25. Rafe
RAFE
THE BUST DIDN'T SURVIVE THE KISS
The east window burst outward before I reached the gate.
Glass flashed across the lawn in a bright spray, followed a second later by the dull concussion of something detonating inside the house. Not large enough to bring down a wall but precise enough to open one.
Max lunged toward the sound, barking hard.
Quinn’s grip on my wrist tightened.
She was pale from the shock of the blast, but her grip held. Her eyes were wide and furious.
“Stay behind me,” I said.
“I already gave you my counteroffer.”
“And I already said this isn’t a negotiation.”
“Then stop making proposals.”
There were moments in life when a person either argued or acted. Quinn, unfortunately, had a gift for making me want to do both.
The service van sat outside the bars at an angle that made no practical sense unless it had been parked quickly. Max barked again, nose pointed toward the rear doors.
“Explosives in the van?” I asked.
“Or residue,” Quinn said. “Or equipment. Or something close enough that Max hates it.”
The distinction didn’t reassure me.
Max pulled toward the van, but I caught Quinn’s eye.
“The house first,” I said.
We crossed the drive at a run.
The front doors were still closed. The blast had come from the east side, but whoever owned that van hadn’t fled. They were inside and working.
I reached the doors, found them locked, and broke the mechanism with one hard twist. Quinn winced at the sound but didn’t flinch away.
The entry hall had gone half-dark. Emergency lights glowed red along the baseboards. Somewhere deeper in the house, an alarm tried to start and died after two weak notes.
“They cut it,” Quinn whispered.
The stench of smoke, dust, heated metal, and the bitter chemical trace Max probably had warned us about permeated the air.
Dimitris’s staff were nowhere in sight.
Neither was Dimitris.
We moved through the hall toward the east gallery. Max kept silent now, which was worse than his barking. Every line of him had gone sharp with work. Quinn held the leash loosely, giving him room to read the space without letting him range too far.
At the first archway, I held up a hand.
Voices.
Three men. Maybe four.
“Second crate’s ready,” one said.
“Skip the bronze masks. He wants the sealed pieces and anything marked pre-War.”
“That wasn’t on the map.”
“Then use your fucking eyes.”
Quinn looked at me. The map. Of course.
Dimitris had shown his home to a documentary crew. His galleries. His security. His private rooms. His vanity had practically given thieves a floor plan and lighting cues.
I should have enjoyed the irony. Dimitris was an arrogant asshole, but that didn’t make what was happening right. My only wish was that I could get Max and Quinn somewhere safe before having to intervene.
I motioned for Quinn and Max to stay put.
I moved.
The east gallery had been gutted by the small blast. One window was gone, the frame blackened around the edges.
A portable jammer sat on a pedestal where a carved figure had once stood.
Two thieves were packing objects into foam-lined cases with grim speed.
A third stood near the inner door wearing a utility jacket, one hand near a compact weapon at his belt.
Not a gun, something likely worse. Olden Folk work attracted specialized tools.
The man by the door saw me.
His hand moved.
I crossed the room before he cleared the weapon.
He was fast. I was faster.
I caught his wrist, drove him back into the wall, and heard bone give before the weapon clattered to the floor. The other two turned. One reached for a baton that snapped awake with blue-white current along its length.
“Rafe,” Quinn said from behind me.
“I see it. Stay back.”
“Do you?”
The man swung.
I caught the baton on my forearm because arrogance was apparently contagious inside Dimitris’s house.
Pain locked my muscles. It wasn’t ordinary electricity.
Something tuned to shifter physiology. My arm seized, shoulder to fingertips, and the thief used the opening well.
He drove a knee toward my ribs. I turned enough to take it on my hip, shoved him back, and felt the current bite again when the baton grazed my side.
The second man pulled a matching device.
Small crew. Professional. Prepared for someone like me.
That wasn’t reassuring.
I let heat build in my throat.
“No fire,” Quinn snapped.
I froze.
She was looking past me, not at the thieves. At the open cases. At the small gray blocks packed beside the gallery door, wires coiled neatly near them.
“I thought C4 was stable,” one thief said, almost conversationally.
“It is,” Quinn said. “The detonators are less so.”
The man blinked at her.
That was the moment Max moved.
Quinn gave one clipped command. “Suchen.”
Max lunged.
He hit the thief nearest the detonator bag hard enough to drive the man off balance and away from the wires. The thief cursed and swung his arm down. Quinn was already there, grabbing a marble bust from a pedestal. She was abysmal at following my directions, but she was magnificent.
For one absurd second, some museum-trained part of my brain registered the object as Ptolemaic, possibly original, likely priceless.
Then Quinn hit the thief in the shoulder with it.
