Chapter 2: 2 Months earlier

Monroe had been casing the art center for the last three days, he was dressed like every other bored teen who had to come there for class. He was here on a more personal mission this time, that made doing this job so much more fun. His younger brother Justin was helping him for this mission as it was personal for him too. Justin was twenty and an Alpha, like Monroe they had both been trained by their parent’s to do this kind of thing. He was younger but he looked older being an Alpha but he was still a smaller Alpha because that was their wonderful genetics. He stood at 5’9” with sandy blond hair and the same honey brown eyes his ears were a darker brown than his brother’s and he was built bigger, he might be able to pass as a Beta if he needed to but he rarely did he was a proud Alpha after all. He was smart and was actually in college for computers. He was going to be Monroes muscle and his computer hacker for the job. They were a great team since growing up together they learned from each other but Justin was going more straight than Monro’s clear tiptoeing around the grey area. 

Two weeks ago Justin’s best friend’s father had found his masterpiece was stolen along with some other paintings. He had painted a beautiful painting of his family at the beach, he’d put it into a unique antique frame and for years had refused to show it in an art gallery. It was a personal piece and he had no intention of selling it, he was too proud of it and he wanted to give it to his son because it was a tribute to him. One night they came home to find several of his paintings had been stolen, but that one had been stolen frame and all. He had become depressed and unable to work, and Justin had thought taking pictures of some new pieces at the art gallery  near him might cheer him up. That was when he recognized the frame, he had contacted the curator about it claiming it was part of his father's stolen collection. The Curator called him a liar and had him thrown out, he then found out that the curator was once a good friend of his father’s but they had a falling out a year ago over the painting. 

Justin had called Monroe the moment that he found this all out and together they came up with a plan, this would get his friend’s father more famous, it would get the painting back and it would get the curator put into jail as it was his name on it. They spent 2 days investigating it and found one of the other paintings was also there that belonged to his father, this one was small and they were debating on leaving it to be revealed or doing the same thing.

“I say we take the painting over top, they don’t have a poster of it though.” Justin said after they had scoured all of the posters in the store. 

“I mean we could do a scan of it and make our own.” Monroe said, slouching on the bench next to him. “It won't look great but we’ll get it out of here and it’s not hooked up like the other one.” He said as he sipped the hot apple cider.

“Let’s go with that then? Gods Max is going to murder me if he finds out that I helped. I promised him I wasn’t going to be bad and was just going to get some evidence to help his case.” Justin said, sipping his coffee. They were both in skinny jeans and baggy sweatshirts with hats. It was late fall and it was cold outside and they were blending in with a bunch of college and high school kids.

“Are you sure you’re not dating him?” He asked seriously. His brother was never one to bend this far back for any one friend or not. 

“I want to but this might tick him off a little.”

“That’s so sweet, I will 100% deny any of your involvement in this if asked. My story is I heard you moaning over it and handled it myself. By the way we’re not the only one’s scoping out this place so it’s got to be super sketchy.” He told his brother. 

“Someone from your team? And thanks, I really want to be more than friends with Max even though he’s a Beta.” He told him.

“I think so, it’s a familiar scent, and you know I’ll always be here for you as your big brother.” He told him. “Not to mention I like Max so if you hurt him I’ll also hurt you.” He threatened him.

 “My own brother would hurt me? I’m telling mom.” he said, sounding like the baby of the family that he was. “But you know first I have to ask him out and well before that I want to expose this, so we do this tonight?” 

“Yup, I got everything ready on my part, we just need the last poster. That is something we can do next. Your school has a color poster printer right?” He asked, finishing his drink and glancing at his watch.

“Yeah… Teacher is going to be pissed but I don’t care. Let me go take some pictures and then we can go write the stupid report tonight.” He said casually as someone had walked into the room. 

Monroe nodded and then finished his drink before they walked out and into the other room with the other painting. There was the familiar scent that was in this room that always bothered him. It was JRT, it just had to be him, he really hoped he was still working out things and they weren’t going to do the job tonight as well, that would be awkward. The thing that let him know was the fact that there had been a mark next to several paintings, normally these indicated if they were to be put up for sale or were sold but there were no current sales going on according to his intel. So he knew they were ones that they were planning on stealing, so he quietly apologized to Gin and knew he’d have to make it up to her by giving her the two he was stealing.

That night with the posters neatly rolled up the two rabbits snuck in the back, dressed in black with black gloves, Justin hacked the camera’s so they’d not be seen when they dropped out of the vent, and as they did their job. They quietly shimmied through the wide vents alongside cables till they got to the room. The guard was making his usual walk through like he did every night, once he was past they slid out, Justin was cursing himself silently for being thankful for being small, if he had been bigger like their eldest brother he’d have had a hard time doing this. Monroe chuckled but understood his misery, he had to carry all the tools because he was the smaller of the two. The first thing they did was go to the smaller of the two paintings. They easily took it off the wall and with pliers they pulled the staples out of the painting, rolled it up and then put the painting back on the wall. Monroe took a photo of the real painting, he rather liked it and just maybe Max’s father would sell it to him for “helping”. Justin pulled out the poster they made and the fake plaque that flat out said the painting was stolen and who the artist was, and then he slid the poster into the frame so it would stay but in the clear of day it would be seen as a poster over a painting in a frame.

Next was the harder part, the other painting was rigged in two ways, the first being a pressure sensitive hook, the other was a wire that if cut or the two parts did not connect would set off the alarm. Monroe stood on painter’s stilts behind the painting and laughed as he found the wire wasn’t even properly done, the two halves were just stapled from the top so if he pulled them together he just had to tape them together and not carefully remove the staple and then while holding them together to tape them. With that done the hard part was just removing the painting from the wall.

“I think I can just remove it from here.” He said softly to his brother. “No need to take it down but we’ll have to add some weight to the middle.” He added as he pulled out the pliers and got to work.

“You sure?” 

“Yeah, this isn’t as heavily stapled as it should be.” He added. 

Fifteen minutes later they had managed to get it removed from the frame and rolled up without setting off the alarm. They cleaned up and put up the plaque and put the poster over top of it and hid in the bathroom as the guard made his nightly pass through again. This gave them time to desensitize themselves one more time and then go back and make sure everything looked good and was clean. Waiting another ten minutes they then hopped back into the vent and made their way out with two paintings and no one knowing any better. They walked down the street to the school dorms where he spent the night with his brother and was rather rudely woken up by Max the next morning.

Max was a rabbit just like them, they had been part of the same warren growing up. He was from an average Beta family but some questioned if he was one or not from his looks. He was a black rabbit with perky black ears and a short rounded tail and longer black hair and fur along his back. He was an inch shorter than Justin but he was thinner and his eyes were always so much prettier than Monroe’s and so he had been jealous of that. But that morning while his brother was in class and he was sleeping Monroe threw the door open and stormed into the room.