Risky Obsession (Wolf Security #3)

4. Kane

CHAPTER 4

Kane

L eaning against my desk, I hugged my coffee mug to my chest and studied the ugly, faded painting on the opposite wall of my treasure room. I’d almost discarded this artwork as trash when I’d found it amongst my grandfather’s belongings a decade ago, but something about it had drawn my attention.

Maybe it was because the yellowing landscape with badly painted cows was so damn ugly. Or maybe because of where it was stashed, hidden at the back of Pops’ closet, rather than displayed for sale in his antique shop, The Lucky Devil .

I was yet to understand his reasoning behind that.

The artwork was a dull contrast to the stunning treasures around it that Pops and I had unearthed from around the globe. The items in this room were either too precious to sell, or I wasn’t ready to donate them to museums yet. But there were also many more prized items surrounding me that belonged to my grandfather, and they were never going to see an auctioneer’s hammer.

I was fortunate to have found the painting before my selfish parents had unceremoniously sold off or dumped just about everything Pops had owned in their rush to sell his modest home after he’d died. There could have been many precious items worthy of attention amongst his tattered things, but Mom and Dad didn’t know the value of anything.

They didn’t even value family .

Pops had been my only real family. He’d taught me everything I knew about history and treasure, and how to decipher real from rubbish.

This painting, or rather what I’d found hidden in the back of it, had haunted me for years. I often wondered if my grandfather had planned for us to follow the clues together. A treasure hunt that started at the end of World War Two and ended with Pops and me, the only honest members of the Devlin family.

The encryption on the note I’d found at the back of the painting promised a fortune.

The lion’s journey begins at dawn. The train must reach the castle safely.

May Emmy guard the treasure.

Along with the note were a black and white photo on an old steam train and a hand-drawn map, dated March 12, 1945.

I’d visited one of the tiny villages on the map in Hamburg. But none of the key landmarks made sense. I’d spent weeks digging around dusty archives, searching for clues from the map or the photo, and I chatted with locals, trying to ask pointed questions without giving away any details.

Nobody wanted to talk about the war that had ravaged their area and stolen so many innocent lives.

I didn’t blame them. I knew what it was like to lose someone I loved. Prostate cancer had stolen Pops from me. He had lived just three months from diagnosis to death. I’d quit my Navy career to spend the final ten weeks of Pops’ life with him. They were the worst, yet somehow, also the best times we had together. It was like he’d tried to tell me every adventure in his life before his time ran out . . . how he found the worldly treasures that came and went through The Lucky Devil’s doors.

His narrow escapes from gun-wielding thieves in places like Egypt and Turkey.

Fraudsters who’d tried to take him for a fool. Idiots. Pops was a genius, but he liked to downplay his brilliance. He told me many times that people were often terrified of intelligence, but if you acted dumb, people would tell you anything.

But we never talked about his daughter, my mother. Nor my father. They’d been banished from our topics of discussion when they’d banished me to boarding school for a crime I didn’t commit when I was twelve years old.

Pops had also never mentioned that ugly painting under the stairs. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that the three items I’d found in that painting led to a vast haul of treasure.

Why else would Pops have kept the hideous artwork?

I sat behind my desk, facing the painting, and sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me about these clues, Pops?”

I’d been debating that question ever since I’d found the faded artwork ten years ago, and there was only one answer that made sense: Pops believed the treasure was dangerous.

That only intrigued me more.

Dangerous treasure was usually worth a lot of money.

Not that I needed money. I had more than enough funds to last me a lifetime.

What I needed was something to do.

The alarm on my phone beeped. Eight o’clock. Time to get moving.

I drank the last of my coffee, grabbed my car keys, and made my way out of Devil’s Fortune , locking my luxury yacht up behind me.

Ever since I’d returned to Rosebud for my sister’s wedding, which turned out to be a fucking bad idea, I’d been trying to meet face-to-face with Aria Morgan from Wolf Security. But she wouldn’t even take my calls.

Luck had a way of trickling into my life though, and last month, I’d been in the right place at the right time to show Aria that I wasn’t the asshole that my long-ago girlfriend, Indiana Smith, had portrayed me as. What I’d done that ended my six-month relationship with Indiana was not something I was proud of. I would regret it forever.

But as Pops always said, you can’t undo the past; you can, however, own up to it and learn from it.

Or , as he would say with a twinkle in his eyes, profit from it.

I jumped into my Mazda MX5 convertible, put down the top, and pulled on a baseball cap. With the music blaring, and the sunshine making me question whether the two-hour drive to Risky Shores with the roof off was a good idea, I drove out of the Rosebud Marina parking lot.

The sun was a beacon, drawing me into a meeting that I hoped would ultimately provide answers to my decade-old mystery—and give me some resolution as to why Pops hadn’t shared the ancient clues with me. I’d thought we had no secrets between us.

Finding those hidden items in the painting had been both exciting and a blow to my heart .

Pops was the only person in my life I trusted.

I’d been on my own for so long, I wouldn’t know what to do if I had to share my time with someone.

