Risky Obsession (Wolf Security #3)

13. Kane

CHAPTER 13

Kane

T ory looked like she was about to pass out and I wanted to yank back my stupid rambling. What the hell was I thinking? We’d only met a few days ago. I didn’t know her and yet here I was saying how much I trusted her.

Christ! No wonder she was looking at me like I was a fucking psycho.

“Well, that was a bit heavy. Sorry about that. Must be the mulled wine.” I raised my copper stein.

“No. Please. Don’t be sorry,” she blurted. “Your honesty is also . . .. It’s refreshing.”

Feeling like a fucking idiot, I tore off a chunk of pretzel, stuffed it into my mouth, and forced my gaze away from her to the crowd around us. Nobody seemed to be looking our way, yet I had a weird feeling I was being watched.

That wasn’t unusual though. It was nothing to see women I didn’t know peering at me through a crowd. I’d had several women ask me if I was one movie star or another, and I couldn’t decide if they were trying to flatter me or were genuine. Sometimes I cursed my appearance and wished I could just vanish into a crowd. Like now. Especially after what I’d dropped on Tory.

“Kane.” Tory’s voice was low and steady as if she didn’t want to alarm me. “Did you think Gunter was acting strange? ”

“Yeah.” I shoved the last bite of pretzel into my mouth and washed it down with a gulp of wine.

“I think he saw something on your pops’ map that spooked him.”

I shook my head. “I’ve been over that map dozens of times.”

“I know. You said that. But he acted very odd after you showed him. Now that we have this map,” she said, patting the frame of the map leaning against the wine barrel, “we should compare the two. Maybe something will stand out.”

Beyond the crowd stood the rows and rows of antique stalls in the large courtyard. A stab of pain pierced my heart. Pops should be here with me. Treasure hunting was our thing. We were good together . . . spotting impossible finds amongst the chaos. I missed Pops, and the thrill of a treasure hunt was the only thing that helped to fill the void that had been inside me since he died.

Being here was both confusing and amazing. Just like Tory.

And I still had a bad feeling that something about this quest from Aria wasn’t right.

“Hey,” Tory whispered, wrapping her hand over the back of mine. “I’m sorry for not reacting to your statement better. I’m . . . I’m just not used to such honesty. Like you find with women, I seem to be a magnet for men who lie.”

Is that her way of telling me that her injuries were from an asshole?

She squeezed my hand. “Please don’t make this weird.”

“It’s already weird, sis ,” I joked and forced a smile.

She giggled and slipped her hand away. “I was lucky I got away with that lie. We don’t look anything like siblings.”

“No, but it’s a great cover if we get into any more situations like that.”

“So, do you agree with me that Gunter saw something?”

I sighed. “Yes, I agree.”

“Cool.” She sipped her mulled wine and plonked the stein down. “What’s our next move?”

A bell tolled from the steeple of the church that dominated the center of town, and I checked my watch. “It’s four-thirty. I say we find a magnifying glass while we’re here and take these maps back to our hotel and have a closer look at them.”

She clicked her fingers. “I saw a magnifying glass in Gunter’s shop.”

“Perfect, let’s grab it.” We slipped off our barstools and I hooked the framed map beneath my elbow.

“We need two magnifying glasses,” Tory said, digging her elbow to my side. “One each.”

“Yes, boss.” I smirked.

She tilted her face toward me and the smile that crossed her lips stole every thought from my mind.

Hot damn, she’s beautiful.

“Do you think Gunter will be happy to see us again?” she asked.

“Nope.”

The crowd was thinning out a fraction yet seemed to be becoming more boisterous. Probably because of the abundance of stalls that had added mulled wine to their afternoon sales plan. Lively music played from somewhere, and I was torn between convincing Tory to stay here a little longer, and our current plan to return to the hotel.

At the squeeze into the laneway, Tory nudged into my side and my damn dick gave me another idea for the rest of our day: the pair of us getting naked in our tiny hotel bed.

I forced my brain away from the throbbing in my groin, to the row of antique shops ahead.

As we approached Gunter’s antique shop, an uneasy feeling washed over me. Unlike the shops around his store, his windows were dark. Tory and I groaned in unison as we reached his door.

“Damn it.” Tory rattled his handle. It was locked.

A hand-scribbled sign was taped to the door.

Tory spun to a couple walking past. “Excuse me, do you speak English?”

The man nodded.

“Can you translate that for me?”

He stepped closer to the door. “Shop closed due to illness. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Lucky there are heaps more shops to explore.” The woman hooked her hand into her partner’s elbow and guided him away.

I pressed my face against the frosted glass window, trying to see inside, but couldn’t.

