Break the Day - Lara Adrian Page 0,18
for making a convincing effort to seem legit in front of the gang. She carefully laid out a set of delicate implements, compact magnetics, electronics, and listening devices. The kit looked like something off a movie set, which probably wasn’t that far off the mark.
“Impressive collection. Guess I don’t need to wonder anymore why they call you Brinks, eh?”
She slanted him a withering look and he could hardly hold back his chuckle.
Fish clapped a hand on Rafe’s shoulder. “You’re looking at the best safe-cracker you’ll ever meet, man.”
He smirked. “I don’t doubt that.”
“Shut up and let her work, both of you.” Cruz scowled, his hand fidgety where it rested on his holstered gun. “This is taking too long already. Snap to it, Brinks.”
She pretended to struggle with the lock for a few tense minutes before announcing she was in. As soon as the door was open, Cruz and the other men hurried into the vault and began raiding the crated masterpieces stored inside. With the linens dumped off the hand trucks, Fish and Axel started loading up some of the art.
They worked in silence, but even if they had been shouting to one another, Rafe’s keen hearing would not have missed the sudden shift in the air.
The elevator was moving.
Not the freight elevator they rode down in. The main lift, the one used exclusively by museum staff.
Brinks picked up the vibration too. Her head swiveled in his direction, a stark look on her face.
He nodded. “Fuck. We’ve got company. Everyone out. Now.”
“What are you talking about?” Cruz drew his pistol. “Who’s coming? I thought you said you took out all of the security detail?”
“I did. This is someone else.”
As soon as the words left his tongue, a female voice sounded from another part of the basement. “Hello? Who’s down here? Is it you, Arnie? I just wanted to let you know I’m finally wrapping up for the night and heading home.”
Ah, shit.
Jordana.
It wasn’t unusual for Nathan’s mate to put in long hours at the museum. Art was her passion, along with her devotion to the former assassin who captained the Order’s patrol team in Boston.
“I can’t find Louis or Max anywhere,” Jordana said as she approached the area of the vault. “Where is every—oh, my God.”
She stopped short on a gasp. Her beautiful face went slack with shock as her ocean-blue eyes took in the scene with one swift glance. “Rafe. What are you doing?”
“Get out of here.” He wasn’t sure if he was talking to her, or to Cruz and the rest of the thieves surrounding him. All he knew was this was the worst scenario he could’ve imagined tonight.
He was friends with Jordana. To him, she was family, the blood-bonded mate of one of his best friends. And now she was staring at him in disbelief, in utter contempt.
He glanced away from her to glare at the gang. “I said, get the fuck out of here right now!”
Fish and Axel scrambled into motion. Shoving past a stunned Jordana with the wheeled hand trucks, they sped toward the freight elevator.
She watched them, then swung her outrage back at Rafe. “This is how low you’ve sunk? I can’t believe this. What’s happened to you, Rafe?”
“Jordana, just go. Please.”
Instead of obeying, she took a step inside the vault. Her breath grew rapid as anger began to replace her confusion and fear.
“She’s prettier than I expected, vampire.” Cruz leered, swaggering toward her with his gun in hand. “Maybe we ought to take her with us too.”
Jordana lifted her hand and the weapon flew out of his grasp. It clattered onto the floor several feet away.
Ocho made the next stupid move. The big man lunged for Jordana, but another flick of her hand sent all two-hundred-plus pounds of him sailing out of the vault as if he had wings. As soon as he had gotten up from the floor, he took off running after his comrades.
Cruz was only an instant behind him.
“You too,” Rafe muttered to Brinks when it was only the two of them left. “For fuck’s sake. Go.”
She didn’t budge. And he didn’t have time to argue with her.
The way Jordana’s fury was mounting, he was going to have a much bigger problem very soon. Not only from this female who was pure Atlantean, but from the assassin who was bonded to her by blood.
Because by now Nathan would have felt every spike in his mate’s emotional state. And there would be no stopping him from coming to her rescue, no