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Inside, the house is silent.
Everything smells faintly of some expensive cleaning concentrate. Probably imported. Specifically engineered to make you feel insecure about your credit score.
I scan the hall, ears straining for any hint of movement, and pause mid-step when I think I hear something. I suck in a breath.
“I thought Nora said he wasn’t home,” I whisper, probably too loudly, heart thudding a little faster now. My fingers twitch at my sides, every instinct telling me to backtrack.
“He isn’t,” Theo pushes the words out, low and fast. “But there’s definitely someone here.”
My mouth goes dry. Heat rolls up my neck.
“Cool. Awesome. We’re breaking into a house with someone still inside. Next, let’s juggle flaming chainsaws and see how far we can push our luck.”
Theo turns his head toward me with maddening calm. “You’re the one who said—and I quote—‘We need more dirt or we’re dead in the water.’ I’m just facilitating your ambition.”
A sound, harsh and sudden, rips down the hall, slicing through our whisper-screaming match. Nails skittering against hardwood.
My spine straightens on instinct. “Is that—?”
Before I can finish the sentence, a small blur rockets around the corner and skids to a stop in front of us.
It’s a dog.
A very tiny one. Maybe four pounds, tops. It’s wearing a pink sweater and has one ear that sticks straight up while the other one flops to the side.
It lets out a yip that’s more greeting than threat, then trots right up to Theo and licks his boot like we’re expected guests.
This was not on my list of possibilities. “That’s Baryn’s guard dog?”
It’s a papillon—tiny, wide-eyed and vibrating.
Theo crouches and scratches behind its ear. “Honestly, I was more scared of the goats.”
“Same,” I am still staring at the pint-sized sentinel who’s now rolling over for belly scratches. I crouch down and rub his belly. “You’re too cute to be security,” before scooping him into my arms. “You can come with me, but you have to be quiet.” I press him against my chest, and he lets out a soft little huff that’s either a sigh or a burp. Unclear, but adorable. He’s very obviously pleased with himself and satisfied.
We move with a pace that feels borrowed from the panic of thinking there was another human in the house.
The dog—who I’ve now mentally named Marshmallow, because he’s approximately the size and density of one—is curled against me, blissfully unaware of the potential felonies happening around him.
After surveying the downstairs, we realize Baryn’s office must be on the second floor. We tiptoe up the staircase, taking each step like we’re walking through a minefield.
Every creak sounds like a gunshot in my ears.
Every shifting shadow makes my grip tighten on Marshmallow, who remains wildly unbothered by the concept of home invasion.
By the time we reach the office door, I’m pretty sure my pulse is doing the Macarena and considering adding some backup dancers.
Theo picks the lock, because apparently that’s just a thing he does now, and we step into a room that looks like the kind of place where someone would plot the downfall of a mid-sized government. Or host a whiskey-fueled poker night with the Illuminati.
“Yikes,” I whisper. “This is aggressively masculine.”
Leather chairs. A walnut desk the size of a small car. A paperweight shaped like a brass sextant, because obviously that’s what every aspiring villain needs. The whole place screams I own cufflinks and emotionally repress things for sport.
Theo’s already at the filing cabinet, thumbing through manila folders.
Marshmallow wiggles in my arms and snorts softly. I give him a quick shush, which he ignores in favor of licking my thumb with intense focus.
I make my way over to the desk and start rifling through drawers.
