She’d done her requisite research on the palace, of course; it’d been built in 1873, then was burned down and rebuilt twice over the centuries, serving in between as everything from a museum exhibition to World War I refugee center to a news station to a concert venue.
She emerged first from the car in preparation to escort Winter inside. Beside her, Claire stepped out and glanced briefly at the estate before turning her attention to the crowd of fans that had gathered below the palace’s lawns. She was dressed in gold and white like a Grecian queen, gold makeup glittering against her dark eyelids.
“How they always find out, I’ll never know,” she murmured in the direction of the fans. Still, she smiled and nudged Sydney, a satisfied glint in her eyes. “No such thing as bad publicity, right?”
“I’ll say,” Sydney murmured back as she looked at the scene. There must have been over a thousand people waiting on the lawn directly across from the palace’s street entrance, all clustered eagerly together with their signs as police and hired security linked arms before them, struggling to keep the restless crowd from clamoring over the cement barricades. Their cheers rose and fell in rhythm.
A dozen of Morrison’s men were already here, lined up in two rows on either side of their cars’ doors, ready to escort them along a red carpet that led up the steps to the palace’s entrance.
Sydney noted the stream of black sedans lined up behind them,carrying a vast assortment of other celebrities, wealthy elites, and personal invitees. This night would make the news solely based on the importance of its guest list.
A second later, Winter finally emerged from the car, his cape flowing behind him, and waved to his fans. The crowd exploded, surging forward like a tide. The police line undulated as they pushed back.
“You’re going to cause a full-on riot out here,” Sydney said to him as he offered her his arm.
If the sight of the barely contained mass frightened him at all, he didn’t show it on his face. Instead, he winked at Sydney before leading her up the steps toward the entrance’s towering portico. “And you’re going to be triggering rumors by morning,” he replied. “I hope you’re ready for it.”
As the screams behind them echoed across the night, Leo and Dameon joined their line out of the car as they made their way along the red carpet. Cameras flashed with every step. Sydney kept a straight face through it, her eyes roving the space in apparent protection of Winter. A perfect excuse to note the stream of guests heading inside, along with the palace’s interior.
The security check for the event itself began in the inner atrium. As they entered the main hall, Sydney saw a red velvet rope spanning the space, where a line of security staff were checking in the guests against a master list. There was also a metal detector, along with a team of guards scanning purses and bodies.
Sydney’s eyes went to the smaller halls that branched off before the security line. A bathroom down the left hall was where she needed to head in order to attempt, once again, to retrieve her Panacea asset’s parcel. The postbox would have been a much subtler drop, but at least these milling crowds were full of so many important people that no one’s eyes would be fixed on her. She could steal out here, then find her way back inside without stirring up much suspicion.
Besides, Panacea didn’t send mediocre assets to deliver things.
Their progress down the red carpet was infuriatingly slow. Eli Morrison had invited half a dozen reporters to the outer atrium, intent on recording just how epic a birthday bash this event would be. Now Winter found himself dodging mics shoved in his direction and being stopped to answer sets of questions.
Finally, they made it inside a quiet hall, then down an elevator to a subterranean series of rooms that must have been meant as private practice and rest areas for performers.
“Ashley, follow Winter to the dressing rooms until he’s escorted off backstage,” Claire was now telling her as she walked briskly along with them. She nodded at Leo and Dameon. “You boys, too. Behave yourselves. I’m heading back upstairs to take my seat.”
“Hope you sit next to a gorgeous heiress,” Winter called after her. “And she takes you out on a fancy date.”
She turned around long enough to give Winter a playful point of her finger, then disappeared into the stream of people.
In the prep rooms, Dameon and Leo were already running through part of the set when they arrived. Sydney looked on as Winter greeted his friends, laughing at some inside joke while his prep team descended on him.
It took her a second to realize that the team was actually starting toundresshim, sliding off his cape jacket and unbuttoning his collar shirt as they began transforming him into the first of his stage ensembles.
Undressing.
Sydney quickly averted her eyes, but not before she caught a glimpse of his body. He was built like a dancer, lean and strong, the muscles shifting under the light as he stretched his arms out to either side.
Then one of the designers started undoing his belt, preparing to change his pants. Sydney decided it was time for her to step out to the bathroom.
Two of Morrison’s men were at the entrance of the practice room,watching her as she left, but she murmured “bathroom” to them and they seemed to lose interest immediately, their attention shifting to the thousand other little things happening in the chaos around them. Sydney noted this with some satisfaction; Eli’s initial suspicions of her had just been grandstanding, after all. Maybe he’d officially dismissed her as nothing more than a bodyguard with benefits.
She made her way down the hall and out beyond the security line toward the bathrooms. Once inside, she noticed with relief the telltale marker left by her Panacea contact—a smudge of red lipstick against the door of the last stall. She wiped the lipstick off with a tissue, locked herself in, then lifted the lid for the toilet’s water tank.
The parcel was so slim that anyone who didn’t know where to look might never have noticed the gray plastic taped against the inside of the tank. Sydney felt for the groove along its side, then gingerly undid the parcel from the tank and sliced it slowly open along the top with her nail. The packaging gave way without a sound.
Inside were the items from Niall. Winter’s earrings identical to the ones he would wear onto the stage. The snake ring. Along with a couple of other things, too—a slim pen with a blinding flash installed on its tip, her hotel crest pin equipped with the hidden needle blade, and new phones installed with Panacea software for tracking and tracing.
Lastly, she saw a tiny symbol scrawled against the inside lining of the package. She paused, then looked closer at it.
It was a scribble of a heart, with a cross drawn through it like a dagger.
She rolled her eyes, a slight smile on her lips. The Panacea asset who’d dropped this parcel off for her was an agent she’d once worked with, someone with whom she’d had a brief fling.
