Page 112 of Emerald

Anna calls out my name and waves me over.“You look spectacular, don’t you think, sweetheart?”she says to her husband.

“Carmen, you are a feast for the eyes,”Pedro says, looking over me hungrily. I want to be sick, but I let him kiss me on my cheeks.“Manuel is around here somewhere, I’m sure he’s looking for you.”He chuckles as he looks out into the crowd.

“He’s already found me,”I tell him.

“I’m sure he has, quickly staking his claim.”He belly laughs as do the other men that surround him.“Will you be attending the after-party?”I can’t believe he is asking me this in front of his wife.

“Yes, Manuel invited me,”I answer.

“The after-parties get wild,”Anna says, giving me a wink.

“We certainly have a lot of fun, don’t we, sweetheart.”Pedro grins as he looks over Anna hungrily, giving her the same look he gave me.

Does Anna attend these parties, too?

She gives her husband a giggle as she coyly flutters her lashes and reaches out to fix his tuxedo.“You know I’ll do anything for my husband.”

“Is she the best wife, fellas?”He laughs again, looking at his men, who all agree with him.“You guys need to find yourselves women like these two. Two precious jewels in a sea of rocks.”I still at his terminology. No. There’s no way he knows who I am. Any information about me shows I’m dead.Emerald is dead!

“You’re embarrassing me, sweetheart.”Anna smirks up at Pedro before she leans in and gives him a kiss.“Now, if you will excuse me, Carmen and I need to go grab another drink. I’m sure you have more important things to talk about than us.”

“Nothing is as important as you, my love, but yes, I do have some business to discuss. See, boys, she knows me better than I know myself.”More rounds of chuckling are heard as Anna pulls me through the crowd.

We reach the bar, and Anna grabs us two glasses of champagne.

“Everything is in place,” she whispers into my ear in Russian. “The girls are in place. The plan is solid, please tell me you are all ready?” I nod. “Good. Now let’s enjoy the night as much as we can,” she says, raising her glass to me, we clink and smile.

It will all be over soon.

The first coursefeels like a lead balloon in my stomach, the salmon mousse curdling with each bite. My phone buzzes in my purse and I know it’s from Sophie, letting me know my package has been collected. As I look around at the next table where Nash is seated, I watch as he gets up and excuses himself from the table, he doesn’t glance my way. This is it. Anna reaches out under the table and gives my thigh a squeeze. The plan is working, I don’t want to jinx anything, but everything is going exactly the way Anna said it would. The MC for the night introduces the band, and the crowd gives them a round of applause.

“I need to go to the bathroom, do you?”Anna asks me. I nod.

“My love, where are you going?”Pedro asks her.

“To powder my nose, my love,”she says, leaning over and kissing him, it is a slow, languid kiss that has the table clapping. This is her goodbye to him.

“Told you, boys, my wife is perfection,”he says, giving her ass a slap. Thankfully, Manuel is not at our table. Anna moved him from it, telling her husband that it would be uncomfortable for me if Manuel’s wife was at the same table, and she would rather me beside her instead. As I get up, I catch Manuel’s look and give him a small smile, but his wife sneers at me, when he realizes she is looking in the same direction, he stops and engages in conversation with her. She can keep her husband, Iam not interested in that depraved man. Anna holds my hand as we weave between the tables, she stops and talks to a couple of people before excusing herself. I can feel eyes on us as we walk past, I don’t think we are going unnoticed.

We reach the bathrooms. “Hey I actually need to pee, do you?” Anna asks.

“Sure,” I say and follow her in. We do our business and fix ourselves up in the mirror. As she applies her lipstick, we wait for the last woman to leave the bathroom before talking.

“It’s time. We will leave this bathroom arm-in-arm giggling, we are then going to ask a staff member if we can go out the fire exit door for a cigarette. They, of course, will allow it because of who I am and then we go,” she explains in Russian.

This is it. It’s go time.

We walk out of the bathrooms, giggling, and see one of the event planners standing to the side looking over the planner.

“Mrs. Dominguez,”she gasps.

“Shh, we are going for a sneaky cigarette, please do not tell my husband. I promised him I had stopped but I’m a little stressed,”Anna explains to the woman, who looks like a deer caught in headlights and nods.“If anyone asks, we are at the bar.”The woman nods again. Anna gives her a wave, and we walk out of the fire exit.

We did it. I can’t believe it. Her plan worked. We see the headlights of Nash’s Jeep coming up the side of the building.

“We have five minutes to get into the car and go. Otherwise, we are collateral damage,”Anna says with an edge of panic in her voice as we sprint across the lawn to where Nash is waiting. “We need to get the hell out of here,” she screams at Nash, who puts his foot to the floor and tries to floor it subtly out of the parking lot without raising suspicion. Someone calls out from the bushes as we fly past, screaming for us to stop. Shit, where the hell did that guard come from, then I see a woman stumbleout beside him. He goes to reach for his radio, but it’s not there, it must have fallen off when he went for a romp in the bushes. He’s going to be in so much trouble. I continue to watch him as he scrambles on the ground, looking for it, screaming at the woman. Then there’s a loud boom that rattles the Jeep, and where the old Spanish building stood is now behind a fireball.

What the fuck?

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