Page 99 of Locked and Loaded

She crossed to the closet and started sorting through the dresses. If she was going to walk into the lion's den, she was going to look like she belonged there.

The shower was hot and long, the villa’s water pressure better than any hotel she'd ever stayed in. She stood under the spray and let it beat against her shoulders, her neck, the tight muscles along her spine. She washed the desert out of her hair and off her skin, scrubbing until she felt raw and new, and when she stepped out onto the cool stone floor, her legs were steadier than they’d been all day, maybe all month, while she’d searched for her sister.

The bathroom mirror had fogged over. She wiped it with the flat of her hand and looked at herself for the first time in days. The face that looked back was thinner than she remembered. Sharper. The shadows under her eyes had deepened, and there was a new line between her brows that she didn't think had been there before. But her eyes were clear. Determined. The eyes of someone who had stopped waiting for other people to save her and started doing it herself.

She wrapped herself in a robe she found hanging on the back of the bathroom door, thick white cotton that smelled faintly of lavender, and padded barefoot back into the bedroom. She'd laid out three dresses on the bed, still undecided, still half-convinced that none of them would fit and all of this was some elaborate joke at her expense.

The knock came just as she was reaching for the emerald green one.

Two quick raps. Lighter than Dragan's. More musical.

She tightened the belt on the robe and crossed to the door. A woman stood there dressed to the nines in an elegant gown, looking stunning. She cradled a large box under her arm. "Lennox? I’m Alex. I hear we've got a gala to get you ready for."

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The feed labeled Camera Four showed the ballroom from the northeast corner; high angle, wide lens. She had chosen it herself. It caught the sweep of the staircase and the full length of the bar and the entrance to the private dining room where the auction would take place later. She'd positioned cameras in every corner of the venue, but camera four was the one she kept coming back to. It framed the room the way a director framed a shot. Everything she needed to see in one clean rectangle.

The room on the screen was glittering.

She let herself enjoy it for a moment. The chandeliers dripping crystal over a sea of black ties and couture. Ice sculptures shaped like melting glaciers, a touch she'd suggested herself, subtle enough to be tasteful, pointed enough to remind everyone why they were here. The orchestra played something sweeping and classical. Champagne towers caught the light. Three hundred of the wealthiest people on earth, gathered in a single room, drinking and laughing and congratulating themselves on saving the planet.

The Global Climate Initiative Gala. A hundred thousand euros a plate. Every cent going to fight rising sea levels and melting ice caps and all the other catastrophes that kept the news cycle spinning. The charity was real. The money was real. The woman running it, Margot St. Clair, had been photographed with every world leader from Geneva to Jakarta and had the kind of earnest, luminous face that made people want to write checks. She believed in the cause. She believed in it deeply. She had no idea that the gala would also be the most profitable night of the mastermind’s year.

Or if Margot did, she chose not to acknowledge it. The mastermind had never been able to decide which, and she didn't particularly care. The result was the same either way.

Margot was highlighted on the screen now, working the room with the practiced ease of someone who'd been doing this for decades. She was in her forties, white-blond-haired and elegant, wearing a pale green gown that matched her eyes. She shook hands with a tech billionaire. Aimed a friendly smile at a Saudi prince. Laughed at something the French ambassador said. She was the face of the evening. The reason three hundred of the planet's most powerful people had flown to Malta.

None of them suspected that the real money was changing hands in a private dining room down the hall.

The mastermind leaned back in her chair and sipped her water. The room she was in was quiet and cool. Blackout curtains drawn. A laptop open on the desk in front of her, split into six screens, each one a different angle of the venue. A tablet to her left showing the encrypted chat where her team was reporting in. A phone to her right that hadn't buzzed yet. She didn't expect it to. Everything was running exactly as planned.

She'd waited and planned for years for tonight.

The operation had started with an opportunity, one she recognized immediately for what it was: a way out. Archer Gray had been the key to that. She’d learned so much from him despite what he’d done. His rigid adherence to rules, his absolute conviction that the Society existed to serve a higher purpose. She’d used his resolve to her advantage. He'd never understood that rules were tools, nothing more. Levers. Pull the right one at the right time and watch everything else fall into place.

She'd pulled every lever. Used him and his rules to destroy her rivals. Used his ignorance, his arrogance, to operate in plain sight. And now, tonight, she was going to use his Society as the scapegoat for the biggest auction she'd ever run.

If he was alive, he'd be furious. The thought made her smile.

She still didn't know for certain if he was dead. That was the one loose thread she couldn't tie off. The report said he’d been shot. Her man had taken him out… But the body had fallen into the river and had not been recovered. She drummed her fingers angrily on the desk.

The funeral had been private. The Society had voted in Armand Fontaine as his replacement, which suggested the transition was real, but she had been in this game too long to take anything at face value. Archer was too smart to die quietly. If he'd faked his death, he'd done it for a reason, and that reason was almost certainly her.

She'd find out eventually. But that was tomorrow’s goal. For now, she had an auction to run.

The tablet lit up. A message from Fisher. She let it sit for ten seconds before she looked at it. Fisher needed to understand that his time was not his own. Small reminders. Consistent pressure. It was how a man like Fisher was made to toe the line.

She read the message. He was in position. The first of her private guests were arriving for the auction. She allowed herself a smile. Fisher would wait for her to tell him when to begin the auction. Until then, he would mingle and do what he did best; say nothing to absolutely everyone.

She let out a deep breath. She was ready. Let the game begin.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The ballroom was a cathedral of excess.

Dragan had seen wealth before. He'd worked for Callahan Security long enough that billionaires and private jets and five-star everything had stopped registering as anything except tactical variables. But this was different. This was the kind of wealth that didn't just buy things. It bought silence. This wealth bought compliance and the kind of invisibility that let three hundred of the most powerful people on earth gather in one room and pretend they were saving the planet while half of them were quietly complicit in the kind of crimes that made Dragan's previous life look tame.

The ice sculptures were melting. He'd been watching them since he arrived. Glaciers rendered in crystal-clear ice, drip by drip, pooling onto white linen tablecloths while a string orchestra played something that sounded like royalty danced to it. The symbolism was heavy-handed; however, the guests didn't seem to mind. They were too busy drinking champagne and congratulating each other on their commitment to the cause.