Page 15 of The San Marco Heist

Step three. Get the gun off me. Four in one day was four too many.

“Okay, so talk,” she said.

This wasn’t how I’d expected the next meeting with her to go. If I’d known she was going to pull a gun on me, I wouldn’t have worked so hard to have Emmett give me her phone number. Mind you, if Emmett had given it to me and he’d introduced us, things probably would have gone better. “He and I were at a poker game in New York—”

The gun relaxed slightly. What it was in reaction to, I wasn’t sure.

“All above board, until those three showed up. They came straight for him and me, hauling us out of the hotel suite where the game was being held.”

“Whose game was it?”

How did that matter? “They held guns on the entire room. Our hosts weren’t behind it. And even if they were, I don’t know how they linked us to this Codex they want.”

She was good. Not a flicker of emotion crossed her face. Only caution, an extended gun, and sharp questions. And no hint she knew what the Codex was.

“They said Emmett was at Phillip Maguire’s party to steal it.”

“Really?” Her aim retrained on me. “You saw the two of us on our way out. Did you see us carrying whatever they were talking about?”

I nearly held my smirk at bay. “I don’t know about him, but your dress wasn’t hiding anything.”

Still no reaction.

“Not that it matters, because Emmett confessed.”

“He’s never confessed to a single thing in his life.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

Her eyebrow quirked. Considering her lack of response until this point, that was a question, and a controlled one at that.

“He told them you could get it for them.” That information hadn’t come easily. He’d resisted, and they’d taken a couple of shots at me for good measure, but when they threatened to take fingers, he caved. “I have a feeling they’re serious.”

“You were there?” She held up the phone with the video paused at the end, on Emmett’s face. “When they did this—you were there?”

“I was.”

“And what did you do about it?”

I dropped my hands from where they’d been raised. “They flew me up here on a charter jet, so they know I’ve arrived. They told me they’d call in an hour and a half to check in. Maybe we should focus on getting the Codex instead of on this interrogation?”

Her attention flitted to the front window and back to me, as though expecting someone to be waiting outside. “Why’d they send you alone?”

“Funny enough, I didn’t get the villain monologue.”Stop taunting the woman with the gun, Mal.

She stared at me for a few beats, then grabbed a set of keys from a hanger by the door. “I don’t have the Codex. Not here. I assume they’re calling on your phone?”

“That’s what they told me.”

“So my options are to tie you up and leave you here while I deal with this or bring you with me.” She paused again. Still not betraying a single thought in that gorgeous head, but speaking volumes, all the same. Scarlett was a thinker. She was working through a plan and wasn’t certain what the outcome was yet. Every pause was an opportunity for me to influence that plan.

“Considering you need to hurry, and I’m sure you want to continue the interrogation, I think option two’s the better one.” Plus, it would give me a chance to study her further. The sweatshirt hadn’t been what I was hoping for, but she pulled it off nicely.

She circled the gun in my direction. “Turn around. The only way this happens is if you’re zip-tied and hooded. You try anything funny, and that cute little face is going to get real messy.”

Cute little face, really? She may not have shown many emotions, but she was susceptible to one of my greatest strengths. I turned around and placed my hands behind my back. Was a smartass comment appropriate or not?

Before I could decide, she shoved the gun against my shoulder and the zip ties were on me. A lick of pain shot through my side—where the clowns had gotten in several good shots before they realized Emmett’s team had taken the Codex, not mine—as she wrenched them tight. Great. This wasn’t a simple home zip tie. It had a double cuff.

---