Page 82 of Blood in the Water
Wynn didn’t hide the security code to the penthouse. I memorized the number, repeating it in my head dozens of times while Ciel handed him his weapons, and he stormed back out the door in a flurry of black and steel.
After he left, Ciel invited me to monitor the camera feeds with him.
While the idea of watching Wynn return to those traffickers and decimate them was tempting, it did annoy me that Wynn didn’t think I could handle going with him. He wasn’t wrong. I still had much to learn until I became as strong as they were. But I could still make progress finding Cas, and I had exactly an idea of how, which was why the code was now tattooed in my brain.
I told Ciel I was exhausted and was going to head to bed. He grabbed two glasses of water from the kitchen, and when he handed it to me, our fingers brushed lightly. Almost involuntarily, he jerked back as a bit of color bloomed on his cheeks. I smiled and thanked him for the water before he mumbled goodnight and returned to his room.
Quickly, I went back to my room and downed the glass. Instead of pulling on pajamas, I shimmied on a black cocktaildress—one of the subtle yet beautiful pieces that Willow had purchased for me. The woman had seriously fantastic taste.
Earlier, I didn’tjusthear Italian in the apartment building lobby.
I recognized those men—my father’s men—and I recognized who they were fighting with.
A drunk Russian by the name of Kolya Makarov—the very same we had run into singing in the street earlier in the night.
He was at the club below, and he was not happy.
Rifling through Ciel’s backpack full of tech, I pulled out a little tracker device he had shown me before Wynn and I left on our recon mission. The tracker was about the size of my little pinky nail, and I could press a little button on the back to activate it before slipping it into someone’s purse or pocket. It would give us a GPS location down to exact coordinates.
I’d go down to the club, walk around the Italians, and slip the tracker in one of their pockets. Then, I’d return to the penthouse and get in bed before Wynn was home. Easy.
I opened the storage closet by the front door. Inside was a completely organized weapons closet, with all manner of killing tools from a garrote, Ciel’s favorite, to dozens of razor-sharp throwing knives, apparently Ryuji’s favorite, to two fully stacked rows of handgun options along with accompanying ammo magazines. Wynn had given me the weapons tour earlier.
I pulled out two thigh holsters. After tightening them up, I pulled them on underneath the dress and slipped two knives into the left and a small Springfield Hellcat handgun into the right.
Within a few minutes, I was out of the door and back in the elevator before I could second-guess myself. In the mirror glass, my reflection stared back at me. Helmet hair, bags under my eyes, and a splotchy complexion. I sighed, quickly winding my fingers through the braid and fluffing up my roots so it wasn’tquiteso pressed to my head. I couldn’t do much to the bags andmy complexion without makeup, but I doubted anyone would notice in the dim light of the nightclub. I adjusted the skirt of the cocktail dress so my weapons lay fully concealed beneath it.
Finally, I was passingly presentable.
My face looked the same as that woman on her twenty-first birthday, but the woman looking back at me was an entirely different person. This woman had seen the shit. This woman had killed people—and had barely given it a second thought. This woman had a gun under her skirt.
I sure as shit hoped this woman could pull this off.
Maybe this plan was insane. Maybe I was stupid for leaving the safety of the penthouse and heading straight into a neutral ground of all the different criminal families in New York—including men who Iknewused to be on my father’s payroll and were likely now on Max’s.
But Cas didn’t have time for hesitation, and neither did I.
The elevator door dinged open on the second floor, and immediately, the thumping base reverberated through my chest. The bouncers at the front door didn’t even bat an eye as I walked up behind a group of young women chatting and giggling about how excited they were tofinallyget inside Club Dragon. They waved us all in without a second look.
I almost raised an eyebrow. This was Ryuji’s security?
As soon as I walked in, I peeled off from the group of girls and took in the club. Dark and moody like most nightclubs, this one was set apart, with the evident luxury of the furnishings, the bottles behind the bar stacked on glass shelves from practically the floor to the ceiling, and the raised dance floor surrounded by plush booths and couches. A massive crystal chandelier hung right over the center of the dance floor, reflecting the lights from the DJ stand. Packed with people, I instantly felt intoxicated by the beat of the music and the atmosphere. Weeks ago, I would have loved to party here.
I’d only been to a club like thisoncebefore. When Max turned twenty-one, he and Cas had taken out an entire group of men to celebrate at a place like this. I had asked them if I could go, but I was only seventeen, so of course, they had refused. My father never would have allowed it anyway. But that didn’t stop me. I followed them and snuck into the club behind them. I drank whatever half-finished drinks I could find wandering around. It wasn’t long before I was so drunk that I forgot I was hiding, and I jumped right into their private booth, startling the hell out of them. I expected them to be excited, to dance with me, but instead, Max was furious, and Cas was terrified. They scooped me up and took me straight home, waking my father in the process and telling him what happened. My father lost his mind and grounded me for an entire month.
I had been livid at them both forweeksuntil Max sat me down and explained they told my father because they cared about me, and it wasn’t safe for me to do the same things they did.
We care about you, piccola,Max had said.Can you imagine what it would do to us if something happened to you?
I had lived on that line for ages.See?I had thought.He loves you. If he wasn’t mad, then that would mean he didn’t.
But now, looking back, Max had never once made it abouthisaffection for me. It was aboutbothhis and Cas’s concern, plus the consequences of getting caught. Looking back now, I could clearly remember Cas was the one who wrapped his arm around me after I sobbed because of how my father yelled at me. Cas was the one who checked on me every single day after I had been grounded. Cas was the one who apologized for getting me in so much trouble.
Fuck, I had been so blind.
I had to get Cas back.
I walked around the edges of the nightclub, trying my best to blend into the shadows while searching for the men I recognized earlier. I didn’t know them by name, but I had seen them around the house as drivers or bodyguards. If I could get close enough to slip the tracker into a jacket pocket, I could be in and out of the club before anyone was the wiser.
