Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Kierse rolled her eyes skyward. No alarms. No locks. What’s next—the jewels just sitting out in display cases?
Still, she dragged it open just far enough for her to slip into the place of secrets.
Her eyes widened. The sign over the doorway suddenly made perfect sense. Holly vines crawled up the shelves and over the top of the wood of the largest private library she had ever seen. They should have been a hazard to the collection, but none of the books seemed hindered. Everything was exceptionally well cared for. But the real beauty of what lay before her was that each and every one of the hundreds of bookshelves was packed full with book after book after book. Rows of old leather-bound volumes to brand-new hardbacks with pristine dust jackets.
All she wanted to do was pull them off the shelves just to smell them. Crack open those perfect spines and devour the contents. She wanted to live and breathe a different world. Something, anything, other than her own horrid reality. It would be easy to spend a lifetime in this room and never read every volume. But she didn’t have that time. She only had a few minutes to find a diamond ring and get the hell out.
Kierse’s gaze narrowed on the large window at the other end of the massive library between rows of bookcases. She passed a cozy sitting area with a table, couch, and set of chairs at the center of the room to the window and flipped the latch. Exits were always a priority.
“In the library,” she told Ethan. “Anything on the outside?”
“All clear here. Hurry up.”
She rolled her eyes. Leave it to Ethan, sitting comfortably on the outside, to hurry her along. She went in search of the safe. Amberdash claimed it was nestled into a bookshelf on the left side of the room. She was just realizing how little description that was in a place this size. Kierse walked the stacks, peering into corners and moving vines about to see if the safe was hidden. She was just getting frustrated with the search when she brushed aside a string of holly and revealed the safe on a shelf at eye level. She frowned at the innocuous box.
“What the hell?” she whispered into the stillness.
It was a simple safe with a hole for a tiny key. Only a two-pin tumbler. The kind of fireproof carrying case that anyone could have in their home for paperwork. It was too easy. Almost insulting. There had to be a trick to it. Who kept an enormous diamond ring in a safe with a lock a child could break?
A sensation like cold water through her veins hit her fresh. Something wasn’t right here. She’d had plenty of jobs go to shit, but the prick of nerves that raised the hair on the back of her neck wasn’t normal. She touched the silver wren tied around her neck on a black silk string to dispel the feeling. In the end, it didn’t matter why this was so easy.
She retrieved her tools out of her pocket and gently touched a rubber piece against the safe. One safe she’d broken into had been rigged with electricity. Not a pleasant feeling. But nothing happened this time. Not even a sizzle.
She fortified her nerves before inserting her tools into the lock and jiggling the two pins, clicking the safe open. She’d been able to do that since she turned seven years old. Breaking the lock had only taken her a matter of seconds. The safe released upward without a sound, revealing the contents within: a stack of folded paperwork, an unfamiliar stamped silver coin, a hunk of black metal, what appeared to be a human fingernail, and the giant diamond ring.
Well, at least Amberdash hadn’t been lying. It was here. Kierse pocketed the ring and stared at the rest of the contents. What a bizarre assortment of things. Kierse shut the lid, carefully relocked the box so that it wouldn’t look disturbed, and moved the holly vines back into place. She shivered as she righted herself. This library spooked her. There was something off about it, and she couldn’t put her finger on it.
“Well, well, well,” a cold, dark voice said from the shadows, “what do we have here?”
She stilled, a chill skating down her spine. Shit. She’d been wrong. Someone was home.
And now, she was nothing more than prey caught in a predator’s trap. She could hear it in the sound of his voice. It was the carefully precise speech that set her on edge. He had a slight British accent. Silky smooth and devoid of any emotion, just pure, unbridled male. Power lurked dark and hungry in every syllable.
Panic clawed its way into her chest where cool, calm calculation normally resided. She needed to collect herself and lean into her carefully honed instincts. Without them, she was dead. There was no alternative.