Page 47 of The Scarab's Game

“Could be a different truck, if they’re an hour and a half early.” I watched Jayce’s feed, which showed three men loading items from the gallery into the truck. The feed wasn’t clear enough to recognize the men’s faces. “Anyone we know working the truck?”

“No one,” said Jayce.

That eliminated Enzo and Noah, at least. They were the only ones I was worried would come after us. It also meant neither Massimo nor Dante was there. Those two were the money, so they wouldn’t likely dirty their hands with something as tedious as loading boxes.

Dante could certainly manipulate Jenn, though. Maybe I’d have to play the big brother and scare him off instead of scaring her off. I didn’t need to schmooze him anymore since he wouldn’t confess to his father having the scarab.

“—after they’re gone.” Scarlett’s voice snapped me out of my head.

I’d missed something. How much?

Fuck. This is why she’s on the comms.I was ten minutes late, and my sister was covering my ass.

The guys on the video lifted a long crate into the back of the truck—the right size and shape to house a three-by-four-foot painting. Minutes ticked by as they left the truck, returned to the building, and came out with more.

Had they already packed the scarab? It was small enough to have been in a pocket.

My team was patient. They’d go in after the truck left. Or would they? Is that what Scarlett had been talking about? Dante could have removed the scarab when he finished work, planning to drop it off with the auction coordinator. The team had monitored them from the moment they left the gallery, and they’d walked straight to the restaurant, so he hadn’t detoured to Le Rocher.

Unless someone met him at the gallery?

Or he went to the Casino after he dropped Jenn off.

After he’d kissed her. Twice.

C’mon, Em, it was only the cheek. That’s normal.

It wasn’t fucking normal. The way he’d taken her hand and rubbed the statue’s knee. How he’d held her. Touched her face at the restaurant.

“We missed it, didn’t we?” I muttered.

“Missed what?” Jenn’s voice had me practically jumping out of my seat.

Rav grunted over the earpiece, meaning he agreed with me, while Jayce sounded optimistic about breaking in to explore, anyway.

Jenn was barefoot, dressed in a long, plush hotel bathrobe, with her hair in a towel. She’d only been in the shower for twenty minutes, tops. Rogue water droplets clung to the side of her neck, one daring to roll down her collarbone, vanishing underneath the robe’s fabric.

Lucky fucking water.

Unbidden, an image flashed through my brain of following the path of that water droplet, and the one following it. With my thumb, then my mouth. Undoing the thick tie at her waist and peeling the robe back slowly. So slowly.

My cock twitched.

“Is that Enzo?” whispered Jayce over the comms.

My gut clenched, and the budding fantasy vanished.

I angled my laptop, so Jenn couldn’t see the video feed. “It’s just work stuff.”

Scarlett asked over the earpiece, “What’s she doing in your room?”

When Rav stayed with me, we both set up in the living area of our hotel suite. If I were trying to hide what I was doing from Jenn—which I should have been—I would have been in my bedroom, behind a locked door.

Now I was facing a bigger question: How did I answer Scarlett without making Jenn suspicious?

“How was the shower?”Shit.I shouldn’t have said that.

In one ear, my sister asked, her voice thick with accusation, “Shower?”