Page 24 of The Scarab's Game

An innocent response.Excellent restraint, Em.Didn’t hurt that it was also true.

“He’s out front,” Dante snarled. “Why are you back here?”

Jenn set the light bar down and rounded the table, standing between me and the angry Italian. “He walked me over this morning. Jean-Philippe wasn’t here when we arrived, so I asked him to give me a hand setting up.”

Fire blazed in Dante’s dark eyes. We were roughly the same height and weight, and in roughly the same physical shape. He didn’t intimidate me—not when I worked with Rav every day. His eyes lowered to Jenn, and all the anger vanished. His smile broke.

And I wanted to tell him she was staying with me.

Petty?

Fuck, yeah.

“You’re making progress already this morning?”

“I am.” Her back was to me, but I didn’t need to see her face. Her smile sounded in her words.

He looked at me again and jerked his head to the side. “Let me see you to the front desk.”

“Absolutely.” I wrapped an arm around Jenn as I passed her, giving her a full squeeze. Also petty. To her, I said, “I’ll be back once I’m done with JP. Holler if you need me.”

“Thanks, Em.” She closed the door behind us as we left, likely returning to her ultraviolet investigation.

Dante walked me through the small office, past a desk with a computer and a huge monitor. Books and collections lined the walls, stamped with years and auction-house names. In the hallway, he flung his arm toward the front of the gallery. “Your meeting is that way.”

Yes, my meeting. With the man who wouldn’t likely have the information I needed. I groaned deep inside—it was time to use Jenn a little more. “Jenn had a scare last night.”

His arm dropped, and a look of what might have been concern creased his brow. “What happened?”

If I didn’t know who he was, I could have believed the worry in his voice.Come on, Em, he was probably behind it. Him or his father. “Someone was in her room.”

“Someone other than housekeeping?”

I raised a doubtful eyebrow, making it clear I knew he wasn’t so thick. “You think that would scare her?”

His eyes left me and searched the hallway, as though he might find answers there. That reaction was more genuine than I’d expected. “Who, then?”

“I don’t know.” I mirrored him, letting my gaze travel away from our conversation, taking in a few details I’d missed about the hallway, including the security camera I hadn’t seen last time. I’d have to warn Jayce about that. “But it scared her.”

Dante placed a hand over his mouth and exhaled slowly. “Did the police find anything?”

Was he toying with me? If he had access to the bugs, he’d know the police hadn’t been by, so that was an easy question to throw me off. But he’d also know Jenn hadn’t returned to her hotel room.

“No.” Time for another salvo. “They cordoned off the room and are taking fingerprints this morning.”

“Bene, bene,” he muttered, his hand slipping to his heart. “I’ll arrange for a different room for her. She can’t stay there.”

I didn’t like this. Either he was the smoothest liar I’d ever met, or he was being honest. No tells, no ticks, nothing that said he was searching for the right words. Every twitch of his muscles screamed honesty.

But when you grow up with a father like Massimo, you learn to mask the truth young, don’t you?

Speaking from experience, Emmett? Which one of your parents taught you how to twist people until they did what you wanted?

“I’ve already taken care of it,” I said.

His irritation with me flared back to life. “Youhave taken care of it?”

I was supposed to win him over, not taunt him about my relationship with Jenn. “We switched her into a new room with better security, just in case.”