Page 189 of The Wicked

I nodded.

“I will let security know you’re allowed to come in whenever.”

Just like that…

I chucked aside the feeling of unease for later as I grinned instead. “Awesome.” I placed both my hands on the counter. “I’ll go now, and I would have kissed you if it wasn’t‘banned,’but yeah, you have your‘reasons.’” I put air quotes aroundbannedandreasons.

“Hm.” He didn’t take those eyes off me.

I shook my head, leaning away. “I’ll see you, weirdo.”

With that, I turned and walked away, knowing his eyes followed my every move.

My mind slipped back to his words to me in the car after I’d asked him to give me the benefit of the doubt.

When I was out of the house, I let my mouth and brows fall into a stern frown as I pulled out my phone and muttered, “I believe you,my ass.”

I knew something was wrong the moment I entered Street’s quarters.

Everyone except Upper stood in front of the kitchen, speaking in hushed voices. They were arguing about something, their faces etched with hard frowns.

“What’s going on?”

The argument stopped, and they all looked up at once. The deer-in-a-headlight looks I caught on their faces calmed down when they saw it was me.

“Thank fuck you’re back,” Dog said. “Shit went down.”

Milk nodded hastily. “Big shit.”

“Where’s Upper?” Devil asked, eyes narrowing behind me.

I walked up to them. “He’s with Casmiro; he’s fine. What’s going on?”

Devil sighed. “When you both left, we got an anonymous email.”

That got my attention. “What?”

“Yeah,” Milk said. “Dog tried to trace it, but it was fruitless.”

“What was it about?”

“The damn chihuahua,” Dog supplied. “They sent us a location with a short note that said, ‘The package you find is the keyto finding the original painting.’There,that look you’re giving right now is the very one I had after reading it.”

I frowned. “Who the fuck would send us that? Or try to help?”

“That’s not even the worst part,” Milk said.

I narrowed my eyes at them.

“We went to the location, and we did find something,” Devil said.

Oh…

“What did you find?”

They all exchanged wary looks; the silence stretched, doing wonders to heighten my already heightened nerves. “What is it? The suspense is killing me,” I urged.

Milk backed towards the kitchen. “Right here in the kitchen; promise you won’t freak out.”