Page 65 of The Eagle's Vault

NotI’ll protect youis good in the vault, butI’ll protect youat Ferraro’s is bad. NotI want to kiss younow, thenI don’t want to listen to you.

“Fuck,” I muttered, trying to forget Leigh’s face as she’d stormed off. I thought keeping her safe was what she wanted. That’s what women liked, right? A protective arm? A sturdy presence?

It was easier than expressing the jumbled emotions I wrestled with. I unzipped a side pocket and pulled out one of my lock pick sets. It only reminded me of her skill. The speed she picked the curved keyway faster than I did.

“Women,” I huffed out, tossing the picks onto the bed. “Easier cracking an Eisenhart VIII.”

God, the vault. It had been all of a day and a half since the world went to shit. Her frightened eyes mirroring the cold steel enclosure. But she’d found comfort in me that night, appreciated my hand on her cheek and arm around her in the van.

I’d thought I was giving her that again at Giovanni’s. Safety. Stability.

My hands traveled deeper into the bag, pulling out a stethoscope. The way her heart had beat against mine in the garden. Those deep-brown eyes, her gaze warm like the Italian sun. They always had a distant sadness, but not in the garden. They’d flared with heat and longing—the same longing I’d felt.

“It was just a fucking kiss, Dec.” I ran a hand over my face.

But it wasn’t just a kiss. It was the catacombs under Rome, the tension and the danger, the metallic taste of fear and excitement. The intense hunger behind the kiss. Then Rav’s fucking interruption.

And then, just like that, she’d stormed off. I’d thought I was doing right by her. I’d thought our kiss meant something.

I pulled out another piece of equipment, a magnetic case for my phone, and laid it on the table. Sighing, I looked over the array of tools, my own personal chaos mirroring the storm in my head.

“What was so wrong with me saying that?” I asked the empty room, receiving only silence in return.

My fingers brushed against an unexpected object in the duffel’s bottom, and I pulled out a book—Hartley’sVaults of the World. Leigh’s book. The worn corners, the soft texture of its well-thumbed pages—a stark contrast to the cold precision of my gear. A rush of memories cascaded through me.

“Women,” I whispered, staring at the book.

That was her world, built from paper and ink. A woman who designed vaults from steel, yet harbored a secret love for softer arts. From the day we met, something about her had pulled me closer. She wasn’t just another job or another woman. She was Leigh Barton.

It hadn’t started that day at Edoardo’s.

It had started a month prior. The night I’d snuck into the Barton Safes and Locks building with Scarlett and Rav, searching for some specs. We needed all the details we could find about the case for the Codex of San Marco. The case Leigh had designed was a masterpiece.

Yeah. Some part of me wanted that woman from the moment I laid eyes on her engineering drawings.

Then I got to know her laugh. Her smile.

The way she lit up when we talked shop or she was teasing about filing that chain key faster than me. But how she shut down so completely every time someone said just the wrong thing?

It was only Saturday night. In the pre-dawn hours of Friday morning, we’d hustled to pack up our stuff, trying to stay one step ahead of the Cassaforte fallout. I’d shoved Leigh’s books into my bag, not thinking, just moving. And in the confusion and panic, I’d forgotten about them, just as I’d tucked my feelings for her in a corner of my head.

I scanned the room, as if expecting her to materialize, standing there with downcast eyes or fiddling with the hem of her shirt.

Why hadn’t she reminded me about the books? Did she forget them too? Or did she just not care as much as I’d thought? Staring at the book, I muttered, “Guess you’re just as confusing as a woman, eh?”

No reply, of course. I returned to my preparations for the catacombs recon, the books a silent reminder of the wrong priorities, which were dominating my brain.

A knock on the door cut through my thoughts. I set the book down, my hand lingering on the cover before I moved to the door. Peering through the peephole, I found Rav’s stoic face.

I opened the door, leaning against the frame. “What? Can’t let a man wallow in his existential crisis in peace?”

Rav snorted, stepping into the room. “I’m here to check on your prep. We going light tonight?”

I waved toward my duffel, its contents sprawled over the bed and side table. “Just reconnaissance. Brought some extra flashlight batteries. Most of my tools are for metal safes, not thousand-year-old catacombs.”

Rav picked up the magnetic case, giving it a once-over before putting it back down. “And the notebook? You’ve been looking at the photos?”

I rolled my eyes and turned to my gear, stuffing the tools into my mission backpack. “Yes, Mom, I did my homework.”

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