“Yes, his trip was last minute when plans to meet with a friend to hike in Portugal fell through—the friend fell off a ladder and broke his knee. He reached out to Gillibrand—the auction house we worked with last year—to ask about art in Malta and learned of the reception.” She rose from her seat. “Besides, I don’t see how it’s any of your business even if he did set up our surprise meeting. If I’m fine with it, what’s your problem?”

“Your father has billions.”

“My father is dead. I inherited his house and life savings. He had thousands.”

“Reuben thinks you’re here to claim your birthright.”

“So I’m Daenerys Targaryen now?” She rolled her eyes. “I have no birthright. The only thing I want—from Reuben, or even you—is to see the art my father brokered for you. To understand how and why he hid that part of his life from me.”

“I think that’s obvious at this point.”

“Perhaps the why, but not the how. As I mentioned, he was worth thousands. In the mid-six-figures range, but that’s not accounting for brokering foreign art deals. So maybe I am here for the money. But money that’s legally mine as his sole heir. Did my father have a bank account here in Malta?” She crossed her arms. “I can’t imagine he would hide his money in Russia.”

Grigory’s smile was almost feral. Good. This was something he could believe.

“So little Miss Innocent is here for the money after all.”

She could remind him that she didn’t know about the art brokering until Juliette mentioned it on Friday night, but that would undermine her purpose now.

She waved toward the arched doorway. “Take me to your art room where you’ve got my mother’s painting and, I’m sure, an extensive collection of Nazi-stolen art.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

The room Rand was provided to work in was located in what appeared to be the office wing of the mansion. He was led down a hall with doors on either side, one of which was ajar, and he spotted a man in a suit at a computer.

They continued down the corridor, and Rand was presented with a glass-walled conference room with a table that seated ten. Ornate double doors at the end of the hall likely led to Grigory Laskin’s personal office.

Rand would be working in a fishbowl, but he was prepared for that. The servant who’d led him to the room gave him a card with the guest network name and password printed on it, then left him alone.

He chose a corner seat that was least exposed to the windowed wall and set up his laptop. He popped on his bone-conduction Bluetooth headphones with ear hooks. The headphones were military grade, but looked like basic sport earbuds. With these, he would be able to listen in on Kira and talk to Freya. The Zoom meeting would be conducted using the computer’s speaker because he wanted his fake agent’s words to be audible to the camera and microphone that monitored this room.

He grumbled about the laptop’s built-in mic being broken and did a sound check with the headphones, which would serve as his mic with FMV and his fake literary agent.

Kira didn’t have an earpiece that could be hidden behind or in her ear, especially given the climate, where she’d been wearing her hair up most of the time, so communication with her was one-way except for texting. They had a short list of code words. Rand hoped to hell they wouldn’t need them.

He grabbed a screenshot of the active Wi-Fi networks before logging in. Once he was online, he used the link Freya had set up that gave her remote access to his computer. He then clicked Print for the editorial letter from hell. He checked the list of available printers and found what he needed—a multifunction device with fax machine and scanner. It was the scanner that was important because that meant two-way communication between printer and computer. If the device was plugged in to a modem, they were in business.

He sent the print job, then watched the printer queue, waiting for the status to change from sending to printing. He stepped into the hall and wandered down the corridor, listening for the sound of pages being sent through a laser printer. He hit paydirt for the room across the hall from the one office that was occupied.

He turned the knob and entered the room and had to suppress a smile at what he found. This was the network hub for Laskin’s home office. Modem, routers, a selection of different printers including the all-in-one he’d selected. A large desktop computer had multiple hard drives and cables running to and from it.

“What are you doing?” The male voice had a thick Russian accent.

He turned to see a man standing in the open doorway of his office across the hall. Rand stepped deeper into the tech room, out of sight of the curious employee before answering. “Picking up the document I’m printing.”

The printer was still spitting out pages. Rand spotted a blue cat 5 cable that connected the printer to the cable modem with a row of flashing green lights. This was going to work.

“Who are you?” The man followed him into the room.

“A guest of Grigory’s. Who are you?” Rand plugged a USB drive into the front port of the multifunction device and pressed buttons on the screen to call up a file to print.

“I work here. You can’t be in here.”

“I can. I even am. Grigory is letting me use the conference room to work while he and Juliette entertain my girlfriend.” He hit the Print button on the only file on the drive, which was a large graphic. It contained a trojan that would give Freya’s tech team—the Navy approved the hacking, but wasn’t doing the dirty work—access to Grigory’s entire network and every computer on it as soon as they broke through each device’s password protection.

Freya had brought in some tech wizard who did consulting for Raptor and the military for that task.

“What are you printing?”

The printer stopped. The twenty-plus page edit letter was done. The screen flashed with a new message: Receiving print data.

He felt the same adrenaline as when he and his team breeched a building at the start of an op. Who knew technical espionage could be similarly exhilarating? This was definitely going in a book.

The print job would take a few minutes. Time stretched in the same way it did when he carried an M4 and cleared room after room, searching for the hostage.

He picked up the stack of papers, then turned and frowned at Grigory’s employee. “The end of my writing career.” He muttered the words, then spoke more clearly. “My editor decided to ruin my vacation. I need to respond, and Grigory said I could use his conference room and internet.”

“Let me see that.” The guy took a step forward and reached for the thick stack of papers.

Rand pulled them to his chest. “Do you mind? This isn’t exactly something I’m proud of. My editor hated the book I just spent the last six months pouring my soul into.” Then he sighed and thrust the papers toward the man. “Whatever. Enjoy my humiliation.”

The guy glanced at the papers, then nodded toward the printer. “What’s that? Why are you printing from a USB drive?”

“It’s a graphic file. My computer doesn’t have the program to edit it and crashes if I even click on the file name, so I keep it on a thumb drive.”

The guy frowned. “Mr. Laskin didn’t tell me you would be here.”

He was persistent, Rand would give him that. “I’m shocked Grigory didn’t tell you he invited me to lunch. I’m sure he keeps you apprised of all his social engagements. Perhaps later you can join us by the swimming pool?”

The man’s face reddened. “It is unusual for guests of Mr. Laskin to be in this part of the residence.”

Rand shrugged. “Grigory is eager to please Luka and Reuben Kulik and so he made accommodations for me while he visits with Luka’s daughter.”

Now the man’s eyes widened. “Daughter?”

“My girlfriend.”

The man took a step back. “Fine. But you should have asked before printing. Take your drive from the printer and leave this room. Send me your file, and I will print it.”

“I was trying not to waste anyone’s time. And I can’t send the file. It’s not on my computer.”

“Then give me the drive.”

He stepped forward, but Rand used his size to advantage and blocked the man’s path.

“It’s taking too long.” He reached around Rand, his hand aiming for the small drive.