“Gunter!” I banged on the door, and the sound echoed around us.

“What the hell is he up to?” Tory took out her phone and photographed the note, or maybe the sign next to the note with the shop name and phone number.

“We could check around the back. See if we can break in?” I suggested, testing Tory’s level of risk.

Frowning, she scanned her gaze over the door and windows.

Huh. She really is considering my suggestion.

“We better not draw attention to ourselves,” she said.

“Okay. Let’s find some magnifying glasses and get out of here.”

She nodded. “Good idea.”

I didn’t miss the disappointment in her tone.

As we walked away, I tried to piece together what Gunter was up to.

What did he see on my map?

And why the hell do I still feel like I’m being watched?

We moved from shop to shop, searching for magnifying glasses, and each time we stepped back outside, the air seemed cooler. The wind howled through the narrow alleyways, tugging at the large frame beneath my elbow like it was trying to claw the map from my grasp.

After exhausting all the shops in Gunter’s area, we moved back to the main courtyard and started searching those shops. Despite constantly being on the move, I still couldn’t shake the feeling someone was watching us.

We ducked into another antique shop, and I followed Tory to a row of glass cabinets lining one wall.

Tory picked up an intricate brass compass and turned it over. “This is beautiful.”

“Yeah.” I glanced at the antique, then peered at the front door.

“You think someone is watching us, don’t you?”

I frowned at her. “Nah.”

“I do,” she said.

“Oh, why’s that?”

She shrugged. “Just do. Ever since we left Gunter’s shop. Maybe it’s him.”

“Well, if it is, he’s a sneaky bastard ’cause I haven’t seen him.”

She giggled. “So you have been watching our backs.”

“Always.”

“Good to know.” She slapped her hand onto my chest. “Let’s keep looking. ”

As she shuffled farther along the cabinet, a sense of dread gripped me. It couldn’t be a coincidence that both of us felt like we were being watched.

“No good,” she said and marched for the front door.

We stepped back onto the street, and acting like a pair of guilty thieves, we scanned the people around us.

I leaned into her ear. “Don’t go getting paranoid on me, sis.”

She scowled at me and strode to the next shop.

“Hey. Found one.” She lifted a magnifying glass off the cluttered table outside the shop. The antique was exquisite, with the handle crafted in four shades of Murano glass that twisted up to a golden ball attached to a gold frame around the magnifying glass.

“That’s going to cost a fortune,” I said.

“It will be worth it. Besides, Aria is paying.” She fished into the bag across her hip. “Come on, there may be more inside.”

As we entered, a bell chimed overhead, announcing our arrival. The shopkeeper looked up from her position behind the counter and smiled.

“Hello, do you speak English?” Tory asked.

“A little.” The shopkeeper held her thumb and finger apart.

As Tory went through the motions of trying to ask if the shopkeeper had another magnifying glass, I searched the crowd outside the window.

Tory thumped my arm. “Hey, we’re in luck. She has another one at the back.”

“Good stuff. You grab it. I’ll wait here.”

We bought two magnifying glasses, spending four hundred euro, and as we stepped from the shop, it flashed through my mind that using Aria’s credit card had been a terrible mistake.

By the time we found the car and returned to our hotel, the sun was all but gone. We didn’t run into anyone as we made it to our room, and a wave of relief washed through me when I locked the door.

As I cranked up the heater, Tory used the bathroom and changed into her pink tracksuit that hugged her glorious curves.

“Jesus, it gets cold quick.” She hugged her arms across her chest, maybe hiding her erect nipples from me.

Pity.

I pulled the envelope containing Pops’ map out from inside my jacket and handed it to her. “Here, spread this out. My turn to change.”

By the time I changed into comfy clothes, and stepped out of the bathroom, she had both maps ready to view. Pops’ map was too big for the tiny dining table and the edges draped over the sides. The framed map was on the bed and as Tory used a sock to wipe the dust off the glass, it reflected the light bulb dangling from the ceiling.

She handed me the Murano magnifying glass. “All right, let’s see what we have.”

With her using the other magnifier, side by side, we both leaned over Pops’ map.

I tried to focus, but she smelled so damn good that it was nearly impossible.

“Look at this.” She pointed to three marks in the top third, left hand side of the map. “What is that?”

I used the magnifier to study where she was indicating. Two sharp points were drawn on the map, like isosceles triangleswithout their bases attached to a wavy line. “I’ve seen them before. No idea what they are.”

“Could they represent mountains?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. All the other artwork on this map is exquisite. If the artist wanted to represent mountains, they would have.”

“Good point.” A cute frown danced across her forehead. “Are they on the other map?”

