The Archangel Agenda (Evangeline Heart Book 1) by A.K. Alexander, Jen Greyson

wire to an account in Switzerland.”
    I nodded. “Nice. What did they want this time?”
    “He wants me to grab a stone, but nothing valuable. I’ve researched the hell out of this thing and it’s basically colored glass. There are things in Felt’s collection worth a thousand times that one, but he’s not interested in anything else.” He drank his shot. “He forbade me from picking up anything else.”
    I pressed my fingers to my temple. “Describe it.” My vision blurred as he painted a picture of Mom’s piece. Telling Clay that he couldn’t have it wasn’t going to work. I was going to have to appeal to the only thing that mattered to a thief.
    “How much is he paying you?”
    “One point five.”
    I blinked. That was double what I’d figured. Ah hell. I reached for my empty beer bottle and peeled the corner of the label. The old man at the bar stood up and his stool screeched across the floor. He mumbled his goodbyes and left, letting in a sharp sword of light that vanished as the door slammed behind him.
    Assassins made good money and I lived frugally. Even Griffin had no idea how much money I’d squirreled away and I’d never figured out how to tell him what I’d put away for the rainy day when we (I guess now I) could retire. Considering my cover as a freelance journalist, there weren’t a lot of ways to explain the size of my bank balance. I’d always figured that I’d explain it as a trust fund, though my parents had left me with nothing other than the debt at the morgue.
    Now Clay was going to take half.
    But I didn’t see how I had any other choice. He wasn’t going to turn over a lucrative sale so he could help me. We were still opponents and I still hadn’t admitted that he was going after my piece.
    “I’ll pay you another two-fifty to walk away. I need the piece.”
    He grinned. “I knew it. What’s the deal with this shiny glass? What’s it do?”
    I shook my head and the label on the bottle ripped, sending tattered bits of paper to the table. “Can’t tell you. I don’t know all of it, but I have to have it.”
    “Why?”
    “Do we have a deal or not?”
    He glanced at the door like he was thinking about taking off and beating me to Felt’s place, but then he turned those pretty blue eyes on me. “Two.”
    “Two what? Two million ?”
    He leaned back in his chair and crossed one foot over his knee, lazily negotiating his way through my bank account. “Yep.”
    I shook my head and made a face. “Screw you.”
    He shrugged. “I guess, but I still want the two.”
    He was incorrigible. I’d never, not in my whole life used that term to describe another human being. But it fit perfectly. He was an impossible grinning fool with no idea what he was meddling with. And I couldn’t exactly tell him either. “Two million and you walk away and I never have to deal with you again?”
    He laughed. “No way. Two million and I help you get it.”
    It was my turn to laugh. “I don’t need your help.”
    “Bullshit. If you were any good, you’d have had that thing and been out of there before I even set foot on the carpet. You had a two-minute head start. Two minutes . Christ, I could have cleaned the place out with that much time.”
    I glared at him, dead-set against admitting that he was right. I’d already told Malcolm that I’d been out of my element going in the first time. Now that we’d screwed up the first attempt, security would be even tighter. I did need him, but damn if I didn’t want to admit it. Why did Malcolm have to pick now to have hip surgery?
    He winked at me. “You know you need me. I can see it on those pretty icy blue eyes of yours.”
    “Icy, huh? Okay. Maybe. Two million, payable after we get the piece and we’re in the clear.”
    “And you need me. And, I didn’t mean icy in a bad way. Your eyes are like glaciers. I don’t know. They’re beautiful. Like…”
    I held my hand up. “That’s enough, Romeo. I’m not going to bed with you.