Page 25 of Toxic Revenge, Part Two (Mafia Omegas #2)

Chapter

Twenty-Three

MERCER

My mate was in the viper pit without me.

She mingled among socialites and high-class criminals while I waited in the goddamn bushes along the side of the mansion. If something happened in there, I wouldn’t get past the doorman without a fight—I didn’t fit in here. Saving her would be a challenge; would take time that we might not have.

I prayed to whoever would fucking listen that she was able to slip away from the party on time and let me in.

Once I was inside with her, she’d be far safer.

“Are you inside?” Lavinia asked in my earpiece.

“No,” I whispered back. “Not yet.”

“I’ll ask Emmy if she’s left the ballroom yet.”

Thank fuck we at least had eyes on the inside. Kind of. Until Emilia took out the cameras, anyway—but she wouldn’t do that until she knew Talia had left that damn ballroom through the staff entrance we’d mapped out.

“She should be on her way. Interior cameras are down. You’re officially on the clock.” Lavinia’s update didn’t comfort me.

If she’d already left the ballroom, she should be here, right? How long did I wait before smashing a window to save her?

I shifted from foot to foot, peering around the small side garden. My dark clothes helped me blend into the shadows, but I’d be easily spotted if anyone decided this was a nice discreet spot for a conversation or quick fuck.

When I heard the window beside me click and slide open, I huddled deeper into the bushes. No scent came filtering down—whoever had opened it was using scent blockers. It was probably Talia, but I couldn’t be sure until I heard her voice.

“Mercer?” She said my name timidly, in a barely-there whisper.

I relaxed.

My mate hadn’t gotten caught, and now I would be by her side for the rest of the night. She would have protection close at hand.

We still had thieving to do, but the most stressful part of the evening was over.

The window screen leaned against the house, giving me a nice open space to hop through. I’d pried it out of the frame in preparation for her arrival when I first got here.

I stepped out from the shadows, drawing Talia into a gentle kiss through the open window. She smiled against my lips. “Get inside before someone sees you.”

“Needed my kiss first. It was important.”

She pushed back from the window, moving until her back pressed against the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. It seemed like she wanted me to chase her, and I was happy to.

The warmth of the house hit me as I slipped through the window and closed it behind me. There was quiet piano music and the din of chatter coming from the ballroom, but this hallway was well out of the way.

Stalking across the hall to Talia, I ran a gloved hand down her side. This dress looked so damn good on her—I’d wanted to devour her when she’d put it on, and that hadn’t changed.

It wasn’t the time or the place, but I couldn’t resist pressing her back against the wall and kissing her. Just once more.

Especially since she had a faint alpha scent of sea breeze and acrid smoke clinging to her. It sent my instincts into overdrive. She was my omega, and no one else had any right to touch her.

I couldn’t cover the scent with mine, not while the scent blockers were working, but I could claim her in other ways.

I never wanted to break the deep, claiming kiss I gave her.

“Did you get in?” Lavinia’s voice interrupted the moment.

I pulled back from Talia with an awkward cough, my omega going pink in the cheeks. “Uh, yeah. Officially inside with her.”

“Good. Stay on task. They’ll be sending extra patrols out now that their cameras aren’t working.”

The order hinted that she had an inkling of what I’d been doing, but I wasn’t going to ask. Grabbing Talia’s hand, I headed off down the hall.

This heist would have been easier if Emilia had been able to loop the footage to hide our wandering, but she’d deemed it near impossible.

Some firewall or something—I hadn’t grasped the nuances.

Basically, she could watch their live feed or cut the signal, but she couldn’t fuck with the system itself to trick them into thinking nothing was happening.

Security guards would be scouring this place soon enough.

Our first stop was Ronald’s office. A camera attached to one of the nearby mansions faced that room, and Emilia had hacked their system and accessed the footage archives. The billionaire spent a lot of time in that office.

The feed was too distant and dark to know for sure if that’s where Benjamin had dropped off his mystery package, but it was our best bet.

Talia kept up with my quick pace despite her high heels. I wanted to sweep her up in my arms and carry her, but it would be harder to protect her if I had to drop her in the event of getting caught.

As we took the stairs to the second floor, a voice caught me off guard.

“Cameras are down. IT is looking into it, but go out and patrol; someone from that party might be snooping around.”

It was coming from a door right beside the top of the staircase. Must be the security office, because of fucking course it was.

Talia’s steps faltered, but I kept going up the stairs. She recovered easily, but the way her heels clicked against the marble was going to give us away.

High heels were great for a ballroom party, but terrible for clandestine activities.

I swept her up in my arms and she stifled a surprised squeak. Taking the stairs two at a time, I watched the doorknob start to turn. We only needed to get past the door and around the corner. There was a closet in that hall we could hide in until the patrol had gone on its way.

The door started to open, and we were still well within view.

Oh, we’re so fucked.

