Athena
As I stepped out of the car, the first thing I thought was why on earth people wasted so much on parties like this. It wasn’t like they needed to do charity.
If it was a charity ball then it was too damn extravagant. Why the fuck was there a car filled with roses by the entrance, that just defeated the whole purpose of a fucking charity ball.
My gaze shifted to Luciano as he stepped out of the car and walked towards me. He looked good. Very good. His hair was swiped back, classic Italian style with gel. I guess as an afterthought and probably due to my yammering, he left a free strand that brushed over his dark eyes rather sexily. It made my hand itch to brush it over.
The dress I wore was a floor-length, midnight blue dress that clung to my curves before falling freely from my hips downward. A silver lace lined the dress in a crystal kind of pattern and there was my favorite part of the dress. A slit on the thigh that revealed my legs with every step I took.
I looked sexy. I knew I did. And if I needed any more confirmation, I just needed to look at Luciano’s face as he approached for all the confirmation.
His eyes seemed starstruck. I doubted I had ever seen him like that. Dark eyes flickered, running down my outfit and then back to my face. Boy, he did know how to make a woman feel good.
“You might catch flies,” I whispered and the moment was over. He grunted, steering me into the ballroom. I had no idea what the event was for. He had all but yanked me out of the house, claiming he needed his PA to do her job for once and source out potential investors.
Just how many more investors did he need? The Moretti Industries was already doing so well. My gut told me there was another reason. There had to be.
We stepped into the ballroom and I hell as hell almost got blinded by all the lights. Who the hell decorated this shit? I did a whole better job when Luciano had me decorate his dumbass ball.
There was already a lot of dancing going on and the whispering seemed to increase as we found ourselves a spot by the bar. Of course, there was nowhere to sit. A crappy person definitely designed all this.
“I’ll be right back,” Luciano said after a while. “Here’s a list of all the potential investors. We’re not approaching them tonight. I just need you to garner information about them.”
“Sure thing, hot stuff,” I whispered, winking at him.
He grumbled at the action and stepped closer until his heat swaddled me. His cologne teased at my nose and I sighed wistfully. “Keep saying things like that and I just might be tempted to take you,” He murmured with a silly glint in his eyes.
“Mhmm, before all these people?” I teased, reaching for his suit, and brushed at it lightly.
“Who knows?” He reached for my hair, playing with a strand. “You look ravishing,”
“We could ditch this ball and go get a little naughty?” I suggested, leaning closer and almost grinning in satisfaction when his eyes fell on my breasts.
He hissed and stepped away, shaking his head lightly. “I must go somewhere, Raven,” He explained. “I’ll take you later.”
I watched him leave, maintaining my grin until he was out of sight then got to work.
I didn’t give a fig about Potential Investors. I’d be lying if I said I did. I was here to garner information for myself. There had to be people who had ties to the mafia here. Like Caldwell.
People who had enhanced their business or made some sort of pledge or deal with the mafia. And if there was something all rich people liked, it was gossip. They provided it with ease and listened to it with ease as well.
Tapping my recorder and hiding it in my bra, I slipped into the crowd mingling with them. The women were a bit standoffish. I supposed they felt jealous or some shit. But the men? Oh, such simple creatures. It was damned easy to get them to talk. All you had to do was pretend to be simple-headed, demure, and innocent as shit.
“I swear that the Albion’s are deeply entrenched in sorcery!” Some dude from Langston Industries yapped at me, his eyes glinting wide.
I doubted sorcery was a codeword for the mafia. But something definitely remained fishy. At first, I thought it had been weird that the whispers skyrocketed when Luciano and I stepped in. I thought it had been because we looked hella good together. Yeah, that had been pretty vain of me.
But the whispers did not die down. It sounded like multiple people were holding actual conversations in hushed tones.
This was no ball. I thought as I looked around. This was a mafia meeting. I glanced at a group of six men who stood huddled by a band. The band played a rather ominous song, probably something by Mozart or so. Whatever it was, it was pretty deafening.
Then how on earth could they hear each other?
I moved closer towards them, abandoning the Langston idiot, pretending to be enjoying the band with a smile on my cheeks, so wide they hurt like hell. One of the men kept nodding even when the others weren’t speaking. It wasn’t until I had drawn closer that I noticed he was signaling.
Norse code.
Fucking Norse code. How the hell did the mafia even know what Norse code was? I watched his head movements quietly, still keeping the smile on my face.
The meeting, he signaled. Meeting? What meeting?
While I couldn’t solve their entire conversation; I should have paid more attention when Frederick tried to teach me Norse; it was clear that the mafia was here. Perhaps not all of it but some of it. This whole charity thing was bull shit. I was just a decoy.
Suddenly, one of the men glanced in my direction, his eyes narrowing. Well shit!
I gave a sheepish smile as if I was lost, clapped at their ridiculous song, and turned to blend into the crowd.
I had to be discreet. I also had to find a way to be in that damned meeting or another chance to find out evidence of Luciano’s involvement with the mafia would slip right through my fingers.
Marking one of the men’s faces, I kept an eye on him, holding his gaze every now and then while pretending to mingle with the women. He must have noticed because he broke away from the group of men and began walking towards me.
“Oh my gosh,” One of the bimbos I had been faking a conversation with commented. I could not remember her name, hell maybe I hadn’t even asked her. All I’d done was walk right up to her and she’d begun talking before I could even say a word. “Cole Bryant’s coming over here!”
Cole Bryant. I’d look him up when I got back home.
“Do I have something on my face?” He asked, a small smile playing across his lips. “You keep staring at me.”
He was quite good-looking. Green eyes, brown hair carved in the most flawless form but he wasn’t my cup of tea. That didn’t stop me from laughing and giggling shamelessly until I could ferret all the important details I needed from him.
I had been wrong. They weren’t going for a meeting, they were escorts of those who were in a meeting that was already being held! No wonder Luciano was gone all those while!
I found a way to ditch Cole Bryant, slipping out of the ballroom. There was just one place left to go. The room at the back of the hall.
The back room.
Two men guarded the door. Of course, they had bodyguards. Looked like things weren’t going to be a walk in the park. Taking a deep breath, I pulled the most naive expression I could muster on my face and approached them with a sugary smile.
“Hello, kind sirs. Can you direct me to the bathroom, please? I seem to have lost my way?”
The guards exchanged a glance before one of them pointed down the hallway. “It’s just around the corner, miss,” he replied, his voice gruff. “But this area is off-limits-”
I slammed the side of my palm down his neck and watched him go down like jelly. His fried roared, rushing towards me. It had been quite hard to fight him in a dress, but it was a damned good thing the dress had slits. A kick to the side of his head was enough to knock him out.
I had barely adjusted my dress when the door flew open and Luciano stepped out.
Shit!
“Raven?” he frowned, arching a brow at me. “What are you doing here?”