The sun was beaming on my shoulders as I turned off the highway and drove onto Oak Street, the main road that divided Risky Shores in half. Salt hung in the ocean breeze that drifted across from the vast blue beyond the beach in the distance.

Following my GPS, I located Wolf Security Headquarters, a large gray building, that dominated a corner of the industrial section of Risky Shores. From what I could tell, there were just as many abandoned buildings as there were occupied ones in this section of town.

As per Aria’s instructions, I drove down the ramp to the underground parking garage and found a visitor’s space. While I waited for the roof to close on my convertible, I removed my sunglasses and checked that I didn’t have anything in my teeth.

At the top of the stairs, I pressed the intercom panel and smiled at the screen.

The door buzzed to let me in. That was a good sign. I’d been trying to get this meeting for so long, I half expected Aria to cancel without reason.

I entered a narrow hallway lined with glass and imagined they were watching me, or maybe x-raying me to check for concealed weapons. I wouldn’t be that stupid. The Wolf Security team had a reputation for taking down some of the biggest and deadliest assholes in Australia. I certainly wouldn’t want to be on their hit list.

The door at the end opened to a man with the broadest shoulders I’d ever seen.

“Kane Devlin,” he said. It wasn’t a question; it was a statement. His deep voice matched his deadly glare.

“Correct.” I offered my hand, but the man grunted and stepped aside.

The hairs on my neck bristled as I entered a large open-plan area with awards on the walls and rows of desks occupied by people who didn’t bother looking my way.

Two glass-walled rooms were on the far side, and Aria, in a navy suit, with a high ponytail, waved me over.

A baby started crying from somewhere out the back. It was so out of place with the seriousness of the office that I wondered if it was designed to throw me off-guard.

Seated in the room with Aria were two men who didn’t look half as imposing as the man striding behind me. I entered the room and unlike the man mountain, Aria offered her hand. “Hello, Kane.”

“Thank you for meeting with me.”

We shook hands, and I made a point of not dominating the grip.

She swept her long hair over her shoulder. “Don’t thank me yet. You met Viper.” She nodded at the giant who had chaperoned me from the front door.

He snarled at me.

“This is Nick and Xander,” she said.

I shook hands with the other two men, and we all sat.

“Wait for me,” a woman called as she raced across the main area carrying a tiny baby bundled in a blue wrap.

“Hi, I’m Maya. You must be Kane.” She grinned at me. “I’d shake your hand, but I don’t know where you’ve been.”

Holy smokes, Maya was much more stunning in person. I’d watched the documentary about how these incredible people had traced a massive haul of stolen Nazi gold bars across the globe many times, so I felt like I knew them. Viper, however, never showed his face in the film, nor did Nick, who I assumed was named Blade in the documentary.

“And this is Jackson,” Maya said, indicating the bundle as she took a seat. “He’s Levi and Billie’s bubby. I’m just looking after him for a few hours while they get some sleep.”

She bounced the baby on her lap, showing off her toned biceps that would make many men jealous.

“Now that we’re all here, tell us what you want.” Aria pierced me with her black eyes. “You have twenty minutes.”

I placed my hands on the table. “It’s not so much what I want, but what I think we can do for each other.” I scanned their faces but got no reaction, so I said, “I watched the documentary about the stolen Nazi gold that you found.”

“Yeah, you and every other fucker.” Viper raised his chin at me.

“And I’m here about the portion of gold you didn’t find. The hundred bars that were put on the train.”

“What about it?” Aria asked.

“I have a clue to its location, and I believe we can work together to?—”

“Well, you’re an idiot then,” Viper said .

Aria glared at him, and Viper folded his arms, and his massive biceps bulged even more.

The baby made gurgling sounds.

“What’s your clue?” Nick asked.

“Obviously, I’m not keen on sharing that information unless?—”

“Sounds about right. You’re planning on stealing the treasure from us, like you did to Indiana.” Viper clenched his jaw.

My shoulders sagged. “That happened a very long time ago, and I was young and stupid then. I hate that I did that, and I have apologized to her many times.”

“Doesn’t change what you did,” Viper said.

“No, it doesn’t. I’ve regretted what I did to her ever since.”

“How do we know you won’t betray us like you did to Indiana?” Maya said, then blew a raspberry on Jackson’s rosy cheek.

“Because I’ve changed a lot since then. Also, I’m wealthy, so it’s not about the money.”

“Bullshit. It’s always about the money,” Viper said.

“That’s not true.” Maya leveled her gaze at Viper. “Is it?”

Viper glared at me. “What’s it about then?”

“I found this clue ten years ago after my grandfather died. It’s become . . . a quest, I guess. I was very close to Pops.”

“What happened to your pops?” Aria asked with a tenderness I hadn’t anticipated.

“He passed away ten years ago from prostate cancer.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said.

“Thanks. I want to do this for Pops. He traveled the world searching for treasure, and he was extremely good at it. So good in fact, he had his own antique shop in Rosebud, The Lucky Devil .”

“I remember it, down on Empire Street,” Viper said. “It’s been gone a long time.”

