My back goes ramrod straight, and I turn quickly. Poppy . . . looking amazing in a skirt and silk blouse combo, her thick red hair pulled back into a professional bun, and wearing black-framed glasses I’ve never seen her wear before.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I hiss quietly.

  Poppy smooths back a nonexistent stray hair and adjusts her glasses. “If I say checking up on you, would you find that adorable or stalker-y?” She flutters her lashes at me innocently.

  “You can’t be here. You need to go,” I growl. “Now.”

  She looks at me evenly, completely unfazed by my aggression, which is somehow so damn sexy. If I weren’t scared shitless that she’s going to get hurt simply by being here, I’d want to kiss the fuck out of her.

  “Hmm, nope.”

  She smiles, but it looks more murderous than congenial, and her butt is still sitting in the chair, not moving a bit.

  “Poppy, this is serious business,” I plead, trying a different tactic. “Dangerous. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Yeah, I know. That guy over there” —she points to a local millionaire who collects everything from primitive pottery to midcentury velvet clown paintings— “looks super sketchy.”

  She nods like she knows things, but she doesn’t have a clue. She doesn’t even know that I’m here for a job. I mean, me plus an art auction doesn’t take a genius to figure out, but she doesn’t know.

  “Is there any chance I could talk you into sitting here and being quiet? Let me do what I need to do and don’t interfere.”

  Before she answers, someone slips into the empty chair next to me. Fuck my life when I see who it is. “Hey, man.”

  If it wouldn’t make a scene, I’d throw my hands up in the air. “Fuck, why don’t we hold a whole damn board meeting? The gang’s all here,” I mutter. “JP, what’re you doing here?”

  JP looks cool as a cucumber, completely unfazed by this impromptu meeting between him and me, which makes me leery as fuck. Especially when he straightens his already straight tie. “It’s your lucky day. Boss man is ready to meet.”

  “Today?”

  JP levels me with a stare. “Now.”

  “He’s here?” I say incredulously. “I’m in the middle of a job!” Not that it’s going to plan, by any means, but I’m not going to tell JP that. Or Mr. Big, for fucking sure.

  “No shit. Now.”

  My heart starts to race in excitement. This is what I’ve been waiting for, laying eyes on the infamous Mr. Big, the man nobody sees, nobody meets. He’s virtually a ghost while simultaneously buying and selling the bulk of the art black market. I look around again, considering the people I wrote off as lookie-loos, deciding whether they might be Mr. Big.

  “Come on,” JP says. “Follow me.”

  JP stands, and after a second’s consideration, I do too. “Where are we going?

  JP angles his head, indicating a door off to the side. Once his back is turned, I give Poppy a hard look, silently begging her to stay put. I don’t want to leave her out here unprotected, but I don’t have a choice. I grit my teeth and follow JP.

  Through the door, we’re in the back hallway. It’s ironic because this was exactly how I planned on swiping the statue, taking advantage of the post-auction hubbub to slip right in and do the deed.

  JP knocks on a door I know well because I’ve already been on the other side of it. I glance up at the camera as we pass through it, noting that the light showing it’s recording is dark. In the room beyond, I see the familiar tables and shelves full of treasures. It should be crawling with people in here, ready to carry out the items for auction, return them for safe storage, and tracking each item precisely. But there’s no one here except for one man.

  “Mr. Big, I presume?”

  He dips his chin one time, one time only. “Connor Bradley.”

  He’s smaller and younger than I predicted, looking suave and flashy in a designer suit. For a man who’s been the king of the art theft world and the region for almost two decades, he’s exceptionally ordinary looking. Brown hair, brown eyes, and not particularly intimidating in appearance. You could pass him on the street and think him one of thousands of businessmen and then instantly forget what he looked like.

  I take a closer look at his face, studying and memorizing the details I need to know, and it’s only then that I recognize him. He’s not a face known to all the public, but when you’re part of the ownership group of our local minor league baseball team, you do occasionally make the papers.

  It seems Mr. Big is a well-rounded scoundrel, deep in both art and sports.

  And now I know his real name. Mr. Big is Shane Harris, but I’ll smartly keep that info to myself. For now.