“Start the search near the party and circle out from there. You’ll probably find some rich fucks banging in the first floor bathrooms and lounges, so make sure to send them on their way back to the main area.”

The superior’s orders made the security guard pause long enough for me to careen around the corner.

That was way too close.

I should have sent Talia out the window instead of taking her with me. The thought of her being caught here made my stomach twist in knots.

Letting Talia down to the ground, I opened the closet door. It was a walk-in linen closet, full to the brim with towels, sheets, and blankets. No one but the housekeepers would be coming in here.

I bundled us both inside and shut the door, leaving us in the dark, stuffy space. Linens brushed both of our shoulders, and I hid Talia backed up against the far row of shelves, making sure I was the first thing the guard saw if he decided to take a peek inside the room.

Attuning my ears to every faint noise I could, the loudest thing was Talia’s breathing. She was panting, and if I could see more than the outline of her body in the pitch black room, I bet her chest would be heaving.

I leaned in and kissed the side of her head.

“Calm down, sweetheart. I don’t think anyone is coming this way.”

She grabbed my hips, swaying closer to me. “Are you sure?” she whispered back. “That was close.”

I listened again, focusing beyond her breathing. There was nothing from outside our linen closet except distant sounds from the party. No imposing footsteps coming our way. The guard must have headed straight downstairs, as ordered.

“Positive,” I said when I knew it was true. “Let’s head out. We can go down this hall and around to get to his office, without having to go back to the main hallway.”

“OK. I want to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“Agreed.”

What I really wanted was to send her on her way now, but she would never go. We’d have to continue taking the risks together.

Ronald better be keeping what we needed in his office. If we had to run around this entire estate searching, I might have to find the man and murder him.

Pausing with my hand on the closet doorknob, I waited a few extra seconds, just to be certain we weren’t stepping out into an ambush. Then I pushed the door open, cringing at its slight squeak, and we made our way down the hall.

The office wasn’t far, and we made it there without any more incidents. His guards were busy in other parts of the mansion.

The door was locked, but I made quick work of it and ushered Talia inside. Handing her a pair of gloves, I made sure she put them on so her fingerprints wouldn’t end up all over the room.

“We’re in the office,” I updated Lavinia via my earpiece.

“Be fast,” she commanded.

“Doing our best.”

Talia was already snooping around. Ronald White’s office was full of artfully worn leather recliners and dark wood furniture. His desk was the centrepiece, with a winged chair perched behind it. A full wall of windows backed it.

Emilia had confirmed they were tinted, so we shouldn’t be seen easily at night. However, any additional light would give us away immediately, contrasting with the dark evening sky outside.

My eyesight was keen enough to not need light, but Talia might have trouble.

She’d started by rifling through the books and trinkets on the bookcases that lined the room, so I began with the desk. There were certain types of information a man like him would want to keep close at hand.

His desktop was mostly tidy, but I scanned the documents he’d left sitting in a simple black folder. A contract. Nothing nefarious. I discarded it quickly to go through his drawers instead.

Every one on the right side was easily accessible and held simple office supplies or more contracts like the one he’d left out. The top left drawer didn’t open so easily. I tugged, and it didn’t give.

Locked.

That meant it had to hold some kind of secret.

I used my tools to fiddle with it as Talia came over, clutching a book in her hand.

“I recognize this symbol.” She pointed to an infinity symbol with a line running horizontally through it, drawn on a corner of the front cover in black permanent marker. Three vertical lines crossed the horizontal one. “Benjamin had files with it every once in a while.”

The lock evaded my efforts to undo it. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, grabbing the book from her to check it out instead. A cursory flip through it didn’t reveal a thing, but that didn’t mean anything. They could have used this book for a cypher, or written in invisible ink in the margins.

Talia had claimed this man was paranoid.

“Let’s take it with us. I’m going to keep trying to get into this drawer. You look for any other places where that symbol shows up.”

“Mercer…” Talia ran her finger across a corner of the drawer. “It’s here too.”

I looked where she’d touched. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the edges when the lock was in the centre, but she was right. Carved into the wood was the same simple mark that had been left on the book.

“Shit. I’ll get in, don’t worry. If I can’t pick the lock, I can always jimmy it open.”

She nodded and kept searching around the room. The lock was a bitch, but eventually I got it open. A few papers laid in the drawer, held together by a single paperclip.

From my first glance, there was nothing about Benjamin.

Nothing suspicious, even. I shoved them in my bag to give more thought to later.

With the symbol and the lock, there had to be more to this drawer.

Feeling carefully around the back edge, I caught my finger in a small hole in the drawer bottom.

It lifted easily, revealing a thin hidden compartment beneath.

There it is. That’s what he really wants to keep hidden.

The only thing beneath the false bottom was a single key, which I grabbed and shoved into a zippered pocket on the exterior of the bag.

When I’d put everything right again, I found Talia waiting for me beside a landscape painting, her finger tracing the symbol where it blended in with the artistic wildflowers.