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He took my mouth in another kiss, a little longer, a little rougher, and a lotmorethan the earlier one.

“I know,” he whispered, when he finally released my mouth. “I’m justnevergoing to like it.”

Chapter

Fourteen

BONES

Ishould be the one inside with her right now, instead, Alphabet and I were in the van, a half-klick out from the chateau outside Avignon.

We had video, grainy as it was, because they had it shielded. Alphabet was trying to clean it up.

We had comms up, letting us hear her and everyone else. Voodoo had shaved, trimmed his hair back, and shifted his appearance so he wouldn’t stand out. Lunchbox had done the same.

With Reznik in play, we couldn’t risk anyone spotting them. It was why Lunchbox was in as a waiter. Staff gave him access to the back rooms as well. Security was tight. Ridiculously tight.

“Breathe, Cap,” Alphabet murmured. “You’re giving Goblin heartburn.”

The soft words had me glancing down at the dog. He’d parked himself between me and Alphabet. I was close enough to slide right into the driver’s seat if necessary and I also had video feeds for the front and back of the van.

No ambushes.

“I’m breathing, focus on her.”

“We are focused on her,” came the way too relaxed reply. “She looks damn good in that dress.”

“What there is of it,” Lunchbox muttered and Alphabet snorted.

The outfit in question didn’t seem to possess enough fabric to be labeled a dress.

“What the hell is that?” I’d asked when she’d walked out in it.

“A bodycon mini.” Her smirk dared me to dispute it. “They are very trendy and they get noticed.”

She’d be noticeable in a burlap damn sack. As much as I wanted to tell her to change, I shut up. Bait. The whole point of this exercise was to lure those bidders back out. To lureReznikout. Knowing he was part of the operation made snaring him a two-fold goal.

Removing him from the board was business, but I would take no small amount of pleasure in the act. My gaze tracked to where Grace descended the steps into the ballroom like a queen. She moved with—grace. Like so many others present, she was masked.

The plunging cowl neck gave the illusion of bared breasts while the bare back with the single spaghetti string offered a far sultrier promise. The sheer mesh of navy blue fabric seemed to flow like it had been painted on and was still liquid.

Or maybe that was just her movements.

“I have eyes on her,” Voodoo said patiently into comms. We all had eyes on her. I’d have eyes on her if I was dead.

She moved through the centuries-old estate all dressed up in its velvet corruption like she belonged there and everyone else were the guests. Chandeliers gleamed and champagne flowed amongst the masked patrons as violence whispered its way through the ball.

Ball.

It was another goddamn auction. Dressing it up in all the finery and coating it in a cloud of sweet perfume didn’t change the ugliness of the whole damn thing. A monitor to the left of my screens detailed her heart rate and respiration. The data flashed like a countdown. Each time it started to race, she found a way to slow it again.

The monitors hummed. A beep indicated she was close to one of the others. It had to be Lunchbox because Voodoo’s camera hadn’t moved from where he listened to some woman drone on about the newest addition to a formula one team.

She was impossible not to watch. Her arrival had snared attention and her drift through the ballroom snagged more. Bait.

We were dangling her like bait to see what swam up to the surface to take a bite. The tightrope was too narrow and there were no safeties if they got their teeth into her. Baiting a trap only worked if you were willing to lose the bait.

“Comm check,” I said, because Grace wasn’t talking. Lunchbox and Voodoo seemed to get what I wanted because they just each sent a beep.

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