  Mr. Big turns and runs his hand along the edge of a table, nodding to himself as he scans the pieces there. I keep my silence. Whatever he has to say, I’m not going to tip my hand to him yet. “Seems I owe you a debt of appreciation for the work you’ve done for me.”

  I shrug casually. “You’ve compensated me well. Paid in full after each job.”

  His face tightens, as if he’s got a little bit of gas, and he turns back to me, looking stony. “If only that were true,” he says sadly from between pursed lips. “If only.”

  “Excuse me?” I reply, alarm bells going off in my head. Something’s not right here. Why the hell have me case the place to steal a statue, only to show up when he knows I’m doing the job?

  Unless . . .

  Oh, shit.

  “Betrayal is a funny thing,” Mr. Big says when he sees something change in my eyes. “You expect it to come from enemies, but it so rarely does.”

  I freeze. I don’t know how he knows, or what he knows, but he does.

  Mentally, my brain goes ten different directions at once . . . how to get out of here, how to make sure Poppy is safe, how Mr. Big could’ve found out, what JP’s role in this is.

  Before I can decipher anything, Mr. Big pulls a gun out of his jacket pocket. I fully expect a sharp crack and the impact of a round hitting me in the gut. I’m bracing for it already. But instead, he aims at JP.

  “The fuck?” I exclaim, trying to keep my hands loose at my side.

  JP throws his hands up high, rambling in Spanish. I catch something that I think is a prayer before he switches to English. “Boss—”

  “I considered you trustworthy, Juan Pablo. I was very disappointed to find out you’ve been talking to the police.”

  I look at JP in surprise, but he’s shaking his head wildly. “No, Boss, no, no.”

  “Wait, hold on. There must be some misunderstanding here. Why would JP talk to the police? He loves his work.” I’m trying to diffuse the situation because I’m missing some major pieces of information.

  “Why doesn’t matter,” Mr. Big answers me. To JP, he snarls, “It only matters that you did.”

  Mr. Big points the gun again, emphasizing his anger to a now-quiet JP.

  Something behind Mr. Big catches my attention, and only experience keeps me from reacting to the flash of red I see duck behind a crate on one of the shelves.

  Motherfucking shit! That’s Poppy.

  What is she doing? I told her to stay in her seat and let me do what I need to. Now I’ve got two people to save, JP and Poppy.

  “Connor, you’ve done excellent work for me, and this is your chance to step up the ladder. This job, as you can guess, was a . . . test. Take out the middleman, and in the future, you’ll work directly for me. Sound good?” Mr. Big cocks his pistol, and I recognize what the real test is. It’s about either shooting JP myself or getting rid of the body. Either one will demonstrate my loyalty.

  JP says something quietly in Spanish, but he doesn’t move other than that. Personally, I don’t want JP dead for a multitude of reasons and would prevent this if possible. “I appreciate the compliment on my work. Not sure about this whole situation, though.” I wave a hand from the gun to JP. “Seems like a bad way to start off a new arrangement.”

  While I speak, Poppy is sneaking up behind Mr. Big. She mouths, “Keep talking.”

  JP looks to me with wide eyes. I definitely hear him say, “Perra loca”.

  I agree with him, Poppy is a crazy bitch. But she’s my crazy bitch and it’s my job to warn her off. I glare at her, trying to tell her with my eyes to back the fuck off and get out of here. She responds by flashing me a thumbs-up and taking two more exaggerated tippy toe steps toward us.

  Is she trying to save me?

  Thankfully, the gods favor fools and redheads, it seems, and since Poppy’s both, Mr. Big doesn’t notice her. “I can understand your hesitation, but it felt necessary to show what I require of my people. I am serious about loyalty.”

  “I can see that,” I reply, trying to keep Mr. Big’s attention so he doesn’t hear Poppy.

  But I’m not surprised when that doesn’t go to plan either. As she comes around the crate Mr. Big is standing next to, she trips over her own feet and stumbles right into the open.

