Chapter 11
“The security around this place is insane,” I muttered as I crouched on the ridge overlooking Larson King’s mountain compound.
The one he’d wanted to take Lyra to.
It had been harder than it should’ve been to maintain my cool at The Unseen’s party. Watching another man leer at Lyra made it clear how little claim I had over her. When Beck slipped his hand between her legs, only Ray’s quick grip stopped me from overreacting.
The noises she made. The seductive tilt of her lips. She was a spectacular actress. My heart didn’t care one bit because I could tell the difference. She lacked softness. We’d killed it the moment we turned on her.
“Did you expect this to be easy?” Beck muttered.
“On the contrary. I think it’s suspicious we got such a clear lead from the data scrape.”
Lyra let out a soft snort at my words. My heart stabbed as I stared at her curled over her laptop. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, and the cold glow of the screen lit up the furrow between her brows. Crisp leaves crunched under my boots as I squatted next to her.
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
Her tech skills were impressive, and the amount of information we got astounded me. Most of it was useless, but Larson King messaged almost immediately after his encounter with Beck, demanding some items be moved to his mountain location.
She rolled her eyes and leaned away. Again, my heart twinged, and as I sucked in a lungful of the frigid mountain air, it sliced my insides to pieces.
Lyra lied about who she was. Hating her had been easy.
I didn’t know what to do with the mess inside me now.
Lyra lied to protect Beatrice, the one person who meant the world to me.
Beatrice. I’d cut off my blood family when I ran years ago, and the number of people I trusted was small.
Was that why I’d lost it? I reacted as though I weren’t an elite member of the Orazios. Guilt throbbed as Lyra avoided my gaze.
If I could go back and change everything, I would.
“Be specific,” Beck grunted. “Just guards?”
“Two fixed guards on the left tower and overlapping patrols every fifteen minutes. Cameras on every available surface.”
I’d completed multiple sweeps of Larson King’s mountain home, but the final was the most crucial. Soon, we’d break in and track down proof Larson was a corrupt member of The Unseen.
“Maybe he just doesn’t want people snapping pics of his shriveled dick when he gets in the hot tub naked,” Ray whispered at my side.
I shook my head, struggling to keep the grin off my face. A squiggle of heat shot down my spine at the husky tease in his voice. After Lyra’s true identity was revealed, Ray and I reacted in the worst possible way, and something changed between us.
I would put it down to a trauma bond, but that would be a lie. The man had long been under my skin. I wiped the mirth off my face and focused on the view in my night binoculars.
“How much longer?” Beck crouched on Lyra’s other side.
“Their system is convoluted, but they can’t beat Connall and me together.” Lyra’s lips tipped up, and I couldn’t look away.
Squatting with her laptop balanced on her lap while she hacked into the security cameras at the compound below us. How often had I worried about her, thinking her weak? She’d hidden an entire world from us.
“Is that little fucker not used to field work?”
Lyra paused typing. “No. Plus, he’s with Ellington in the van. That’s probably a harder job than ours will be considering how much he hates him.”
I stiffened at the mention of the fugitive. He was so touchy with Lyra it made my stomach clench to watch them. I didn’t have the right to jealousy.
“Why does he?”
“Ellington isn’t innocent. He used every method he could to get his hands on the evidence I had, including roping Connall in.”
Beck tilted his head. “He went to all this trouble just for the data you kept from Angelo Amato?”
I knew the name, but not the story, and it was unlikely I’d get more, considering how Lyra’s face closed.
“I thought he was the big bad? Is he too scared to get his hands dirty?” Ray tried to lighten the mood.
Lyra torched him with a scathing look. “Jealous?”
Yes.
Ray snatched the binoculars out of my hand, grazing my skin as he did. He turned toward the compound with a huff.
“Is he still combing through the data you collected at the masked gala?”
“Yes. It requires someone with context, and he’s the best person to assist. Since Beck said he wouldn’t do it.”
Beck ran his finger down Lyra’s face. She jabbed his side, but he didn’t let out a sound, only flattened his lips in displeasure.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. Just that I’m not letting you go into danger without protecting you myself.”
“Typical,” Lyra snapped, but her expression turned bright, and she slammed her laptop shut and bundled it into her backpack. “The system is under our control. Connall will monitor it, but all the cameras are dark. It’s go time.”