We both moved to the bedside and studied the map we’d bought today.

“Okay, there’s Carinhall.” I pointed at the castle that was drawn differently to the one on Pops’ map, but the name was the same. “So the triangle things should be about . . .”

I leaned forward with my magnifying glass. “They’re not there.”

“No.” Tory released a sigh. She pointed to another section. “This area doesn’t match your pops’ map at all. Why would that be?”

“Well, maybe it was made on purpose to give the enemy a bum steer.”

She scowled at me.

“GPS didn’t exist back then, so they had to rely on maps. Maybe they made ones to look real, but everything about them was false, and then they made sure the maps got into enemy hands.”

“That’s feasible.” She moved back to the table. “I wonder why Carinhall is featured on both maps then?”

“Good question.” I joined her side. “Maybe because Hitler and Goering went there. ”

“Maybe. Let’s see if we can find anything else that matches other than Carinhall.”

My mind raced. Were we on the verge of a discovery? I’d been trying to follow the clues on the map, the handwritten note, and photograph for nearly ten years. My gut told me this was another dead end.

“Carinhall is marked on both maps,” Tory murmured. She traced her finger across the name written on Pops’ map, then she moved to the bed and leaned over the glass map. “But the area around the map doesn’t match up. Whole areas are different. Yet the maps are dated just seven days apart.”

Groaning, she stood and tilted her hips forward, stretching her back.

It was damn hard not to look at her amazing tits.

I cleared my throat. “It’s strange, all right. I’m beginning to lean toward one of the maps being a deliberate fake.”

Tory lifted the framed map to look at the back of it. “Maybe there’s something hidden behind this one, too.”

I burst out laughing.

She glared at me.

I raised my hands in a peace gesture. “Only one way to find out.” I helped her flip the map over, so the glass rested on our bedcovers. Brown tape secured the backing board to the frame. She ran her fingernail along the seam.

“We’ll need something stronger. Don’t suppose you have a flick knife?” I joked.

“What about the car keys?”

“That could work.” I plucked the keys from my jacket pocket and put one knee on the bed. “You do know this will vastly devalue this map.”

“No, it won’t. It’s the map that’s worth six hundred.”

I shook my head. “It’s not worth that much. That slimy bastard Gunter ripped us off.”

I slid the key along a groove in the tape, separating the backing from the wooden frame.

“It will be priceless if it leads us to that gold.”

“Don’t go getting your hopes up, sis.”

She smacked my ass. “Stop calling me that.”

“Ooh.” I peered at her over my shoulder and wiggled my butt. “Do that again. ”

“Oh my god. You’re impossible.” She tugged her lips into her mouth, but she couldn’t stop the smile from reaching her eyes.

I cut through the tape with the car key, and the sound of the adhesive slicing filled the room, like a sinister scrape ruining a priceless vase.

“Careful, we could find something important in there,” she said.

“Or maybe nothing,” I muttered, trying to keep her expectations real.

The last piece of tape gave way and curled up like a snakeskin. Working together, we wedged our fingers beneath the backing board.

“Ready?” I said.

She nodded and her eyes shimmered with hope.

We lifted the board away. But there was nothing. Just the map and its fucking secrets that taunted us.

“Damn it.” She threw her hands out in frustration. “It’s empty.”

I tossed the keys onto the chair. “I don’t know what kind of treasure hunting you’ve done, but mine have never been that easy.”

“I know.” She rolled her eyes.

“Fancy a drink?” I wiggled my eyebrows. “I noticed there was a bar downstairs.”

Her shoulders sagged.

“Come on. Just one. I feel like we should celebrate.”

“Celebrate?” she frowned.

“Yeah. Day one of treasure hunting and we didn’t kill each other.”

She released a half huff, half chuckle. “Sure. Let’s celebrate.”

“You fold up that map. I’ll fold up Pops’.”

She frowned. “We can just leave them.”

“No,” I said way too quickly. “Never leave valuables in the hotel.”

“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”

“Not mine personally. Pops.” I folded up Pops’ map and slotted it back into the yellow envelope.

“Should I get changed?”

“Why?”

“I look scruffy.”

She looked anything but scruffy. “Nah. We look like tourists, we’ll fit right in.”

“Okay.” As Tory added the map we bought today to the envelope, I shifted the glass frame off the bed and rested it against the wall. I put the yellow envelope into my jacket pocket and pulled on my coat .

She grabbed her bag, and as she slotted it over her shoulder, sadness seemed to wash over her.

“Hey.” I pressed my hand to her shoulder. “Cheer up. We’ll figure this out.”

Tory offered me a half-hearted smile, then opened the door.

