Next came a torch, a Maglite. It was thin and black, and the end was moist. She’d held it in her mouth. He frowned, wondering why that thought disturbed his control. Another thin tube. He turned it over in his hands then watched as a red beam emerged from the tip. A laser then. Next came a circular box of some sort. Sebastian had absolutely no idea what it was and eyed it carefully.
“Demetrious.” Max practically skidded to a halt in the kitchen, his face set into grim lines, his hands clenched around a Blackberry. He’d clearly run from wherever he’d been because his chest was heaving. “I was already close by,” he said, eyes darting left and right. “What is happening? Why are my men surrounding the house waiting to hear from you?”
Sebastian waved a hand around the equipment. “A thief.”
Grimness turned to outrage. “Impossible.”
“Clearly not.”
And then to anger. “Where is he?”
“That is irrelevant. Suffice as to say the thief has been dealt with.”
“Irrelevant?” Max spluttered. “Dealt with how? What is going on? What are you doing?”
What was he doing? Sebastian shrugged, unwilling to answer and handed the circular device to Max. “Of more import now is finding out exactly how the thief managed to gain entry. That is all you need to be thinking about. Ignore the rest and fix my security. Security which I should point out that should have been impenetrable!”
Max opened his mouth to say something else but closed it the moment he saw the look on his employer’s face. Instead he took the device and frowned. “These are lock picks,” he said. “Sophisticated ones at that. They work off mimicking the structure of a lock and then replicating it, you need to know the lock type beforehand though. These aren’t cheap, more to the point they’re not even available in this country.”
“And this?” He passed Max the tablet.
“Good God. Hold on….” Max scrolled the device on and frowned. “Password protected but I can tell you already that this is probably loaded with x-one software.”
“Which is?”
“It’s an algorithm for hacking a safe code.”
Sebastian was outraged. “Theos. Are you serious? You’re telling me there’s a code that someone can use to get into my safes?”
Max nodded. “It’ll hack the minicomputer in there and there’s little that can be done if the code is good enough. The safe company sends us updates regularly, but it’s about staying one step ahead.” He shook his head and placed the tablet back on the table. “This is one sophisticated thief. We’re talking at least ten thousand here for this equipment, and the software on the tablet would need to be updated regularly.”
No common criminal. Hadn’t he thought just that?
“I’ll conduct a search of the perimeter and see where the breach occurred if possible,” Max said. “Then the house. I cannot believe this. I apologize—”
Sebastian pictured the thief upstairs strapped to his bed and shook his head, cutting Max off. “Leave the house. I can guarantee there’s no one here now and apologies are no good to me. If you want your job come tomorrow I want answers.”
“Of course…and the thief?”
“As I said, dealt with.”
Max paused, clearly steeling himself to say something his employer did not want to hear. “Demetrious,” he finally began. “I cannot protect you properly if you do not allow me to do so. I’m only surprised it has taken this long for a thief to gain entry. You may not be a public figure but many are aware of your wealth and yet you insist that your guards remain in the basement, that we do not drive you ourselves….”
Sebastian shook his head impatiently. “That is irrelevant. Simply fix what went wrong and make sure it does not happen again.”
“Without the thief to tell us exactly how they got in that will be very difficult. Of course I will try but—”
“Then I will get you that information.”
Max started. “How? What are you going to do?”
Sebastian stood up and eyed the criminal paraphernalia on his table. Seeing it there, laid out, the tools of her trade, should have been enough to knock some sense into him. It wasn’t though. He’d needed distance and he’d had it but it made absolutely no difference.
What was he going to do?
He was going to fuck her.
He’d sort of accepted that fact and almost felt like congratulating himself for not doing so already. But just the knowledge that she was upstairs tied to his bed thrilled him. He knew it was wrong. Knew it was bizarre, but she was so attractive it simply could not be helped. For some reason the thief affected him in a way no woman ever had.