Page 108 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

“Find the shipwreck I told you about off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago?” Laz asked with a grin.

“If I did, I certainly wouldn’t tell you,” he rumbled with a chuckle. He pushed past Laz and held his hand out to Graves. “Boss.”

Graves shook his hand. “Good to have you on board.”

“Good to be back in the city. The weather is more to my liking.”

“Hot,” Graves grumbled.

“I come from warm waters and clear currents,” he said simply. “Your Central Park is far from that.”

“I converted the swimming pool to salt,” Graves said.

Schwartz grinned, revealing stark-white teeth. “That will do.”

“Swimming pool?” Kierse demanded. “You have a swimming pool?”

“Of course I do,” Graves said.

Gen raised her eyebrows. “Of course he does.”

Kierse was baffled. She had cased this place, covering every inch of the townhouse the last time she lived here. Where was the fucking pool?

“Allow me to introduce you to Augustin Saint-Fleur Schwartz.”

Schwartz screwed up his face. “My full name, Boss? Should we start calling you Brannon?”

“Not if you want to keep your head,” Graves said mildly.

Schwartz laughed and leaned back against the table. “My mother is a Haitian mer, and my father was a missionary. She wanted me to have both names,” he said by way of explanation. “Schwartz just stuck. As did Graves.”

Graves continued, “Schwartz here is in security. He’sgotten a job in the company in charge of protecting the auction items.” Graves nodded at Schwartz. “Why don’t you report?”

Schwartz handed Graves a sheaf of paper. “The list of attendees. No one outside of the expected list.”

Graves looked it over and sighed. “Indeed. Lorcan is going to be there.”

“Is that a problem?” Kierse asked.

“He’s always a problem.” His eyes continued down the names. “A few billionaires you’ve probably stolen for or from, some monsters—I can guess what they’re after—Amberdash.”

Kierse jolted. “What’s he doing there?”

Gregory Amberdash was a wraith businessman. He’d been a middleman for Kierse’s thievery jobs after she’d dispatched Jason. He’d warned her that something was coming for her after the job to steal from Graves, but she hadn’t known where his allegiances lay. She still didn’t.

“Same thing he always is,” Graves said, “meddling and trying to look important.” He tossed the paper aside. “No one who should interfere. How do we get the cauldron?”

Schwartz gestured with one hand. “No way that I can discern. I wrote up the system in place, and no one is stealing this thing.”

“Can I see?” Kierse asked. Schwartz passed her a paper, and her eyes widened in shock and appreciation.

The security around the cauldron was like nothing she’d ever seen. Top-of-the-line vault with a card reader, user-specific codes, and multiple biometric sensors needed to deactivate. If she managed to get through all of that, then she’d have to deal with the anti-tampering technology—cutting-edge equipmentintended to deter brute-force attacks by destroying internal components before the thief could get inside. Not to mention an entire team of mercenary monsters, Schwartz included, to guard the thing. Their best bet would be to get it when it was being transported, but it would be shipped in essentially a bulletproof tank with yet more armed guards. It even made her pause.

“Fuck,” she said, passing it back. “Exactly how big is the thing?”

“Dimensions are here,” Schwartz pointed out to her.

Kierse held her hand out to measure the estimated size of the box that would hold the cauldron. It wasn’t that big. A two-foot cube with all that security wasn’t holding a very large item.

---