“Yes. I inherited grandfather’s shop and its contents when he passed away and?—”

“Lucky for some.” If Viper’s eyes were swords, I would have been decapitated.

“If I was lucky, Pops would have survived that cancer.”

Viper made a noise like he’d swallowed gravel .

“Viper. Cut it out.” Aria gave him a warning look, then turned back to me. “Tell us about the clue.”

“Like I said, I inherited Pops’ antique shop and all the contents. I loved that shop, but it wasn’t the same without Pops there. It lost its purpose, I guess.”

Aria’s expression remained stony, but sympathy flickered in her eyes.

“I sold what I could, but saved many items that I couldn’t part with. But the clue I found wasn’t in Pops’ shop. It was somewhere else.”

“So, what’s the clue?” Nick asked.

I ran my hand over the table, trying to assess their thoughts.

“First of all, I want to say that I understand why you’re hesitant to share the information you have with me. But I believe we’re both after the same thing—the truth about the stolen Nazi gold bars. Maybe sharing our information will give us a better chance of finding that missing gold.”

None of them responded. The thought of working alongside such a skilled and formidable team both intrigued and intimidated me. My time in the Navy had transformed me from a reckless boy to a disciplined man, but Aria and the rest of her operatives were on another level altogether.

“There are two reasons why I agreed to this meeting,” Aria said.

“I assume one of them is because I helped Indiana and Kingsley when they were stuck on that island,” I said. “What’s the other?”

“I checked your military record. You served in Afghanistan and a few other places where the sun doesn’t shine. Your superiors thought highly enough of you to let you go with a good record. Then you floated around Rosebud for a while before you went off-grid for many years and have made a reputation for yourself in treasure hunting and dealing in antiquities.” Aria leaned back, folding her arms. “You’re a bit of an enigma, but you’re not stupid. You wouldn’t be here unless you had something that was both worth our time and something that you couldn’t solve, or else you would already have that gold. So, it seems you need us.”

I chuckled. “Okay, you got me on all counts. Except it’s not one clue I found; it’s three.”

“Prove it,” Xander said.

If it hadn’t been for my grandfather’s illness, I probably would have stayed in the Navy. Instead, I lost the only man I ever trusted, inherited a fortune, and have spent nearly a decade chasing clues that Pops chose to hide from me for some reason. It was time to find out why.

“The lion’s journey begins at dawn,” I said. “The train must reach the castle safely. May Emmy guard the treasure.”

The other men in the room sat forward, and I tried to stop the smile curling on my lip.

“What does that refer to?” Aria asked.

“That was on a handwritten note that I found dated March 12, 1945. And I can tell by your reaction that it means something.”

Aria flicked her gaze to Nick and back to me. “You have our interest, but we are a long way from trading information. Let us have a discussion, and we’ll get back to you.”

Viper marched from the room.

“Don’t get your hopes up, Kane,” Aria said. “We have been burned before.”

I nodded. “Me too. I want to prove that you can trust me.”

She stood and offered her hand. “If we want to progress, I’ll be in touch. Don’t call me.”

I shook everyone else’s hand except Maya’s, and Maya guided me to the exit.

“Don’t worry about Viper,” she said. “He’s a hard ass.”

I chuckled. “I can see that. I have to say that I was surprised he knew about my grandfather’s shop. It’s been closed for ten years.”

“Viper used to be in the diamond industry. Platypus Diamonds. You ever heard of them?”

I searched my memory, then shook my head.

“Not surprised. They went out of business years ago. Anyway, he lived in Rosebud, and his folks still live down that way.”

She curled the baby over her shoulder and patted his diaper-clad bottom.

“Thank you for listening to me.”

“My pleasure. Seems like you have something to tell.” She smiled. “Hopefully, we can work something out.”

“Thanks. I hope so too.”

During my return trip to Rosebud, an unprecedented pang of jealousy washed through me. Those men and women at Wolf Security shared a bond that I had never had with people of my own age.

I drove into the marina where Devil’s Fortune stood out from all the other boats, despite it being moored in one of the bigger berths at the back, next to the Border Force boat.

My yacht was the only visual display of my wealth. I’d bought Devil’s Fortune when I was too young to know that many people didn’t trust a wealthy man, especially when that wealth wasn’t earned.

But I didn’t ask for that money. I was, however, grateful that Pops’ hard-earned estate came to me, rather than my greedy parents, or there would be nothing to show for my grandfather’s extraordinary life when golden treasures were still being extracted from the sand in Egypt.

Making money, when you had money, was as easy as putting it in the bank to earn interest, which was exactly what I did. My accountant set up my investments through trusts to minimize my tax, but otherwise, what I did with my money was boring, and uneventful.

What did that say about me?

I wondered if people also wouldn’t trust me if I was extremely poor. Maybe people just didn’t trust anyone anymore.

Maybe that was what the world had come to. Even many photos these days weren’t real. The photo I’d found in the back of that painting was true. That I knew for certain.

Yet I’d run out of ideas on how to go further with that clue.

I just hoped that my meeting with Aria and her team would start something that I could end.

More than that, I needed someone to trust me.