Page 15

Chapter

Fourteen

BONES

I should be the one inside with her right now, instead, Alphabet and I were in the van, a half-klick out from the chateau outside Avignon.

We had video, grainy as it was, because they had it shielded. Alphabet was trying to clean it up.

We had comms up, letting us hear her and everyone else. Voodoo had shaved, trimmed his hair back, and shifted his appearance so he wouldn’t stand out. Lunchbox had done the same.

With Reznik in play, we couldn’t risk anyone spotting them. It was why Lunchbox was in as a waiter. Staff gave him access to the back rooms as well. Security was tight. Ridiculously tight.

“Breathe, Cap,” Alphabet murmured. “You’re giving Goblin heartburn.”

The soft words had me glancing down at the dog. He’d parked himself between me and Alphabet. I was close enough to slide right into the driver’s seat if necessary and I also had video feeds for the front and back of the van.

No ambushes.

“I’m breathing, focus on her.”

“We are focused on her,” came the way too relaxed reply. “She looks damn good in that dress.”

“What there is of it,” Lunchbox muttered and Alphabet snorted.

The outfit in question didn’t seem to possess enough fabric to be labeled a dress.

“What the hell is that?” I’d asked when she’d walked out in it.

“A bodycon mini.” Her smirk dared me to dispute it. “They are very trendy and they get noticed.”

She’d be noticeable in a burlap damn sack. As much as I wanted to tell her to change, I shut up. Bait. The whole point of this exercise was to lure those bidders back out. To lure Reznik out. Knowing he was part of the operation made snaring him a two-fold goal.

Removing him from the board was business, but I would take no small amount of pleasure in the act. My gaze tracked to where Grace descended the steps into the ballroom like a queen. She moved with—grace. Like so many others present, she was masked.

The plunging cowl neck gave the illusion of bared breasts while the bare back with the single spaghetti string offered a far sultrier promise. The sheer mesh of navy blue fabric seemed to flow like it had been painted on and was still liquid.

Or maybe that was just her movements.

“I have eyes on her,” Voodoo said patiently into comms. We all had eyes on her. I’d have eyes on her if I was dead.

She moved through the centuries-old estate all dressed up in its velvet corruption like she belonged there and everyone else were the guests. Chandeliers gleamed and champagne flowed amongst the masked patrons as violence whispered its way through the ball.

Ball.

It was another goddamn auction. Dressing it up in all the finery and coating it in a cloud of sweet perfume didn’t change the ugliness of the whole damn thing.

A monitor to the left of my screens detailed her heart rate and respiration.

The data flashed like a countdown. Each time it started to race, she found a way to slow it again.

The monitors hummed. A beep indicated she was close to one of the others. It had to be Lunchbox because Voodoo’s camera hadn’t moved from where he listened to some woman drone on about the newest addition to a formula one team.

She was impossible not to watch. Her arrival had snared attention and her drift through the ballroom snagged more. Bait.

We were dangling her like bait to see what swam up to the surface to take a bite. The tightrope was too narrow and there were no safeties if they got their teeth into her. Baiting a trap only worked if you were willing to lose the bait.

“Comm check,” I said, because Grace wasn’t talking. Lunchbox and Voodoo seemed to get what I wanted because they just each sent a beep.

“I can hear you,” she said, though on the screen she had the champagne flute lifted to her lips. The dark feathery mask hid the upper half of her face, it made her ruby red lips even more appealing. They glistened under the lights. “Loud and clear.”

She smiled as she lowered the glass and my left hand curled into a fist. On the monitor, even with the grain of interference, she was a vision. Every step she took a sinuous stride that made all kinds of sensual promises.

No doubt existed within me that she commanded considerable fees for her work. She owned that room right now and the people in it, they just didn’t know how much. Watching her from too damn far away magnified every moment like a slow bleed draining my life away.

If you didn’t know where she was going, she would look like a woman just drifting from group to group.

Wandering. Bored. She presses into one group.

Laughter. Flirtation. A man gestured to her empty champagne flute, passing it to a waiter, but she waved off another.

He set his hand against the bare skin of her back.

Head tilted, she doesn’t throw the drink in his face, stomp on his foot, or break his goddamn hand. No, she looks at him like she’s sizing up prey, not potentially dancing into the wolf’s maw.

“Persistent son of a bitch,” Lunchbox muttered. “Need me to remove him?”

“No,” Grace said. “You mustn’t.” Whether she was talking to the putz or to Lunchbox, I wasn’t sure. “I need to mingle.”

Then she strolled away from her admirer. I stayed focused on him for a moment. What would he do? His hand also curled into a fist and he stared after her. Adrenaline spiked into my system as he looked like he would follow, but another man approached and then he was distracted.

Good.

“You’ve got a tail,” Alphabet said. “Slim suit. Scar near the temple. On your five o’clock, Gracie.”

I shifted my attention to the interloper. Alphabet was right. The man moved on a direct angle to intercept her. There was no mistaking the purposefulness of his stride.

“I see him. He looks very determined.”

He was also smiling. I wasn’t.

The man wore a much thinner mask, it barely covered his face. “Are we getting facial rec yet?”

