Page 15 of The Scarab's Game

I never put the sketchbook in with the spine up. If the pages faced the bottom, there were too many chances they’d get ripped, torn, or folded. I always put it spine down to protect it.

Someonehadbeen in my room. And they’d gone through my things.

Chapter 7

Emmett

Jenn blanchedwhen she checked her laptop bag. She’d seen something that said my suspicions were right—her room had been broken into.

But who?

She was working for Massimo De Rosa, even if only for a week, which meant my top suspects were his staff, an enemy, or hell, it could have been law enforcement. Someone was looking for information from her.

Wrapping my hand around hers, I tugged her gently away from the desk. My team was on the way, and they’d take care of things.

“My sketch?—”

I placed a finger against her lips, and her eyes widened. A cursory check around the room hadn’t revealed any listening devices, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any. If I broke into someone’s room for intel, it would be to take something, photograph something, or plant a bug. Leaving everything so tidy meant they didn’t want her to know they’d been there. Andthatmeant they either had the photographs they wanted or had hidden a bug.

She drew closer as we walked toward the door, wrapping her free hand around my arm. She was afraid, probably confused, and all she had was me.

‘Your father betrayed his country. I bet you’d do the same to Jenn.’Mr. Thatcher’s words crowded my brain, but I pushed them aside, like I’d been doing since I was fifteen. My father had raised me properly for the first decade, despite being a traitor, and Mr. Thatcher had simply joined a chorus of critics who judged me for my father’s actions.

But today, I had higher priorities than my ghosts.

When I opened the door, Rav, Drew, and Jayce filed in. They’d been waiting, knowing better than to make any noise like knocking. The former soldier, spy, and thief nodded as they passed us, while I took Jenn into the hallway to wait.

They’d sweep the room for any hidden microphones or cameras. Depending on what they found, they’d remove the devices, deactivate them, or leave them in place. Cameras would be removed, since they would have spotted me.

But microphones? If there were any in the bathroom where Jenn and I had talked, they’d all need to go—whoever planted them would know we’d found them. But anything else might allow us to trace them back to a monitoring station.

Jenn sagged against the wall and pressed her palms over her eyes.

There’d be questions soon. I’d reacted the way Mum had taught me to—identify all plausible scenarios, determine the most likely ones, and mitigate the risks. In this case, the biggest risk was a person in the room. Finding none, I assumed a trap. Third, maybe it was an intel-gathering job. A simple break-in was the last item on my list.

Jenn didn’t know what Reynolds Recoveries really did. Sure, she knew we recovered missing items and delivered valuables from place to place. But we were more than that. An expertheist crew that recovered stolen items for their rightful owners. Advanced tech, infiltration specialists, spies, and investigators. Our vault specialist was a safecracker. Our art appraiser was a forger. Our cybersecurity team was a group of hackers.

And I’d let her catch a glimpse of that.

I pulled her hands down and kept my voice to a whisper. “Was there something wrong with your laptop bag?”

“It’s just for sketches,” she muttered. “Flowers, buildings, faces, hands. It’s nothing important.”

What did that mean?

“The book in my bag.” Her chin quivered as she spoke. “It was in the wrong position.”

That settled it. Someone had targeted her.

I gave her an easy smile, an attempt to calm her nerves. “Let’s go upstairs to my room while the team works. I don’t want to bother the other guests with our chatter.”

She shuddered more than nodded, and we walked in silence to the elevators, then rode up to the fifth floor. Hand-in-hand, we made our way to the two-bedroom suite I shared with Rav. Our room was safe, clear of bugs. We always swept our rooms for listening devices before settling in and used entry detectors to keep out anyone who didn’t belong.

Inside our suite, the two bedrooms were to the right, down a small hallway with a closet and a bathroom. I guided her to the left, to the sitting room, so we could talk. The room was casually luxurious. A delicate chandelier with over a hundred tiny lights, like spun gold, hung over the round table that would be perfect for cards or dining. A low, multi-tiered table sat between the two full sofas in soft brown velvet, with another chandelier above it.

The outside wall was all floor-to-ceiling windows. A wide door led to the terrace, with its thick stone balustrade and seating for two. Jenn lowered herself onto the edge of the sofa,staring out at the terrace and the view of the Mediterranean beyond.

I sat next to her. “Rav and the team will be up in a few minutes.”