Lover Unveiled (Black Dagger Brotherhood 19)

But whatever, when you were a manager of hedges that had funds, you needed a hot wife. You also required some real estate flex. Or six properties, as the case was. Here in Caldwell, the guy had purchased the top three levels of half the Commodore, and the layout of the triplex was logical. First floor was made up of big public spaces for entertaining—you know, for when you had to throw checks-for-canapés events to support local philanthropies. The second level was this rabbit warren of little rooms with their curated collections of space pebbles, nineteenth-century poke-and-tickle nightmares—and oh, yup, those three dozen bat skeletons that were like model ships only with wings.

Balz actually almost respected the guy’s taste.

As for the third floor? That was what he was after, and when he came up to the staircase, he ascended those marble steps on a whisper. Oil paintings by Banksy marked the curving wall, and up above, a chandelier strung with lead crystal prisms gleamed quietly, like a rambunctious debutante that had been told to pipe down at the ball. Up on the penthouse level, the wall-to-wall carpeting started, and there was a change in scents here, a flowery bouquet tinting the air with lavender, honeysuckle, and the lilting freedom that came with big fat bank statements.

Balz followed along the runner, the pile so thick it was like walking on Wonder Bread, the trail taking him by a lineup of arched windows that let in a glowing view of the skyscrapers and linking roadways below. The sight of the streaming lines of white headlights and red taillights, coupled with the glowing, graceful arches of the twin bridges, was so captivating he had to take a moment to appreciate the urban landscape.

And then he was on the move again.

The security system had been as expected, a high-level, integrated set of belt-and-antiburglar-suspenders that had been a fun challenge to disarm.

Hey, Vishous wasn’t the only one who was handy with the IT shit, ’kay?

It had been a moment of pride for Balz that he hadn’t had to consult the Brother with the Mensa membership about disarming all the motion detectors, door contacts, and laser-sighted sensors in the place. And the fact that Balz did the strip job all on his own was part of the rules he set for himself. These humans with their portable objects of value were sitting ducks for a thief like him: For all intents and purposes, in any conceivable house, condo, apartment, yacht, bunker, whatever, he could just dematerialize in through a plate glass window, put the inhabitants to sleep mentally, and use the five-finger discount to take what he wanted, when he wanted.

But that was like sitting down to Monopoly with a set of brass knuckles. If you could just knock out your opponent, grab all the hotels and houses, all the paper money, and all the properties? Well, congratulations. You just roll those dice and move your little shoe around the board for the next seventy-five thousand rounds, playing with yourself.

The challenge was in the constrictions. And in his case, he applied all human limitations to himself: He was not allowed to do anything that those rats without tails couldn’t. That was the one rule, but it had many, many implications.

Okay, fine. He also cheated on occasion.

Just a little.

But he was a thief, not a priest, for fuck’s sake.

Going along, he wasn’t interested in the lineup of empty guest bedrooms. In fact, the entire condo, including the panic room(s) he was heading for, was vacant. He’d intended to get in when the happy couple were clocking time on the premises—because homeowners were much more of a challenge when they were actually, you know, home—but he was on rotation with the Brotherhood and the Mr. and Mrs. traveled a lot of the time. He was done waiting for the stars to align.

The animal charity he was giving the cash to needed to rebuild after that fire. Fortunately, none of the dogs or cats had been killed, but their medical wing had taken a hit—

What. So he was a sucker for four-legged things. Besides, he didn’t need the money and having a purpose to the taking was what made everything more than just a robbery hobby.

The master suite was an apartment within the condo, a localized concentration of super-fancy and ultra-private that included a separate kitchen area, its own terrace, and a bathroom/closet combo the size of most people’s houses. And they’d totally followed Jodie Foster’s 2002 example. The whole thing went on lockdown in the event of an infiltration by someone with a net worth of less than $40 million or, if it was female, a waist-to-hip ratio lower than 0.75.

Standards, doncha know.

As he crossed into the Big Man Zone, he stopped and listened to all the quiet. God, how fucking boring was this. He really would have preferred to wait for the Mr. and Mrs. to be in res.