She was flattered. More than she should be. He actually was sending her out to do this on her own. Huh. “Bartender, cook, waitress, and so on.”
Raziel got to his feet, moving to stand beside her at the desk. “Different forms, different times of day. We need to understand how Braen’s operation works from the inside before we make our move.”
His proximity sent a flutter through her that she immediately suppressed. This close, she could smell the woodsmoke and sandalwood scent of him, could feel the unnatural heat radiating from his skin. He’d fed recently. Preparing.
“And what will you be doing while I’m risking my skin?” Taking a step to the side, she wanted to put some distance between them.
“Planning.” He tapped the blueprints. “And acquiring resources we’ll need for the operation.”
“Resources?”
“The less you know about that for now, the better.” His smile was wolfish. “Trust me.”
Trust. Such a dangerous word.
“Fine,” she conceded. “When do I start?”
“Tonight. Remember. Observe, don’t engage. We need to understand what Braen is hiding. We needdirt.Not action. Just enough to get him to meet with me in private.”
“Unlike some of us, I know how to follow orders.” She smirked up at him. “But why can’t I just go in and kill him? Iaman assassin, after all.”
“Very funny.” He sighed. “And as for why? Braen’s death will raise a great deal of questions over who did the deed and why. Doing this outside of his club will help us control the variables. Fewer possibilities of things going wrong. And if we have dirt on him at that point, something or someone else that his death can be pinned on, all the better.”
She sighed. It made sense. Find something horrible about Braen so that when he died, the blame could be shifted tothatand away from the Nostroms. “This is why I always stayed away from politics.”
“Believe me, I side with you on this.” He smirked at her.
And with that, she was off. For three nights, Nadi transformed into different employees of The Poisoned Serpent.
It almost felt good, having a “normal” job to do. Something that wasn’t caught up in the complexity of whatever was happening between her and Raziel. Something that just involvedher, her skills, and the work she had trained herself to do for eighty years.
The first night, she took the form of a young human male—one she’d observed rushing between the club and a nearby bakery earlier that day. Thin, unremarkable, with the kind of forgettable face that made him invisible to the wealthy patrons. It was his night off.
Well, forhim.Not for Nadi. He might be confused in two days’ time when people referenced him working the night before, but he’d have a bigger check to show for it, so she figured he wouldn’t give a damn at the end of the day. Just one of those funny mysteries that people brushed off because there was no logical explanation for it.
The Poisoned Serpent after dark was a different creature entirely from the respectable establishment it appeared to be during daylight hours. Gas lamps cast flickering shadows across richly appointed rooms while well-dressed vampires and their human companions indulged in pleasures that would have shocked the more conservative members of the metropolis.
Nadi kept her head down and her movements efficient as she cleared tables and replaced ashtrays, her enhanced hearing picking up fragments of conversation that painted a picture of Braen’s operations. Drug deals disguised as business investments. Sexual favors of the most depraved kind discussed over bottles of wine that cost more than most automobiles.
But it was the casual mention of “special merchandise” that made her skin crawl and immediately grabbed her interest. Unfortunately, it was only the first night, and there was little that she could do immediately.
Patience was key.
She caught her first glimpse of Braen himself near midnight, when he emerged from a private gambling room accompanied by three vampires she didn’t recognize. She hadn’t tangled muchwith the Rosovs before. They owned nightclubs and restaurants on the fringes of the metropolis.
But there was no question in her mind that this was him.
Braen was a handsome man with mid-length dark brown hair gelled back in the modern style. His suit was custom-made and from the height of fashion. And his sweet, almost youthful, beautiful features did nothing to hide the hint of malice in his eyes.
The Rosov family was also an older group of vampires—but one that she didn’t know much about. They had always rather kept to themselves. Powerful, butquiet.Her attention—and her wrath—had been pointed squarely at the Nostroms.
“The shipment from the eastern territories should arrive next week,” one of his companions was saying as they passed near her table. “The quality has been exceptional lately.”
“Good,” Braen replied, his voice carrying the faint accent of old vampire nobility. “Our clients are becoming increasingly discerning. We can’t afford to disappoint them.”
As they moved away, Nadi noted the way other patrons deferred to Braen—stepping aside, lowering their voices, watching him with a mixture of respect and fear. This was his domain, and everyone in it knew exactly who held the power.
She spent the rest of the night mapping the club’s layout, noting guard positions and shift changes. The basement level was off-limits to staff members like the one she was playing as, but she observed several well-dressed guests being escorted downstairs by club security. Whatever Braen was hiding, it was down there.
