“This afternoon. Two o’clock. A car will collect you.” Raines’s eyes shifted to Dom. “Mr. Wilde will remain at the apartment.”
“He comes with me,” Vivi said immediately. “I need him there.”
Dom’s eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t expected that.
“Very well,” Raines said after an extended stretch of charged silence. “But he stays in the car.”
“Fine,” Vivi agreed.
“I expect you to begin familiarizing yourselves with the schematics immediately. You have one week.” With that, Raines’s image vanished, leaving the screen black.
The room felt suddenly larger without his presence, as if the air had been allowed to expand again.
Dom turned to Vivi, curiosity burning through him. “‘I need him there?’ Since when do you need me for anything?”
She didn’t meet his eyes. “I want as many eyes on Praetorian locations as possible. Davey’s probably tearing the world apartlooking for you. The more you see, the more you can tell them when we get out of this.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“Don’t mistake practicality for confidence, Dominic.” She gathered the tablets and blueprints and moved to the dining table. “Let’s get to work.”
He’d forgotten how quickly she could shift gears, how completely she could immerse herself in mission mode. It was like watching someone put on armor, piece by piece, until the person underneath disappeared completely.
And damn it all, he found it just as attractive as he had three years ago.
“You were incredible.” The words came out before he could stop them.
She looked at him sideways. “I was logical.”
“Same thing, with you.”
She didn’t respond to that. She set the tablet flat on the counter and unrolled the first of the blueprints beside it, smoothing the corners down with her palms.
“Stop staring and make yourself useful,” she said without looking up. “I need coffee if I’m going to explain this place to you.”
He grinned despite himself and moved to the kitchen to pour two mugs. When he returned, she had the main schematic anchored with oranges from the breakfast tray.
“Villa Pandora,” she said, tapping the blueprint as he set her coffee down. “It’s a fortress disguised as a luxury retreat, built into the cliffs on Naxos. The above-ground resort portion is just for show. The real facility is underground.”
Dom studied the layout. “How many sublevels?”
“Four. The first two sublevels are where client vaults are located. That’s where our Vault 237 is.” She traced a finger along a corridor. “It’s basically a very high-end safe deposit box.Except instead of storing grandma’s jewelry or legal documents, people store things they can’t keep in traditional banking systems. Things that would raise flags if they went through conventional channels.”
“Unclean cash, questionable art, documents with complicated provenance?”
“Exactly.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Sabin and I opened an account under a false identity about eleven years ago. We needed a place to store insurance—cash, passports, some pieces from various jobs that were too hot to fence immediately.”
“And Strauss’s vault?”
She pointed to the fourth sublevel on the blueprint. “Down here. More secure, more isolated. These are the premium vaults for clients who need extra privacy and security. More expensive, more restricted access.”
Dom frowned at the layout. “These aren’t adjacent. Not even close. There’s a whole other floor between them. Sublevel three.”
“I’m aware.” Vivi stared down at the schematics over the rim of her mug. “That’s the challenge. I can access our vault legitimately—walk in the front door, present my credentials, visit what’s mine. But accessing Strauss’s vault means bypassing multiple security protocols, including biometric locks tied to Strauss himself.”
“Who’s inconveniently dead.”
“Very.” She rolled her shoulders, and he noticed the tension there, the tightness at the base of her neck. She’d probably stab him if he tried to massage those knots out, so he kept his hands to himself.