Page 46 of Hawkeye

“I’m gonna double-check before you walk into a room with a man who wants to drag you out of it.” His fingers brushed over the bodice of my dress. “Hold still.”

“Very thorough.”

“With you? Always.” His eyes were filled with determination. “If I say down, you drop. You do not look for me.”

“Down means down,” I confirmed with a nod.

His hand cupped my jaw. “Good. I won’t miss.”

I had no doubt he’d do whatever it took to make sure I came out of this okay.

20

HAWKEYE

The gallery had been cleared long before sunset. Brothers controlled every public entrance, the loading area, the staff corridor, and the neighboring annex, while Cipher monitored Wynnock’s cameras from the compound. The auction house looked empty, but there was not a door, window, or forgotten service route without a Black Crown waiting near it.

Josie stood with me at the foot of the mezzanine stairs in a dark red dress that fitted close through her breasts and waist before flaring softly around her thighs. The discreet ballistic protection beneath it added almost no bulk, and her ankle boots and deep red lipstick made her look too fucking tempting for a woman about to meet two men who had already tried to abduct her. My dick stiffened with spectacularly bad timing while I imagined that dress crumpled beside my bed and her lipstick smeared across my mouth, chest, and every place lower she decided to mark.

I closed one hand around the back of her neck and pulled her against me. The hidden microphone rested beneath her neckline, and the earpiece disappeared beneath her thick chestnut waves. I had checked both twice, but my thumb still moved beneath her ear as though I could strengthen the connection through touch alone.

“Talk to me.”

Josie’s amber-brown eyes searched mine. “About what?”

“Anything that keeps your voice in my ear.” I let my palm settle over her waist, feeling the edge of the protective panel beneath the dress. “I don’t care if it’s the history of the wallpaper.”

Her dimple appeared. “The wallpaper is a reproduction and historically uninspired.”

“Sounds promising.”

I kissed her before heading upstairs, taking her mouth hard enough to leave fresh color beneath the lipstick. Josie gripped the front of my shirt and rose into me, giving back every bit of possession in the kiss until leaving her on the gallery floor required more discipline than I wanted to spend. When I lifted my head, her breathing had changed, and the hunger in her eyes promised the dress would not survive long once we were home.

“Keep talking until this is done,” I instructed, brushing my thumb across her lower lip. “I want to hear every breath.”

“You’ll hear me.”

“I always do.”

I took the mezzanine stairs and settled behind the decorative iron railing, where the long gallery opened beneath me in a series of clean sightlines. My rifle rested on a concealed support between two display plinths, the angle giving me Josie’s meeting point, the expected entrance, and most of the wall hiding the old service passage. The tall armoire blocked a narrow section near the sealed opening, but a glass display opposite it gave me a distorted reflection of the space the furniture concealed.

Stryker held the floor team near the public entrance, while Trigger and Zero waited beyond the displays where they could close the center of the room without entering my line. Smoke and Breach covered the annex side, reinforced by Bishop after Cipher found the old renovation drawing. Nomad controlled the loading route, and no vehicle was leaving the block unless we wanted it gone.

Josie crossed to the center of the gallery carrying the leather bag of false evidence. She placed it on the narrow examination table, adjusted the skirt of her dress, and glanced toward the antique wall clock mounted between two landscapes. Her voice reached my ear a moment later, warm and clear beneath the low hum of the building.

“The clock was installed when Wynnock opened this gallery,” she began. “It’s older than the building, though. Late nineteenth century, mahogany case, eight-day movement, and somebody repainted the dial badly in the nineteen-sixties.”

I tracked every reflection and doorway while she explained that the clock had spent years inside a railway office before the first Wynnock director acquired it. Her breathing eased as she moved into the history, and mine settled with it. Josie described the damaged veneer beneath the case, the replacement hands that were slightly too heavy, and the argument she had been making for months about letting her restore the original finish without stripping away its age.

“You’re planning to win,” I murmured into the microphone.

“I usually do eventually,” she replied.

Her mouth curved, but movement at the front entrance erased the smile before anyone entering could see it. Chet Tippon walked through the gallery door alone, with no sign of the crew leader. The strain around his mouth had deepened, and his gaze went directly to Josie and the bag.

“Tippon’s inside,” I reported quietly.

“Front entrance closed,” Stryker confirmed through the comm.