“He’s got some questions to answer and I’m gonna leave because I wouldn’t miss this moment for the world,” Ziva said and headed toward the door.
Shola didn’t move, but she did extend a hand toward Ravyn. When Ravyn failed to immediately move to accept her hand, Shola touched her shoulder instead. The touch was warm and Ravyn stopped wringing her hands, an act she hadn’t realized she was doing until just now.
“I didn’t see him. How’d he get here? Did those things bring us here?”
“What things?” Shola asked.
“The ones...” Ravyn blinked and shook her head. She’d decided these women were going to think she was a raging nutcase, because that’s what Ravyn thought about the people she’d seen usually at the clubs or on the streets around the clubs that talked of vampires, witches and something they called demonics walking the earth. “I mean, the people who showed up when we were at his hotel room.”
“Steele has a hotel room?” Ziva asked. “Damn, this is getting good.”
Ziva opened the door and waited. Shola let her hand slide down Ravyn’s arm until she clasped her hand.
“Take the shower. When you come out clothes will be on the bed. Put them on and wait here. Steele will come to you with dinner.”
“But I don’t wan—”
With her free hand, Shola lifted one finger to touch her lips. “Shhhhh. Everything will be fine.”
Shola released her hand then and turned to walk out the door with Ziva. When the door closed, a lock clicked into place and Ravyn cursed.
“What the hell have you gotten yourself into this time?” she asked with a weary sigh.
The room was silent when Steele walked in. He’d almost changed his mind about coming down, especially since Ziva had sent him a message on his communicator telling him which room Ravyn was in. All he had to do was walk through the many passageways that would look to anyone else like a maze, get to her room and take her back to her home. She had to be going stir-crazy in that room, wondering where she was and trying to figure out a way she could break out. Ravyn wasn’t the type of woman that would do well in forced captivity, not that he knew many who would.
“Have a seat,” Theo said when Steele only stood behind the chair he normally took in the conference room. “And start from the beginning.”
“I was there the night Ravyn stole the dagger,” he said before taking his seat. “I should’ve realized it that night, but I was distrac—I missed it. By the time I figured out it was cursed by the Egyptians, I went to try and get it from her, but she was already trying to sell it. Then you called me back here for that meeting and I found out that Daron Robles was the man she stole the dagger from.”
“Shit!” Aiken cursed. He was dressed in a black shirt that looked like it might be silk and a shiny pink tie.
“She stole a cursed dagger from our client?” Reese said before giving a low whistle that annoyed the hell out of Steele.
“Before he was our client,” he corrected.
“Tomato, tomahto,” Ziva quipped.
“There’s more,” Bleu said, his watchful russet brown eyes bearing down on Steele.
Steele leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table. “Robles bought the dagger for half a million dollars, but he’s double-mortgaged all three of his homes. There are two more pieces in his house worth about a million and yet he’s got a bargain basement security system. And his assistant hasn’t been paid in over a year.” Most of that information he’d received while he was in the shower. He’d sent a message to Isla requesting an update the moment he’d made it back to his private suite, and because she was phenomenal at what she did, she’d delivered.
“So he spent all his money on the dagger and two other pieces?” Reese shrugged. “Probably not the smartest thing to do, but there’s no crime in that. However, being a thief, albeit a hot as hell one, is akin to being a criminal.”
Steele’s Drakon eyes zeroed in on Reese with such intensity, Reese’s eyes flipped, as well, his beast more than ready to go head-to-head with Steele’s.
“Or it means somebody else purchased those items and for whatever reason had Robles holding them,” Magnum said.
Steele heard his brother’s voice and took a deep breath. He clenched and unfurled his fingers, trying like hell to calm his mind.
“You said there’s a curse,” Shola said. “What type of curse?”
“The dagger was cursed by the Egyptians to kill anyone who owned it because it was stolen from King Tutankhamun. The cycle of the curse runs on the next full moon. So far, the research I’ve done only speaks of the death portion of the curse, but I get the feeling that as the dagger has traveled, the mechanisms of the curse may have morphed into something else.” The way he hadn’t been able to just take it from Ravyn wasn’t just because his beast was infatuated with her. There’d been some power at work there, a power that Steele hadn’t been able to properly handle without exposing himself to Ravyn and whoever else was living in that underground place with her. He’d hoped that as soon as he completed the purchase from Ravyn he could dig a little deeper, maybe travel to Egypt to find out more, but then they were attacked.
“Robles said he had enforcers and private investigators looking for the dagger. I think those PIs paid a visit to my hotel a while ago.”
“The hotel that has