  Mr. Big whirls and aims the gun at her. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Oh!” she exclaims, completely ignoring the gun aimed at her chest in favor of adopting a ditzy airhead act, “I was looking for the bathroom and seem to have gotten a little lost.” She holds her hand up to her mouth as though confiding top-secret intel. “Do you know where the ladies’ room is? I swear I can’t go more than a few minutes without having to tinkle. That’s what my grandmother used to call it—tinkle. She said it was more ladylike than saying you had to piss. But really, we all do it, so why the need for code words?”

  She’s rambling, getting closer and closer as if she doesn’t even see the gun. It’s so off the wall, though, that it works, and Mr. Big somehow doesn’t shoot her. “What? Just . . . stop moving. And talking.”

  Poppy stops as if she just realized what she walked into. Taking off her glasses, she wipes at the lenses, then puts them back on, doing a double-take at Mr. Big. “Holy shit.” Her eyes are wide, and she covers her mouth with her hands. From behind spread fingers, she says, “What’s with the gun? Did I walk in on something? I didn’t mean to interrupt, sorry about that. Just needed to piss.” She looks up to the ceiling, backpedaling. “Sorry, MeeMaw.”

  She backs away, her butt bumping into a table, rattling everything on its surface and sending a vase several feet away crashing over.

  “Stop right there, woman,” I yell in a last-ditch effort to keep Poppy safe. Maybe if Mr. Big believes she’s a wayward attendee of the auction, he’ll let her go. I hope that’s true even as I know there’s zero chance of that happening.

  When Mr. Big glances over at me, Poppy takes advantage and grabs the closest heavy object, which happens to be the statue I was supposedly sent here to steal. Four pounds of stone make a hell of a club, and with Mr. Big’s head half turned away, the statue catches him right in the temple.

  Mr. Big drops to the floor like he was the one who got shot, and Poppy starts jumping up and down like she won the hammer strike game at the county fair.

  “I did it!” Her shout of excitement reminds me of Dora the Explorer, loud and ridiculous considering what she’s done. “That worked better than I thought! I saved you! With female ingenuity and . . . bewbies!”

  She points at the statue’s breasts, sounding proud of herself, but I’m pretty much flummoxed. “What? You didn’t save me. I was about to do something to save you.”

  Poppy scoffs, holding up her impromptu weapon like it’s completely natural for a woman to wield ad-hoc bludgeons like golf clubs and ancient stone statues on a regular basis. “Sure, you were.”

  My gut twists, the fear of losing her turning into hot, liquid fury as I look at the still stunned Mr. Big. Poppy, my woman, had a gun held on her, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t save her.

  Shame weighs on my soul.

  She’s such a bright light, one the world needs, and it was almost snuffed out too soon. Because of me.

  But I can fix this. Moving quickly to Mr. Big’s sprawled body, I pick up the gun from the concrete before plucking the statue from Poppy’s hand, not wanting her to crack me over the head with it too.

  JP, who realizes that somehow, he’s been given the gift of life at the last moment, looks at me in shock. “Connor?”

  I look him in the eye, trusting my gut. “Both of you, let’s go. Now.”

  JP’s eyes narrow, and I know what he’s thinking. I pissed off a very valuable, very violent man. What’s stopping me from doing the same to JP?

  “Not a question,” I tell him, tucking the pistol into my belt. “We’ve got some shit to talk about.”

  We go out the back door of the building and around the side to climb into my truck with Poppy in the back and JP in the passenger seat because I’m not entirely sure I trust him at my back just yet.

  As soon as we’re clear of the parking lot, I grab my phone and dial Hunter.

  Despite how our last conversation finished, he answers on the very first ring. “Miss me already?”

  There is no time for niceties or manners. Shit’s hit the fan, officially and majorly. “Need a pickup team at the auction house. Mr. Big is unconscious in the back room. You’ll recognize him. Shane Harris.”

  Hunter’s tone goes serious instantly as he demands, “What? What did you do?”

  “Not me, Poppy,” I reply, glancing into the rearview mirror. Poppy still looks like she’s pleased as punch about this whole thing. “She hit him over the head with the fucking statue.”

  Hunter unexpectedly barks out laughter in my ear. “She does like to hit things, doesn’t she?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, ask her. It’s a funny story.”

