Page 41 of Tracking Luxe

She could lead him and he’d follow, she knew this as well as she knew she’d forego her own pleasure for now, to get her job done. There was a lot of money riding on this and if she couldn’t get the job done then another thief would ride in and take it out from under her.

A category five hurricane played through her mind, blowing over doubts and second guessing herself. She had to have only positivity here.

She had to do this. She could do this.

There was one important thing to do first before she could use a kidnapper’s body for her own appetites. Refocusing her mind, she engaged herself in a mindless conversation with the guy stood at her right to blend in and to focus on what needed doing. One conversation turned into ten and twenty, one more boring and irritating than the last, these bastards had no boundaries when it came to women and where they could and couldn’t touch them, Luxe felt pawed over.

She’d been to so many of these things, small men trying to act big showing off their wealth.Look at me, look how popular I am.They were her favorite places for swiping things that didn’t belong to her. She once walked out of a party on the top floor of an LA hotel with fifteen grand worth of diamonds in her purse after some lady had dropped it in the bathroom. Finders keepers.

A few minutes went by before she began circulating again, listening to conversations was par for the course when you were a thief, Luxe did it automatically, taking in all the information, storing it away, though she had no intentions of stealing anything other than the sketches tonight if Grinder could locate the safe. Since he’d disappeared she assumed he’d slipped off to investigate the other rooms in the apartment block.

The place was bouncing with hip-hop music, wall to wall people in a forever undulation of bodies.

Say what you will about the current influx of bad men, they knew how to host a party for the criminally minded. Caviar, Cristal champagne, piles of blow on table tops. Scantily clad waitresses carried trays of food on a constant loop, ice fountains poured straight vodka. And then there were the paid women, barely-dressed, draped over the laps of dirty old men who probably had daughter’s younger than the women they were groping.

Keeping the distaste from her features, she socialized like a butterfly, laughing at stupid jokes, stroking very small egos.

She caught many leering looks, as was intended when she’d poured herself into the little dress. She smiled and small talked, she oohed and ahhed when men tried to impress with talk of their money and prestige and what jobs they had.

All of them were criminals. The golden underbelly of crime the Russian mafia underboss had assembled together. She wasn’t impressed. It took more than that to tempt her.

But it was while submerged within the pulsating crowd that suddenly Luxe felt in way over her head.

This was no ordinary theft and so much could go wrong. She was not only worried for herself, but Nathan as well. As angry has he’d made her, she wouldn’t want him hurt.

If she was caught the ramifications would more than likely end her in a pine box and not a slapped wrist.

She thought of Mimi and why she was putting her own neck on the line like this, the only reason she’d accepted the job in the first place was to give her and Mimi a better future without worry of money. They were by no means on the breadline, but who didn’t want more money for a rainy day?

Reinforcing her lungs, nerves kept her alert of everything going on around her.

Needing those sketches like yesterday for the dealer in Chicago who had put the word out to the underground thieves. I.e; Luxe and a few others who were adept at taking things in extraordinary circumstances. As far as Luxe knew she was the only one who caught wind of the mafia staying in Armado Springs, who else would be stupid enough to accept such a job by stealing from the fucking mob. Greed was a marvellous motivator. Want of a better future was practically euphoric in her desire to grab these sketches and get the hell out of there. Now she was circling the party, trying hard not to stare at Grinder who had reappeared and was standing talking to a beautiful, top-heavy woman fawning all over him, stroking his jacket like it was a damn cat. As packed as the open planned room was, suits and gangsters everywhere, he stood out from everyone.

It took her own unlawful background to recognize he was subtly casing every corner of the place, with fine-tuned sly lifts of his head, shifts of his eyes, all the while he engaged the perfectly put together blonde woman rubbing her tits on his arm and giggling in the flirty way that would leave no man in any doubt the woman was offering her pussy up for business.

Grinder looked like any man would; enthralled in a pair of perky boobs and not of a man checking for cameras.

Oh, the man was good.

Luxe agreed to ignore the niggling bite of jealousy as he smiled down at the woman like he was so fucking in love with her. No reason to want to pull out the woman’s blonde extensions or punch Nathan for being so damn attentive.

Breathing. Breathing. Controlling her temper, now wasn’t the time.

There was once an Italian billionaire internet mogul who hosted a twenty-four-hour party in New York’s upper east side in his state of the art penthouse apartment, it was all very exciting her first time in the big apple to do a little light robbing, she’d happened to hear of the party from a guy in a hotel bar before she’d slipped his hotel room key and stripped his room bare of any valuables.

Luxe had slipped unseen into that penthouse party behind a pair of giggling woman, Gian was absolutely gorgeous, with midnight black hair and a physique to make nuns forget their vow, mid-thirties and she’d sought him out and flirted outrageously all night, Luxe had wanted to fuckandsteal from him.

Only now she could barely bring his face to mind, his attraction paling against the man across the room assumingly trying to blend into the furniture while he glowered at her talking to a man with a Russian accent, his arm boldly around her back stroking her bare skin. She gritted her teeth and endured a few moments of the pawing.

Out of self-preservation, Luxe pretended not to see his brows slam down, and the absolute possessive glint in Grinder’s eyes while other men paid attention to her.

This was the plan.

She wasn’t above using her feminine attributes to distract stupid men. If all it took was a pair of plumped up boobs to take their eye off their property then really, they deserved to have it stolen out from under their noses.

Circling the room, she took a flute of champagne, with no intent on drinking it, she would keep a clear head, she watched three of Grinder’s boys enter the building like they owned the place.

This was also the plan.

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