Page 1 of The Twilight Theft

Chapter 1

Jayce

Ifyou’veseenonebillionaire’s office, you’ve seen them all. Lots of leather, marble, and dark wood. Plus a wall of windows overlooking the Potomac. Clean as a whistle.

I hopped off Gideon Tremaine’s gargantuan desk and stretched my back. My watch buzzed with a notification.

Step one complete.

“Can I take out the card now?”

“The Trojan is in. Now we wait for it to find a way into his data.” The distracted female voice over my earpiece was punctuated by a keyboard clacking in her background. “Give me five minutes to be sure I don’t need to intervene.”

“Five minutes, check.” I smoothed out the cleaner’s uniform I wore. It was a simple baby blue button-front shirt with black pants. A bit stuffy for my taste, but it ticked the most important box—designed for movement.

Five minutes.

Two large paintings hung on the wall opposite the windows, with a four-foot-tall sculpture on a short pedestal between them. Books and knickknacks that probably cost more than my condo. But it was the huge red and black graffiti-like painting on the other side of the room that had been calling to me since I’d arrived. I had time for a peek.

I strolled across the expanse toward the black leather couches, dragging a hand over the smooth surface of the one in my way, as I detoured around it. “He’s got a giant piece of art, I’m sure’s a Basquiat. Would it be a total cliché if he hid a safe behind it?”

“Don’t touch,” drawled a male voice over my earpiece. “We’re here for intel.”

“Except…” I let the word hang in the air. Good thing it was only Brie and Emmett on the line. Anyone else and they’d be putting a stop to the job.

“Jayce?” he said. “We’re not here looking for trouble.”

“I never golookingfor trouble.”

“Just tends to find you somehow?”

Sometimes. I knelt on the couch beneath the painting and pressed my face against the wall. It was perfectly flush. Hard-mounted. Maybe there was a catch somewhere? A button to press? More likely a false trigger with an alarm. “What if I have it open in less than five?”

“You only have four left,” said Brie.

“I can see the catch.” Halfway up on the right side, I’d only have to flick it and the painting would swing away from the wall, revealing whatever marvel Gideon Tremaine had hidden behind it.

Emmett cleared his throat. “You know he made his money in tech securi— Shit! Abort. Abort.”

I flew away from the wall, leaped over the coffee table in front of me, and vaulted over the back of the other couch. We were supposed to have another hour.Grab the drive. Grab your phone. Grab the cleaning cart. Go.“Which abort?”

“Plan F.”

“What?” Brie’s quick response heightened the rush of adrenaline through my bloodstream.

Nectar of the gods.

“I’m not done,” she said.

Plan F was an emergency backup, not a plan. Only to be used when—“Who’s with him?”—someone was coming who’d recognize me and not let me slip away.

“Drew Donovan.” Emmett was so quiet. They must have been passing by his sentry position.

That changed everything.

I had a minute, tops.

With the tiny drive tucked into a small compartment in my bra, I snatched a bottle of cleaning fluid and a rag from the cart and darted to the bathroom at the far end of the room. I closed the door and pressed an ear to it. Two male voices filtered in from the other side of the door. They were already in the office.

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