Page 54 of Deadly Protector
“Go, get the painting,” he said softly as he worked.
Ava didn’t respond, simply raced away into the dark home.
“Vehicle approaching,” Don said into the quiet. Then, “It’s nothing. They kept going, pulling into the neighbor’s drive now.”
“I’ve got eyes on the painting,” Ava whispered.
Dimitri shelved all that as background noise as he continued working, his fingers flying across the keyboard. He’d written this code himself, had put it to good use plenty of times during his contract work. And he’d been practicing today at the warehouse.
But there was a sense of urgency that never happened until he was working a real job. With real consequences.
Beeeep.The alarm clicked off suddenly.
And he shoved out a sigh of relief. He unhooked the device, then tucked it back into his duffel bag along with his other tools. “We’re in and I’ve made it look like the system is resetting itself after an update,” he said along the comm line. “We’ve got three minutes before we need to reset it, or if someone is monitoring the security system, they’ll know something is off.”
“Cameras are fine,” Don said. “Nothing’s changed and no one will know I’m in the system.”
In the past Dimitri had worked the security cameras and the alarm system but Irene had wanted someone else handling the cameras. Which was just as well. They hadn’t had enough time to do recon and he was literally depending on someone else who’d gathered the intel.
He didn’t like doing a job like this. It left far too much up in the air. But he was wearing gloves and a mask so if someone tried to screw him over and use video footage of him breaking in here, it wouldn’t exist.
Still, he was very aware of the clock ticking away, letting him know he needed to be fast.
Hurrying after Ava, he used a flashlight to guide his path. He found her in a large study, rolling up the painting she’d cut straight from a gilded frame and putting it into a container.
“You see a safe?” he asked even as he started making his way through the room, looking under the other hanging paintings.
“Nope.” She snapped her fingers once, then lifted a hand to her ear.
Using his flashlight, he saw her motion that she was shutting off her comm.
He muted his. “What’s up?”
“Take the painting, make sure it gets to Irene. I’m not getting back in that SUV.”
The hair on the back of his neck stood up. “Why not?” He actually wasn’t planning on it either, but he didn’t like new things cropping up during a job.
“Because I don’t trust Irene and I know you don’t either.”
“What about your cut?”
She grinned and patted the pockets on her tactical-style pants. “I’m good and now I’m square with that bitch.”
Ah, she must have taken a handful of jewels, if he had to guess. Always easy money. He snorted softly. “I’ll get it to the SUV.”
She narrowed her gaze on him. “You’re not on this job willingly either, are you?”
He shook his head.
That seemed to satisfy her, though it was hard to tell with her mask. “Hopefully I never see you again.”
“Same. Be safe,” he murmured.
She paused, then nodded and raced out of there.
He picked up the cylinder, grabbed a vase he recognized as quality on the way out, then reset the alarm before he strolled out the front door. After clicking the comm back on, he said, “On my way to you guys.” As he stepped past the big security gate, peered out onto the street, a light from inside a vehicle flashed once.
Lyosha.
