next to Stephen. “How bad is it?”
Kairo’s expression softened. “Well, it’s bad, but not what you’re thinking. Your uncle was not a criminal as far as we can find. All his dealings were completely on the up-and-up.”
Ehren released the breath he’d been holding and slumped back into Stephen, who pulled him closer. “That’s good.”
“I take it you were close to this uncle?”
“Not really,” Ehren admitted with a shake of his head. “Or maybe it was more that I hadn’t seen him in a long time. I grew up in Greece, and we returned to Ankara for visits when I was little. He traveled to see us in Greece a few times. I kind of get the impression he wasn’t the biggest fan of my father’s. The older I got, the less I saw of him. I moved to the US when I graduated college. By then, it had been at least ten years since I’d last seen him. I guess no one wants to hear that a member of their family is involved in something illegal.”
“Oh Lord,” Stephen muttered next to him and dropped his face into his hand.
“Fuck off. He’s talking about bad people,” Charlie grumbled.
“What’s wrong?” Ehren asked, ignoring Charlie as he placed his hand on Stephen’s knee.
“Our methods aren’t…always…legal,” Kairo carefully drew out, sort of wincing as he spoke.
“But we always make sure that the bad guys are dealt with and the innocent are safe,” Edison said proudly.
“Oh,” Ehren murmured and looked at Stephen, who still had his face covered. His body had tensed suddenly, as though he were waiting for Ehren to walk away from him because of his brother’s methods and his friends. Ehren gently grabbed Stephen’s hand and lowered it from his face. He tilted his own so he could meet Stephen’s eyes. “Then I guess it’s a good thing we have them to help us. Going to the police certainly wasn’t getting us anywhere.”
“Are you sure? If you want, we can walk away now.”
Charlie made a disgruntled noise, and Stephen shot him a glare before returning his attention to Ehren, worry filling his eyes.
“I’m sure. We need answers. I want to feel safe in my house again so we can get back to our third date.”
There was an explosion of noise around the room demanding more information about how they had gone on only two dates and how they’d met, but they ignored them. Ehren leaned in and captured Stephen’s mouth in a sweet kiss that wiped away the last of the tension humming through Stephen’s body.
“Okay, you were saying about Uncle Yusuf,” Ehren prodded.
Kairo narrowed his eyes at him and pointed. “Okay, but we’re demanding full details of how you met and how you’ve had only two dates as payment for our services.” Ehren opened his mouth to argue that he was happy to pay them for all they did, but Kairo was already waving his hands. “Yusuf was a legitimate restoration and ancient art expert as his job, but in his personal life, it seems he didn’t limit himself to the ancient art world. He had a lot of friends who were accomplished painters and sculptors working on more modern pieces.”
“When you settled his estate, did you inherit an extensive art collection?” Charlie inquired.
Ehren shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t call it extensive. I’d say there were probably about a dozen pieces of note. Mostly paintings. They’ve been put into proper storage. I was thinking of handing them over to Christie’s for examination and later, auction. They also have all the paper work proving provenance. He owned all that work free and clear.”
Kairo frowned. “Yeah, that’s not it. There were whispers about your uncle having a hell of a collection that he kept secret. Mostly gifts from other artists but also from some private collectors as payment for some restoration work he did for them. The collection is rumored to be worth upward of six hundred million.”
“What? That’s…that’s insane. I’ve heard nothing about this secret collection,” Ehren gasped.
“Wouldn’t be much of a secret if you knew,” West mumbled from where he leaned against the wall nearest the door to the suite’s balcony.
“True, but wouldn’t he have left some kind of note or message to his heir so I could find it?”
Edison shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t get around to writing that note. Maybe you just haven’t found it yet. Maybe the key is the note.”
“Speaking of…” Kairo said with a pointed look.
“Oh! Yes!” Ehren dug into his pocket and pulled out his ring of keys. He flipped through the keys until he found the right one and slipped it off the ring. He handed it over to Kairo and returned the others to his pocket. “We don’t have a clue as to what it goes to.”