“No,” Alphabet said. “Harder with this quality.”

“Mademoiselle,” the man said. “You are… exquisite.”

Grace laughed, a practiced sound that seemed to match her slow smile. The man crowded right in, stepping closer than was even remotely appropriate.

“You will come with me. I will get you a drink and then we'll talk. I have many questions.” The command in his tone was impossible to miss. He wasn’t speaking French, though his English was very accented.

“Go with him,” I said through gritted teeth. “Don’t drink anything he offers.”

The man gripped her elbow, tugging her toward the stairs for the ballroom mezzanine.

Grace’s breathing hitched, just a sharp inhale, but noticeable.

The man wasn’t slowing for any other group.

When he moved his hand from her elbow to the curve of her back, just above where the fabric curved over her ass.

“I’ve got eyes,” Voodoo reminded them. “Right behind her.”

He’d broken away from his own group. Good. Still, my left fist tightened as I said, “Let her lead.”

The man’s hand continued to drift lower, but they moved out of range of the primary camera as it glided toward the curve of her ass.

Grace’s soft laughter carried easily over the comms. Alphabet was scanning the cams, looking for a better angle as Voodoo followed, but had to maintain distance so he didn’t look like he was following.

Tactically sound for intelligence gathering. Bad fucking idea to not have him right there letting others know they took their lives in their hands putting a finger on her.

There…

The angle wasn’t great, but we could see them standing in the archway leading into a room off the mezzanine. He towered over where she leaned against the wall. He had his hand on her bare shoulder and glided down her arm.

“Tell me,” she murmured. “Do you always touch things you haven’t bought yet?” Was that a quaver in her voice?

The mark laughed, though his expression was difficult to read at this distance and I couldn’t see Grace’s at all.

“You okay?” I asked, keeping my voice low. The whole team could hear her, hear me, but I needed to know she was still in this.

“So far…” Her response trailed off as the man handed her a glass, presumably with alcohol, taken from a waiter who approached them and then retreated once more.

She accepted the offer, but didn’t drink.

Good girl.

When she blew out a breath, the low sigh echoed too damn close to the way she’d exhaled after she came. Those two experiences did not belong side by side in this.

“Heads up,” Lunchbox said abruptly. “North stairwell.”

“What the hell—?” Alphabet exhaled shock with each syllable.

The camera angles updated on my second screen. My stomach dropped sickeningly. For the first time all evening, the feed was almost crystal fucking clear. No static. A clean-shaven man dressed in a dark gray suit approached along the mezzanine. His measured pace was as familiar as my own.

Worse, the military cut of his dark brown hair was high and tight. It added to the harsh angles of his face. Not even the tailored suit could detract from the wide-shoulders or the barrel like chest. The man was a tank.

He’d always been.

The last time I laid eyes on him had been only a few seconds before a collapsing building buried him in what should have been his tomb.

“Not possible.” Each word broke off like ice cracking.

“Declan O’Rourke.” Voodoo sounded even quieter, colder, and I had no doubts, as furious as I was. Declan had been his “friend” before.

Ex-special forces. Former ally. Mercenary for hire. Reported dead. Killed in action.

Traitor.

He sold us out. Him and Reznik.

Only, we hadn’t known he’d been just as much a part of it as Reznik before three years ago.

And now?

The man walked out of the past, heading straight for Grace.

“Grace. Abort. Now.”

But it was already too late. O’Rourke was there.

O’Rourke glanced at the man who’d taken Grace upstairs The other dropped his chin, a nod as he withdrew. He stepped aside as though he knew his place.

As if he’d already lost the bid.

O’Rourke?

He lifted Grace’s hand, brushing a kiss to her knuckles.

“We need a better angle,” I growled, though I’d pressed mute on my comms. She didn’t need to hear this part. Not when she was the one standing right in front of that son of a bitch.

“Working on it,” Alphabet gritted out.

“Did they send you?” The silken tone barely gloved the measured violence in the traitor’s voice. “Or are you the gift I’ve been promised?”

She didn’t respond, not immediately. All I could see was the way she tilted her head. The seconds passed like hours.

“Lunchbox, get us a better goddamn angle.”

Blowing out a breath, I unmuted my link to her comm. “You breathe my name, Grace, and I’ll burn that goddamn building to the ground.”

We wanted to know who else was involved.

O’Rourke was not on my bingo card.

A new screen opened, Lunchbox was on the mezzanine and that was a much better angle. Fuck.

Grace’s smile was still there, and the tilt of her head was almost playful. Yes, the mask still hid the upper part of her face but the stubborn lift of her chin was defiance.

Defiance and terror.

I’d seen that fear on her face the night we’d been run off the road…

Again when I made her leave the guys.

In the bank.

The same defiance had burned to life.

One word from her…

“I have a shot,” Voodoo said.

“Ready to move,” Lunchbox concurred.

“I have eyes,” Alphabet reminded them. “Exit mapped.”

The only one who mattered right now needed to make the call.

What was our play?

“Now,” Grace said in this slow, teasing tone that dared a man to test her. “Why would I ruin the surprise?”