Page 13 (2/2)

She’d get the saht, too

Glancing over her shoulder, she wired her phone into the systeit encryption lit her screen, she keyed it in The green light flashed twice, and she grinned Easy as taking candy from a baby—not that she did that She had to draw a line somewhere

She entered the saital password into the front-door systeht that it was safer to use these electronic locks What they didn’t realize was any hacker worth their salt could easily break in And once they had the code…they could get anything they wanted And she wanted that painting

She’d get it, too

Slowly, she opened the door, wincing when the hinges creaked After shutting it behind her, she shoved her phone into her pocket and headed left toward the fa to her source, that’s where the artould be It was The expensive piece hung over the fireplace in the opulent roo in their simplicity than she’d ever believed possible

She took a second to admire it The piece of work had been completed in 1547, and had been in the royal family until the early nineteen hundreds After that, it had mysteriously been sold to an unknown buyer After years of obscurity, it had shown up deep inside the Viotollo mob The head of the crime family had stolen it from a wealthy American CEO when the man refused to sell it to hi it to him

She wished she could hang it over her f

ireplace for a little while It would go nicely with her Monet But this one wasn’t for her It was for her eood person like hiainst her code

Even thieves like her had rules

She took a step toward the fraers When she was halfway across the room, the hair on the back of her neck stood up A hushed footstep and a small shift in the air alerted her to the presence of another person

So her

She tried to spin around as quickly as she could, but she was too late Within seconds of her sensing another person in the rooainst the wall The ar and solid, yet the entle

So off her cry—and her breath, too She kicked backward, desperate to strike out at her attacker in any way she could, but she didn’t hit anything If anything, the arhter