God, she loved him.
The knot in her throat was a fist, squeezing. She swallowed against it once, hard, and said nothing. She would not give Raines her grief. She would not give him anything he could use.
“Proof of life,” Raines said, pulling the tablet back.
“Where is he?” She was proud her voice came out level.
“Comfortable, for now. Whether he stays that way is entirely up to you.”
Dom swore and went rigid beside her. He was about two seconds from doing something catastrophically stupid.
“Dom,” she said under her breath.
It took him a second, but he relaxed. Marginally.
“Your brother has been our guest for two days,” Raines said. “I’ll spare you the details of how he came to be in our care. What matters is that you and your brother have a vault at Villa Pandora in Greece. Number 237. You’ve been clients for—” he paused, as though consulting a mental file “—eleven years.”
Had Sabin told them that? She couldn’t imagine any scenario where he’d talk like that, but how else did they know about the vault?
“There’s nothing in there of any value to Praetorian.”
“You’re right. We’re not interested in whatever trinkets you and your brother have stashed away. But,” Raines continued after a weighty beat, “there is another vault. 485. It belonged to a Dr. Heinrich Strauss, who is no longer alive to object to what I’m about to ask you to do.” He paused again, and she got the sense he enjoyed dragging this out. “Before his death, Dr. Strauss completed what is arguably the most significant piece of neurological and biological research of the past century. He called it the Lazarus Protocol.”
Vivi had never heard of it, but she was a jewel thief-turned-fashion designer, not a scientist. Even at the height of her and her brother’s thieving, they hadn’t trafficked in scientific research. They had preferred shiny things.
She slid a glance at Dom, but his expression gave nothing away. If he’d heard of it, he wasn’t going to let Raines know.
“The Protocol provides the foundational science for something Praetorian has been developing for some time,” Raines said. His smirk spread as he stared at Dom. There was an unspoken message there. One she could only decipher ascheckmate.
Sabin had told her that Praetorian and Wilde Security were in a sort of cold war that had escalated in recent months, and Raines obviously thought this research was the key to winning.
“So you want me to break into Stauss’s vault and steal his research.” Vivi scoffed and raised her bound hands. “You didn’t have to do all of this. You could’ve just asked.”
Raines tilted his head. “Would you have agreed?”
Fuck no.“Guess you’ll never know.”
Raines studied her for a moment with something that might have been appreciation, if men like him were capable of it. “You have legitimate access to the facility. You can walk through the front door, present your credentials, and visit your own vault without raising a single flag. And we’re aware that you have the skills to access Vault 485 undetected while you’re there.”
“And if I say no?”
Raines held up the tablet.
Sabin.
Someone had moved to stand behind him, a gloved hand pulling his chin up, a knife pressed against his throat.
The air left her lungs.
Sabin didn’t flinch. He stared straight into the camera like he knew she was watching, like he was trying to tell her something across the distance between them.
Don’t. Don’t do it, Viv. Don’t let them win.
He’d gone to prison for her. Had walked into a courtroom and taken everything that should have been split between them and carried it alone so she could walk out the other side clean. She’d spent every day since trying to claw back some equilibrium on that debt, and she was still nowhere close to even.
“One week,” Raines said, tucking the tablet away again.
“That’s not enough time,” she said.
