Page 73 of The San Marco Heist

“Wuss,” said Brie.

“You are not ganging up on me with them.”

“I totally am.”

“Fine. If you can release the parking brake and put it into drive, I’ll see what I can do.”

It had rotated enough that Scarlett and I were on the far side of the car, with it blocking everyone’s view of us. She pitched forward quickly, balancing on her waist, half inside the car. “Done and done.”

I helped tip her back up as Will continued.

“All it’s going to do is roll forward, so I don’t know how much chaos you were hoping for, but this will only be a little chaotic.”

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” I said. “Scarlett and I go back into the lounge. We admire the items on the shelves, and when the car is facing the display with the ring, you start it up. If we’re lucky, it careens into the shelf, breaks the glass, and there’s enough attention on the car that one of us can grab the ring.”

Scarlett stood, looking up and down the length of the car. “And if we’re unlucky, someone has enough of their wits about them to hop into it and put it into park.”

“Brie, I want every alarm in this house going off the second either of us gets close to the glass in the lounge display case.”

“Can do. I have eyes on you in the security feed and have most of the alarms at the ready.”

I straightened and offered Scarlett my elbow, which she took. “Eloise, my love, let’s go look at those beautiful jewelry pieces you were admiring earlier.”

“Jayce and Declan,” she said, “with the alarms going off, you have a fifty-fifty chance that the guy patrolling the roof goes inside or becomes more vigilant. But there’s a one hundred percent chance someone will race to the security control room. You two need to get out of the house now.”

Brie said, “I’ll shut down the internal feeds, routing all displays to my system. Once you’re clear, I’ll start wiping their recordings back to Wednesday when you were in the first time.”

“Back that up to Tuesday,” said Scarlett, “so we avoid any chance they detect the drone and it will give them additional suspects with the event planners.”

I placed a hand on the glass door and paused before opening it. “I’m surprised you’re going along with this.”

Scarlett squeezed her arm around mine. “It’s just crazy enough it might work.”

“Ican’t believe I’m doing this,” muttered Will. “My first chance to operate a super car and I’m going to intentionally crash it.”

We strolled into the lounge together, while another pair of men left to admire the cars. More people clogged the space around the pool, older socialites from the looks of them, more interested in a chat than in the loud music outside. Three new women stood in front of the display wall, focused on a foot-high blue-and-white Ming vase with images of warriors on horseback.

“It’s coming around,” said Will. “Make sure nobody gets hurt.”

I slid my arm around Scarlett’s waist, letting her guide me, while I kept my head down and split my attention between her and the car. It was almost pointed in our direction. So long as Will aimed it at the display, where we stood, there were only a few people I’d have to move.

Scarlett pointed at the belt buckle. “You see the little golden balls? That’s called granulation. Very difficult work for the goldsmiths. They’d cut small pieces of gold and put them under fire until they balled up like that, and then fused them to the buckle. One wrong move, a little too much heat, and the whole thing—”

“Why, Eloise…” said a man in a deep, creaky voice.

Scarlett’s body tensed for the barest of a moment—something I would have missed if I didn’t have my arm around her.

Shit. Thomas Maguire had snuck up on us while we were plotting. “That hardly sounds like the woman who thought illuminations were lightbulbs.”

“Oh, don’t be silly.” Scarlett adopted an airy quality to her voice, which didn’t suit her brilliant brain. She also shifted her posture, to one reminding me of how she stood by the Velatti, playing up her natural curves and the scandalous dress. “I heard someone else talking about it.”

“You promised you were mine after one dance.” He stepped closer to her and gripped her arm. “And, Malcolm, you said you were leaving.”

A growl built deep in my throat at the way he touched her. Like she was a thing to be possessed. I’d never liked that man, but we could hardly get into a pissing match right now. “She changed my mind.”

“Oh, boys.” Scarlett swatted his chest and thrust out one hip. “You’re not going to duel over me, are you?”

“Time to change your mind again, Malcolm.” Thomas didn’t bother to look at me. It didn’t matter that I was inches taller or that I could have picked him up and thrown his skinny little ass into the pool. It didn’t matter that my arm was around her or that he’d watched us practically making out for the last half-hour. He was used to getting his way, regardless of who he had to go through.

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