Page 103 of Locked and Loaded

Camera four caught Fisher making his round around the ballroom, nodding at the auction attendees, letting them subtly know it was time. He'd put on a tuxedo. It didn't fit him. He looked like a man wearing someone else's clothes, which was exactly what he was. She watched him cross to the bar and order a drink with the kind of studied casualness that broadcast his nerves to anyone paying attention. No one was paying attention. That was the one thing Fisher had going for him. He was forgettable.

She opened a new window on the laptop and pulled up the financial dashboard. Real-time tracking of every transaction. The value of the charity donations scrolling upward in a cascade of large numbers. The auction bids would populate in a separate column. Ten minutes and the first lot would be up. It was almost time.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The comms had been chattering in her ear for the last twenty minutes. Voices checking in, overlapping and efficient, the kind of tactical shorthand that came from people who had done this kind of thing before.

Lennox listened to all of it and said nothing. What was there to say? She wasn't part of the operation. She was there as an observer. Someone to be protected and humored but not someone to really engage with.

Armand had been kind about it, at least. He'd found her just after she’d arrived, materializing at her elbow with the unnerving stillness of a man who had spent too many years in rooms where being noticed was a liability. His salt-and-pepper hair was swept back from a face that had seen things she couldn't imagine, and when he spoke, his voice was low and steady and carried the weight of absolute authority.

"You'll be safe here," he'd told her, his eyes scanning the room as he spoke. "I have more than a dozen people in this ballroom. Some you can see. Most you can't. Any one of them would step in front of a bullet for you, not because they know you, but because I've told them to." He'd paused then, his gaze settling on her face. "And because Dragan would never forgive me if anything happened to you."

He’d reached a hand toward her ear, and while tucking a strand of the dark wig behind it, he slipped in an earbud, an intimate gesture, a discreet purpose. Then he bent low and kissed her cheek as if they were old friends. He reassured her once again, “You’re safe.” He slipped away with the same kind of stillness with which he’d approached.

She listened to the comms and waited. When the moment was right, when there was an opening, she was going to get into that dining room. She was going to find Georgiou, the man whose name had been tumbling over like a pebble in her mind since she’d first heard it. She hoped the small stone would crack open and reveal something useful. She was going to look him in the eye and demand answers about her sister, and she didn't care what it cost her.

She hadn't come this far to stand in a beautiful room and wait.

"How are you holding up?"

Alex appeared at her side so smoothly that Lennox startled, champagne sloshing dangerously close to the rim of her glass.

"I'm fine," Lennox said.

Alex snorted. It was not a delicate sound. "Bullshit."

Lennox let out a surprised laugh, the first genuine one in what felt like days. It bubbled up before she could stop it, and for a moment the tension in her shoulders eased just slightly. "Okay. You've got me. Fine is a relative term."

"Fine is what you say when you're about three seconds from falling apart, and you don't want anyone to know." Alex touched her arm, her fingers warm through the sleeve of Lennox's dress. "I know you're stressed beyond belief right now. You're anxious, and you're scared, and you're probably running through about forty different worst-case scenarios in your head. I've been there. I've stood in rooms just like this one, surrounded by people who smiled at me while they were up to no good, and I had to smile back and pretend I didn't want to burn the whole building down."

She squeezed Lennox's arm, just once, firm and brief.

"You're going to be fine. Not the relative kind. The real kind. The guys will not let anything happen to you. Mitch would walk through fire for people he's never met, and the people in this room tonight, they're family. That means you're family." She tilted her head, her gaze holding Lennox's. "It will work out. I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but it will."

Lennox managed a smile that was almost real. "Thanks. I hope you're right."

"I usually am. It's annoying for everyone around me,” she said with a wink.

Around them, people were moving toward the tables. The rustle of gowns and the scrape of chairs filled the air, and servers appeared from hidden doors along the back wall, carrying the first course on trays balanced with practiced ease.

Alex took Lennox's arm and steered her toward a table near the side of the room. Not too close to the stage. Not too far from the exits. The kind of placement that didn't draw attention but gave them options. Lennox recognized the calculation and felt a flicker of gratitude that Alex understood without being told.

"It's starting." Mick's voice came through the comms, and Lennox's attention snapped back to her earpiece. "I've hacked into the cameras. Probably the only time I'll ever say this, but their security is actually impressive. Took me almost three whole minutes."

"Tragic," a voice said dryly. Lennox thought it was someone named Archer, but the voices had gone by so quickly during the comms check that she wasn’t totally sure.

"People are doing some kind of biometric check-in," Mick continued, ignoring him. "There's a room along the hallway from the ballroom. You wouldn't know it was there unless you were looking for it. Hidden door behind a tapestry that's probably worth more than my apartment. Beyond it, there's a setup that looks like a..."

He trailed off, and Lennox heard the click of keys in the background.

"It's a theatre of sorts," Archer finished, his voice tight. "It’s called the dining room but it’s not really. It's got a stage at the bottom, and tables terraced up from it, like a dinner theatre. People sit and eat and watch whatever is happening below."

Lennox's stomach turned over. She set her champagne glass on the table before her hand could shake.

"I think I'm going to be ill," a woman's voice said over the comms. Lennox was pretty sure that was Lacy. Her voice was shaky and echoed exactly how Lennox felt.

"Can you get me through the door somehow?" Dragan's voice cut through, steady and controlled, the same tone he used when he was calculating variables she couldn't see.