Page 39 of The Eagle's Vault

There it was again. The slip of information. They’dstayed out of trouble, like they weren’t just security experts. Like he’d mentioned cracking safes instead of testing them.

I wanted details, but at the same time, his proximity offered a comfort that was as soothing as his words were unsettling. Even if he was a thief, he was looking out for me.

Without smothering.

I shifted closer to him, absorbing the calm his strong arm provided. His warm scent. His solid frame. I’d known this man all of a week, but here I was, snuggling up to him.

And then he kissed me.

Chaste, protective, right on my temple—kissed me.

I looked up at him, at his lips, his soft smile. The thought of more flared in my mind, wild and untamed. It was ridiculous. Here we were, in the midst of a crisis, and all I could think of was how his lips might feel against mine, how a kiss might help calm my racing heart.

About ripping the thermal suit off him, to see those muscles it highlighted.

My cheeks warmed at the thought, the blush hopefully hidden by the dim light in the van.

“We did well back there.” Declan’s tone was casual, but the praise was welcome. “You were amazing in the vault. Not gonna lie, I was a bit ticked you beat me to it. But I needed you to be that good.”

“You were… you did really good, too.” My words were clunky, inadequate, but they were all I had to offer in the moment, when I was imagining his hand brushing my belly on its way between my thighs.

His lips parted, gaze dropping to my mouth. He felt it, too. It wasn’t just me.

As the silence between Declan and me stretched, Jayce cleared her throat, jolting me back to reality. She held the journal open over her shoulder from the middle row, with a photo I couldn’t see clearly without more light. “It’s full of notes about some ancient vault.”

Vault? My heart leaped inside my chest, almost strong enough to tear my eyes from Declan.

Scarlett’s attention left the laptop and she snatched the journal. “I know him.”

“The guy in the photo?” asked Jayce.

“That’s Dr. Daniel Weber.”

Who?

Rav said, “The early Roman fresco specialist?”

“Look through it, Dec.” Scarlett handed the journal over her shoulder to Declan, breaking the spell between the two of us. She looked down at the laptop again. “Brie, see if you can find anything that links Daniel Weber to that safe deposit box.”

“On it,” came her quick reply.

Declan unwound his arm from my shoulders slowly, then leafed through the notebook.

“Why would Edoardo want it?” I asked, my gaze lingering on the worn journal that had thrown our lives into chaos. “And why involve your team?”

“I don’t know.” He pulled out his phone, turning on the flashlight and shining it over the pages.

Dark pen scratches covered the surface, starting in a tight, precise hand, shifting into a hurried scrawl as the pages progressed. Maybe twenty pages had been filled, including images of golden spirals, the Fibonacci sequence, and three-dimensional sketches of Platonic solids.

“The vault’s at the back,” said Jayce.

Declan handed the phone to me so he could flip to the end. And there it was. The smiling photo of the man Scarlett recognized, surrounded by three others, all in front of a stone wall. Somewhere underground. Declan slid it away to reveal a two-page spread of diagrams. One large rectangular door with notes and arrows, pointing to the hinges, to some sort of cylinder at the top, and a listing of Zodiac signs decorating it.

I moved the photo so Declan’s camera light illuminated it. “That’s what they’re standing in front of. Some sort of stone vault?”

“Take photos,” said Scarlett, glancing over her shoulder. “We may need them.”

Declan nodded and took the phone back, handing me the notebook so he could capture the contents.

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