Cruz gives me a nod that’s almost a salute. “Don’t make us look bad, Bells.”
“Try to keep up,” I murmur with a twist of my lips.
Gage’s gaze lingers on my face a heartbeat too long, something hot and unreadable in it. For a moment, it feels like I’m pinned between the two of them—Cruz’s cool calculation on one side, Gage’s coiled heat on the other.
“Twenty-five minutes,” Gage reminds me quietly. “Not twenty-six.”
“Relax,” I say, even if my pulse is anything but. “I know how to do my job.”
Rafe’s fingers wrap around my wrist again, firmly this time. “C’mon,” he says, a grin flickering at the corner of his mouth. “We’ve got a date with a safe.”
We pass the first door, the one Cruz and Gage will hit with Lola. My boots are near-silent on the carpet runner, Rafe’s steps matching mine in an easy, quick rhythm.
Our door waits at the very end—a plain, forgettable slab with a cheap keypad lock.
“Showtime,” I whisper.
Rafe’s grin sharpens. “Watch this.”
He drops my wrist, pulls a small leather roll from his back pocket, and flicks it open one-handed. Slim tools glint in the emergency light—steel, practiced and precise. His fingers move fast but unhurried, like muscle memory, finding seams and weaknesses I can’t even see.
The keypad gives a tiny, helpless click.
My eyebrows lift involuntarily. I've practiced that exact lock a hundred times in my apartment with a stopwatch running, and my record is fifteen seconds. He just did it in seven.
“Damn, Rafe.” I blow out a quiet breath.
His eyes flash up to mine, the corner of his mouth curling into something that makes my stomach drop. “You have no idea,” he murmurs, pushing to his feet.
He presses his ear to the crack in the door, one hand still on the knob. His breathing stops. The pulse in his throat freezes. After three heartbeats, he nudges it wider with his fingertips, then tilts his head toward the darkness beyond.
The office swallows us whole. Dark, stale air. Dust motes drifting in thin slices of streetlight leaking through half-closed blinds. My pulse hammers as I step over the threshold.
The safe dominates the inner wall, a dark silhouette against darker paint. Not one of those vault monsters that would need a demolition crew, but solid enough that we won't be carrying it out. I mentally trace the cutting path we'll need to take.
Rafe exhales a low, appreciative sound beside me. “There you are,” he murmurs, voice edged with something like hunger. “Let’s make you sing.”
He slips past me toward the inner wall, his shoulders dropping as he crouches before the safe. His fingers skim the keypad with the delicate precision of a pianist, his usual swagger gone. “We got a guy. Taught us what safes are worth the time to crack and what’s worth cutting,” he says absently. He slips his backpack off and pulls out his tools. “I’ll have it open in ten.”
He pulls his kit out of his backpack, and I start searching the rest of the room.
A massive desk dominates the space between two windows facing the street. Papers spill across its surface, tangled with charging cables and a forgotten mug where something fuzzy and green has taken root. I ease the blinds apart with two fingers and scan the world outside.
“Still clear,” I murmur, noting the empty street.
“Good.” He slides his protective glasses over his face. “Here we go.”
My timer reads twenty-four minutes left.
Shit, time to move.
I yank open the desk drawers, but find nothing but pens, more paperwork, and a tangle of branded lanyards. The bottom drawer resists when I pull, then surrenders with a reluctant groan. There, wedged against the back panel like it's hiding, sits a matte black lockbox.
“Oh, hello.” I pull it out, set it on the desk, and fish out my handheld lock cutter. The tool’s small—borderline flimsy—but I’ve broken into worse with it. I brace my elbow, slide the cutter into the latch, and squeeze.
The lock snaps with a crack I can barely here over the buzzing of Rafe’s compact cutter.
“Bingo.” Stacks of rubber-banded cash greet me.