  I glare at her, and she smiles like nothing is wrong in the world, even though she just fucked up everything I’ve been working on for months. And almost got herself shot in the process!

  “I’ve got Poppy and JP. Mr. Big says he’s been talking to the police.”

  Hunter’s voice goes so hard I’m surprised he can unlock his jaw enough to answer me. “Fuck.”

  “Yeah,” I tell him. “I’ll be in touch.”

  I hang up and glance over at JP, who’s looking at me in confusion. He usually bosses me around, but planning is my job, down to the exit strategies. Even when they’re this fucked up.

  Chapter 24

  Poppy

  Connor looks furious as he hangs up with Hunter.

  I never thought ‘mad’ could be this sexy of a look. On Connor, or anyone, really. I thought it’d make him look scary. But instead, he looks like he could slay a dragon and then cook it over a bonfire for the whole town to feast on.

  Maybe I can write that into my book somehow? Though it’s not a fantasy period piece, so a random dragon showing up might be a stretch. But maybe a town barbeque? Hero dude just standing at a grill, wearing a plaid apron and holding a spatula. That’s . . . not as sexy. Never mind, I think, scrubbing that idea off my mental possibilities list. But either way, all I want to do is rip that suit off and get me some Connor meat.

  “Poppy.”

  “Connor,” I return, still pleased with myself.

  “Why does Hunter think you’re aggressive?” he asks, meeting my eye in the rearview mirror.

  “Huh?” It takes me a second to leave behind my barbeque scenario and return to this one where Connor is gritting his teeth so hard, the muscle in his jaw is popping. “Oh, because I introduced him to Gary, up close and personal. Real personal. In my defense, it was absolutely warranted.”

  Connor glances back at the road, his eyes tight. “When?”

  “When he was at your house last night. I demanded to know where you were. He didn’t want to tell me at first, but with a little persuasion from Gary” —I hold up my thumb and finger an inch apart— “he was singing like a canary. Tweet, tweet! He told me where to find you, what the dress code was, and he gave me these cool glasses as a disguise.”

  JP looks at Connor warily. “Who’s Gary?” When Connor doesn’t answer, he turns around to look at me as if he can’t decide which of us is the larger threat to his well-being. “Who’s Gary?”

  “My golf club,” I tell him proudly. “He’s a three iron.”

  Connor isn’t as amused, though. “Shit! I saw him this morning.” He slams a hand to the steering wheel. “That motherfucker played me. He was testing me by telling me to ditch you.”

  “He what?” I screech, leaning forward over the seat to snatch Connor’s phone so I can redial Hunter. I’m going to give that guy a piece of my mind. “That asshole! I’ll kill him. Oops, maybe we shouldn’t discuss urder-may in front of the olice-pay informant-ay,” I tell Connor, tilting my head toward JP, who scoots a little closer to the door as if the extra inch or so might protect him.

  Connor doesn’t stop me from grabbing his phone, and a few seconds later, I understand why as his phone stays locked. “It’s fingerprint, as well as swipe pattern, locked,” he growls. “And nobody is murdering anyone.”

  “Well, not now, when you told him the plan.” I roll my eyes and flop back in the seat. “And fingerprint? Really? As your fiancée, I should have your code. It’s happy marriage rule 42. Or maybe 24? I forget, but it’s one of the big ones.” I’m totally making that up, but I’ve seen enough late-night TV to know that if your man is locking his phone, he’s got a side chick in his DMs, and I don’t share.

  “I’m a criminal with a phone. It’s that or constant burners,” Connor points out. Looking over, he says, “JP . . . what the fuck?”

  He sounds tired. Maybe today has been a long one for him, but I can help with that. Maybe after we figure out the JP issue, we can eat pizza in bed and relax. I can give him a massage and rub all that stress right out.

  After that, he can rub my stress out too.

  “I had to,” JP pleads with Connor.

  He sounds like he’s still not sure what the hell’s going on. Join the club, man! But the important thing to remember is that we’re safe now because I saved us. But does either of them thank me? Of course not. They’re going on with their conversation like I’m not sitting in the back seat.