I followed her down the stairs, past the empty reception counter to the dimly lit bar at the rear of the inn where flames were flickering on the logs in the fireplace. Four couples were seated around the area, and a young man was playing with his phone behind the bar.

Tory and I ordered a glass of red wine each, and then we carried them to a pair of oversized black leather seats in front of the fire.

“This is nice,” she said as she settled into the seat.

Rather than talk about the disappointment upstairs, I decided on something more upbeat. “So, other than Gunter’s weird actions, did you enjoy your first antique fair?”

Tory held the glass in front of her and seemed to be studying the fire through the dark wine. “Yes, absolutely. And you?”

“Of course. Antiques have always been a passion of mine.”

“Always?” She scrunched her nose, like her next comment was a delicate one. “Or because your grandfather left you an antique store?”

“No. Well before then. When I was a kid, I spent all my holidays with Pops in his antique shop. He made it fun. Like we were going on treasure hunts.” I leaned back and sipped the wine. “He had so many stories of all the places he went around the world and the relics he brought back.”

“Wow. Sounds amazing.” A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

“He taught me everything I know about history and relics. You must be the same, right? You said it was your dad that was the treasure hunter. Did he share his treasure hunting stories too?”

She stiffened.

“Sorry. I forgot you said your father passed away.”

Clenching her jaw, she nodded.

“How long ago was that?”

Her knuckles seemed to bulge around the wine stem. “A few years ago.”

“Oh jeez, Tory. I’m so sorry.”

Her gaze drifted to the fire. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

The weight of her sorrow matched my own. “We’re a good pair, aren’t we?”

She cocked her head at me. “How so?”

“Because of the loss of our treasure hunting bloodlines, we have a fascination for objects that have survived through the ages.”

A melancholy smile tugged at her lips. “I guess so.”

She sipped her wine.

The dancing flames in the fire seemed to mesmerize her, and I imagined she was thinking about her father. I wanted to ask her about him, but I sensed she wouldn’t tell me anyway.

Tory took a long sip of her wine, then turned to me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just so hard to talk about.”

The sadness in her eyes tore my fucking heart out.

I wanted to wrap my arms around her and hold her until all her aches went away. Instead, I edged forward in the seat and rested my hand on her forearm. “It’s okay. I know exactly what you’re going through.”

Her bottom lip quivered, and she turned back to the fire. When she swept a tear from her eyes, I shuffled my chair closer and pulled her toward me. She fell into my arms like all the air had deflated from her body.

She let me hold her with her cheek against my chest and my arms around her body.

We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to.

Grief was a burden that didn’t need words.

She pulled back from me, wiping her eyes. “Sorry.”

“No need to be.” I attempted a smile. “Shall we go to bed?”

She giggled and raised her finger. “No touching though.”

I showed her my palms. “No touchy. No feely.”

She giggled some more, and it was so sweet my heart swelled.

In our room, we crawled into bed, facing away from each other, and I turned out the lamp on my bedside table. “Goodnight, sis.”

She thumped my back. “Call me that again and I’ll knacker you.”

“Ooh, I might light that.”

“Kane!”

The bed wobbled with her trying to hold back her laughter.

A tiny green light from my phone charger in the corner socket glowed off the glass on the map frame that I’d propped against the wall. It looked like a tiny camera spying on us. The wind howled outside, rattling the windowpanes and shivering against the cold, I tugged the blanket higher on my shoulders.

“Goodnight, Kane,” Tory said. “Thanks for a lovely day.”

“Likewise, Tory. Have a good sleep.”

“You, too.”

I wasn’t going to have a good sleep. Not when my damn cock throbbed for the smoking hot woman sleeping a few inches away.

As I stared at the green light, and the wind drummed against the window glass, images from our day together flickered across my mind. Today had been a rollercoaster of emotions, yet I couldn’t remember a time when I’d been so relaxed with a woman.

Her breathing became heavy, and I had no idea how she was sleeping with the wind howling right outside and shuddering our window like it was.

I rolled onto my back and forced my eyes closed. Listening to her breathing was some kind of therapy, and I drifted in and out of sleep. Each time I opened my eyes, the green shadows in the room shifted.

My dreams were a messy mix of dusty treasures and Tory giggling.

As the night wore on, my mind churned more and though Tory lay beside me, I felt like she was drifting miles away.

My eyes shot open and found the damn green light again.

I was on my side, and I blinked at the light, trying to work out what woke me.

A heavy silence filled the room, but the wind still battered the window. Tory must be in a deep sleep; I could barely hear her breathing.

A strange creak of the floor added to the rattling windowpanes.

It echoed through my bones.

Oh fuck! Someone’s in our room.