Lyra moved through the trees without waiting for a reply, and we followed, shadows bound to her feet. A barbed wire fence surrounded the house, except for the front of the building, which looked out over the cliff it was built on, offering a picturesque view of the valley below.
Beck kneeled on the ground and clipped a tiny section as we scanned the surroundings. I pulled my mask up over my nose, breathing in short, hot breaths. My pulse distracted me tonight in a way it never had. I was used to protecting Adelaide, but I’d never done the same thing for Lyra.
The fence shivered as we slid inside its metal mouth.
The frozen ground crunched under our feet, and we used the surrounding trees to cover ourselves until we reached the side door.
From the house layout we’d checked, there was a kitchen directly ahead, and a smaller staircase leading to the second floor.
Larson didn’t like to see his staff cleaning up his mess, it seemed.
Lyra tore the top off the small screen when it demanded a pin and pulled out its insides. She held up two fingers.
Two seconds.
My muscles screamed in the waiting, but they filled with warmth too. Awe. Lyra tried the handle, and the door cracked open. We flooded into a narrow staff corridor.
“Remember, there are three staff members we know of. But not the man of the house.”
“He’s gone off-grid, or he’s still pissed about me name-dropping him last week,” Beck grinned.
He lifted his hand and almost clamped it on Lyra’s shoulder, but she shifted away. How many missions had they done together? How often had they protected each other, and now it was ruined, like our relationship? Beck grimaced, and his hand lingered in the air before it swung back to his side.
“You take care of the staff.” Lyra jerked her head at Beck and Ray.
Ray opened his mouth to argue, eyes flashing. But I shoved his shoulder and shook my head when he let out a puff of surprise.
I’ve got this.
I widened my eyes, looking at Lyra’s disappearing form as she took the staircase. Ray’s chin hit his chest. If he couldn’t look after Lyra, at least he trusted me to do it. Not that she needed my protection.
I caught up to Lyra as she checked each bedroom.
“The safe has to be here somewhere.”
“Larson isn’t the type to think we’d come after him.”
“What makes you say that?” I drifted behind Lyra. “He was paranoid enough to move something here.”
“He’s also living a double life, running Ashden Academy and being on the council. You don’t get either of those positions without a toxic level of arrogance.”
“Has he been there long enough to…” be the one who ordered her mom killed?
Lyra gulped. “Focus.”
Each spotless bedroom smelled of sweet berries and cotton. With the efficiency of a team of ten, Lyra and I scanned each room. Searched behind the ornate silver frames of snowy mountain caps.
I knew what luxury looked like, having worked for the Orazios for years.
But places like this still made me feel uncomfortable.
I was too aware of the sweat seeping into my collar, and the marks my shoes left on the thick carpet.
The grubby, poor child inside me never felt comfortable in these spaces.
The one who only got new clothes when my elbows poked out of my old ones.
When you get used to the taste of mold on bread, you grow up on a different level of poverty.
I could give my mom compassion for how she looked the other way.
Mike brought stability and a regular paycheck.
He was also a predator that she didn’t protect me from.
As Lyra flicked through a drawer full of silk ties, I wondered how similar our childhoods were. She’d never had an actual home either.
Lyra slipped into the last bedroom, the biggest of the three.
The valley was a dark diamond maw from the slick pane of glass that took up an entire wall.
Snowcaps melted into the darkness. The slight snowfall wouldn’t have affected the guards as they looked out on the frozen pool below us.
It would have been romantic, with a little candlelight.
Instead, Lyra flicked on her small flashlight, and the thin beam reminded me of what we were here for.
I rustled through drawers and the small bookcase beside the bed.
A piece of paper slipped out onto the ground, and I shoved it back between the musty pages.
“Here.” Lyra’s whisper shook as she unlatched the top of the bedside table a safe nested in the cavity. Lyra clipped a tiny device she fished from her bag to the embedded digital pad and tapped her comm.
“Yeah.” Connall’s voice filtered to all of us.
The redhead agent of The Unseen was a sullen addition to the ragtag team we’d compiled. Despite his past with Lyra, I didn’t trust him. His jokes concealed a bitterness. You’re jealous that Lyra laughs at them.
“Just linked up a safe, help me out with the code?” Lyra tapped the gun-metal lid of the safe.
“On it. Everything alright?”
“Standard.”
“Give me five, and it will be open.” Connall signed off and muted the comms.