Ah, Christ. That explained the route Ocho was on. The MFA couldn’t be more than another five minutes across town.
“Yeah, I imagine you might’ve been there a time or two,” Cruz remarked, hardly masking his smugness. “Didn’t I read somewhere that the bitch of one of your old buddies from the Order is the curator for that place? Could swear I also heard that the daughter of the Boston commander works there on occasion too. That hot piece of daywalking ass, am I right?”
Rafe nodded tightly, his teeth set on edge at the disrespect this bastard was showing not only toward Nathan’s blood-bonded mate, Jordana, but Aric Chase’s twin sister, Carys, as well.
Beside him, he noticed Brinks had gone stock-still at the mention of daywalkers and members of the Order. Yet she didn’t seem shocked at all by the subject of the museum and its on-loan exhibit of priceless art.
If Rafe was being tested—and he was damn sure he was—then it appeared he was the only one in the vehicle who hadn’t been aware of that fact until now.
He grunted, unsure why Brinks’s participation should bother him as much as it did.
“Why don’t you just get to the fucking point, Cruz.”
The human’s grin split the center of his dark goatee. “Someone I know wants to add those paintings to his private collection. And he’s willing to pay big for them. So, we’re going to get them for him. Right now.”
Rafe didn’t have to guess where their bankroll would be coming from. Evidently, this was the business Cruz and Judah LaSalle had been discussing at the party last night.
“You want to run with us?” Cruz challenged. “You get us inside, past the guards and the security systems. We’ve got word that the art is being kept in a vault room in the basement of the building. You clear the way for Brinks here to crack it open, then make sure we all get out with the art and don’t get our asses shot or arrested.”
Rafe scoffed. “Sounds like I’m the one doing all the heavy lifting.”
“You want in? This is the price.”
He held the criminal’s scrutinizing gaze. As much as it offended him to play this role, if he didn’t, his mission was over here and now. Cruz and the others were asking him to prove his loyalty, so that’s what he was going to do.
As for the art, he was certain the pieces were insured. Regardless, he would put the Order on their recovery as soon as possible.
“They keep five armed guards on the clock twenty-four-seven during business hours,” he said. “After closing, that count goes down to three. But with an exhibit of this magnitude in-house, I’d expect the full detail to be on duty at all times.”
Cruz nodded in acknowledgment. “Can you take out that many at a time?”
“Please.” Rafe smirked. He wasn’t about to kill anyone, but he could render a human unconscious and tranced in less than a second. He’d make sure the guards all stayed down as long as needed. “I’ll handle the guards and shut down the security system. Everything’s wired. There are motion and heat sensors throughout, all of them triggering silent alarms. That includes the vault room.”
As he spoke, the museum came into view up ahead, its campus illuminated by security lights in the parking lot and outside the building. Ocho drove around to the receiving docks in back and reversed the van into one of the bays.
“Grab the props,” Cruz told Axel and Fish, gesturing to the bins of folded, laundered linens on wheeled hand trucks that shared the back of the van with them. He pivoted out of the passenger seat and came into the back with them. “They’ll get the guard’s attention at the back door. Then it’s your show.”
He handed Rafe a semiauto pistol, a weapon he had no intention of using. Tucking the gun into the back of his dark jeans, he sent a cold glance at Brinks, then gave Cruz a nod.
“All right. Let’s do it.”
The gang moved in concert, as if they had done this kind of job a hundred times before. Maybe they had. Fish and Axel opened the rear of the van and climbed out, each wheeling a large supply of linens. Rafe followed close behind, and when the night watchman opened the door to tell them they must be at the wrong address, Rafe took the man down and put him in a lifeless drowse on the floor.
He acted quickly then, using the power of his Breed mind to disable the dock’s alarm system and kill the cameras for the receiving area. “Stay here until I give you the all-clear.”
Moving with preternatural speed, it took him all of two minutes to shut down the rest of the museum’s alarms, monitors, and sensors.
He had been right about the guards. Another four security men were posted inside. He disabled them all, trancing them into a heavy sleep that would last well after he and the gang were gone tonight.
Flashing back to the receiving dock, he motioned Cruz and his crew forward. “Come on. The vault room is this way.”
They fell in after him. He led them to the freight elevator and down to the basement. The huge vault was at the back, a locked, temperature-controlled storeroom for all manner of priceless pieces not currently on display in the museum.
Rafe could have gotten the gang into the heavily secured vault as easily as he got them inside the building. Being Breed, all it would take was a silent mental command and the locks would spring open.
That’s all it would take for Brinks to breach the reinforced, polished-steel door as well, but only if she wanted to out herself to her comrades. Instead, she moved in front of Rafe and hunkered down to unfasten the pack of tools she had retrieved from the back of her motorcycle a few moments before that kiss he’d stolen from her. A kiss that was still wreaking havoc on Rafe’s senses as he watched her work.
He had to give her credit 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?”