“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
45
CASSIE
The next night,we inched our way up the winding road to Villa Lysis behind a row of other limousines.
Jagger had shown me the villa online, and I knew from Vigo that it had been built in 1905 by a titan of industry, who’d exiled himself to the place after a scandal involving schoolboys.
Gross. And also ironic given the reason we were hunting Dimitri Kaprolov.
“What if they check our IDs against the QR codes?” I asked Jagger, glad the privacy glass in the rented limo was raised between us and the driver.
Jagger had insisted on the limo. It was part of the cover.
“They won’t,” he said. “If they wanted to check IDs they’d just keep a list. They use the QR codes so they can get everyone in quick. The guards at the door aren’t going to know Bill Gates from Jeff Bezos.”
I adjusted my white dress, one of the ones that had appeared in the closet at the suite, courtesy of Jagger, I assumed. “How can you be so calm?”
He kissed my cheek. “This is nothing mouse. We’re not even stealing anything.”
In the shadows of the darkened limo, I could almost forget why we were there.
He was so beautiful, his cheekbones sharp, jaw chiseled over the Gucci tuxedo that looked like it had been made for him.
I wanted to kiss him. To ask him to take me home.
Not to the hotel. Back to Blackwell Falls, my real home.
I wanted to start my real life with him and Hawk and Vigo, wanted to leave all this behind us.
But that was childish. We couldn’t just walk away, not when we knew girls were still missing and not when they’d broken into the house with the picture of me from the coffee shop.
We had to end it.
“What if Hawk and Vigo can’t get into the gardens?” I asked. “And what if Bram gets caught outside?”
We only had two invitations, so Hawk and Vigo were going to climb down the hillside over Villa Lysis’ gardens and sneak into the event from there while Bram hung around outside with the other guards, keeping an eye out for Alina in case we missed her inside.
Jagger laughed softly. “That’s a lot of what ifs.”
“Well?” I wasn’t a seasoned pro like the Hawks.
Frankly, I was scared shitless.
“Hawk and Vigo could climb down that hillside in their sleep,” Jagger said. “And Bram will fit right in with the other guards. He’s scary as fuck. No one’s going to mess with him as long as he looks like he belongs there.”
And he did. They all did. Bram had left the hotel with Vigo and Hawk, all of them in the black suits that seemed to be de rigueur for private security.
We were almost to the front of the Villa Lysis and I could already see people milling around: men and women dressed to the nines — the women all in white and some of the men too — and their private security and others that I assumed wereemployed by Maison Valmont, the designer jewelry house that was unveiling their new collection at this year’s White Night gala.
Villa Lysis looked like a small palace, glittering with lights at the edge of a cliff, the lights of superyachts shimmering on the dark expanse of ocean and stretched into the distance.
“Almost there,” Jagger said, squeezing my hand. “Remember, stay with me and act like you belong. We’re not doing anything wrong. We just need to get eyes on Alina.”
The limo inched forward and the valet opened Jagger's door.
He got out and adjusted his jacket before reaching for my hand.