He went down.
The bust didn’t break.
“Oh, thank God,” she panted. “I was worried it would break.”
The second thief came at her.
I caught him by the front of his jacket and threw him into the wall hard enough to crack plaster. The baton fell from his hand. He reached for a knife, and I pinned him there, teeth aching with the urge to shift, but there was no room.
Behind me, the first thief groaned. Max stood over him, teeth bared, waiting for one wrong move.
“Call off the mutt,” the man rasped.
Quinn, breathing hard and still holding the bust, said, “Try asking with manners.”
He stared at her.
Rage and fear didn’t mix well in my blood. I could feel both moving through me, crowding out thought. Quinn was too close to explosives. Too close to armed men. Too close to every consequence I had failed to prevent by letting her come with me.
Then she looked at me.
“Rafe,” she said.
Only my name.
I released the thief. He slid down the wall, dazed but breathing. I took the knife from his hand, crushed the hilt, and tossed it aside.
“Clear?” Quinn asked.
“No.”
Because the room had gone too quiet.
The fourth man hadn’t attacked.
He stood near the broken window in a black service uniform, face half-shadowed by a cap. He held no weapon. He carried no case. He only watched us with mild interest, as though measuring an experiment.
The glamour around him was excellent.
I felt it when he shifted his weight. Magic didn’t smell like fire or metal. It tasted like a lie held too long in the mouth.
“Luke Gildstein,” I said.
Quinn’s head turned sharply.
The man’s mouth curved. “That took longer than I hoped.”
Then he was gone. The air folded around him, light bending just enough to empty the space where he had stood.
Max snarled.
Quinn’s hand tightened on the leash.
I moved toward the window, but another sound came from deeper in the house: a crash, then Dimitris Burelian’s unmistakable voice shouting something furious in a language I didn’t recognize.
Quinn looked toward the hall. “He’s still alive.”
“For now.”
“Do we go after Luke or Dimitris?”
I hated the answer. “Dimitris knows where the secured room is. Luke needs him. They’ll be together.”
“Great. Love when the hostage is also a smug nightmare.”
A laugh rose in my chest and came out as a puff of air.
One of the thieves on the floor shifted toward the detonator bag.
Max’s growl dropped lower.
“Do not,” Quinn said.
The man stopped.
I looked at Quinn, really looked. Her hair had come loose from its pins. Dust marked one cheek. Her hands trembled around the bust, but her eyes were clear and fixed on mine.
“You’re hurt,” I said.
“I’m not.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I just assaulted a man with an artifact. My nervous system has notes.”
I crossed to her before I could reconsider. “Quinn.”
“I’m okay.”
“You could have been killed.”
“You too.”
“It’s not the same.”
Her face changed. “It is to me.”
The words struck harder than the baton.
For one second, the room fell away: broken glass, smoke, groaning thieves, the faint whine of disabled security. All that remained was Quinn standing in front of me, alive, furious, terrified for me, and holding a priceless bust as if she might use it again if the situation called for it.
I wanted to touch her.
I didn’t know where I had the right.
Then she set the bust on the nearest table with great care, stepped into me, grabbed the front of my jacket, and kissed me.
There was no time to think.
There was no negotiation, no careful weighing of consequence. Only Quinn’s mouth on mine, her hands fisted in my lapels, her whole body trembling with adrenaline and relief.
I caught her face between my hands and kissed her back, the restraint I had carried for weeks breaking cleanly into certainty.
She made a small sound against my mouth, and I felt it everywhere.
I angled closer, one hand sliding to her back, the other still at her jaw. She tasted like fear and mint and the tea she had probably finished on the ride here. Her fingers tightened in my jacket, dragging me down as if she had been waiting for the same permission I had refused to give myself.
Behind us, something cracked.
We broke apart, reluctantly, and I could still taste her, still feel the heat of her on my lips.
The bust had rolled off the table and landed on the floor.
This time, it broke.
Quinn stared at it.
I stared at it.
One of the thieves groaned, “That was worth more than my life.”
Quinn, breathless, looked up at me. “For the record, I didn’t break it during the assault.”
“No,” I acknowledged, still holding her.
Her laugh broke out of her, then disappeared when Dimitris shouted again, closer this time, followed by the sound of running feet.
The moment ended, but it didn’t vanish.
It stayed in my hands. In my mouth. In the place beneath my ribs where fear had been and something larger now stood beside it.
Quinn looked toward the hall.
Max had already turned, body low and ready.
I released her only because I had to.
“We finish this,” I said.
She nodded, then wiped dust from her cheek with the back of her hand. “Together?”
There were several responsible answers.
I chose the only true one.
“Together.”
Then we ran toward the heart of the house.