Chapter Four

The smell of fresh roses filled the grand convention center's opulent ballroom as Leah strode, as gracefully as possible in three-inch heels, toward the woman currently organizing place cards.

"Oh, Leah. There you are. Good. You're late," her friend Mallory said.

"I'm sorry. Something came up." Leah reached into the box on the table and took out place cards, noting the table number to the side of each name. "I'm here to help."

Mallory leaned over and double-checked one of the silver tags. "I appreciate the assistance. You look beautiful."

"Oh, thanks," Leah said, looking down at her form-fitting, blue-sequined gown. "So do you."

"Thank you. I try." Mallory smiled. In her late thirties, she had curly blond hair and stunning blue eyes. For the charity gala tonight, she wore a long, cream-colored gown with sequins along the neckline and waist. "Thank you again for assisting me with this entire event."

Leah thought about slipping out of her heels for a short time. "You know why I'm really here."

"I do." Mallory leaned forward, her eyes sparkling. "I can't believe we're about to catch a child trafficker."

"I hope." Leah had been on this guy for nearly three months and had chased him from the United States to Paris. A well-known philanthropist, he was actually a criminal mastermind—with a Kurjan partner, no less. A fact of which Mallory remained unaware. "If we take him down, we'll get to his partner, and that's the entire ring." Leah had spent the last two years neutralizing an entire child trafficking ring, which had started in Los Angeles.

Mallory secured one of her diamond earrings. "The plan is to meet him in the coat check area?"

"Yes," Leah said. "He thinks I'm a trafficker from the States and have product for him." Oh, how she hated using that word.

Mallory clapped her hands. "I can't wait. I've never been a part of anything like this."

"There's nothing like taking down the bad guys," Leah agreed. While she couldn't be a spy any longer because she hadn't aged, she'd found many good pursuits to make life a little better for people who needed it. "Make sure Inspector Dupont is seated near the door so I can get to him as quickly as possible."

"Of course," Mallory said.

Another woman hustled up, this one in a long, green gown. She had brown eyes and nearly white-blond hair. "Mallory, I finished directing the caterers with the first course of champagne. Did you want to switch to white wine after that?"

"Hmm." Mallory tapped her lips. "Let's just leave the bottles on the tables and have the servers continue with the champagne. It seems like more people are drinking the bubbly these days." She looked at Leah. "Leah Ferry, I'd like you to meet Shandra Ryland, the director of Safety for Children."

Leah shook Shandra's hand. "It's nice to meet you."

"You, too." Shandra smiled. "I can't tell you how much our organization appreciates your assistance, and Mallory, it's so nice of you to work with the Paris branch. I love that we've created an international charity. Next year's event will be in Berlin. I hope you can make it."

Mallory patted her hand. "I wouldn't miss it. Creating safe places for at-risk youth is a cause dear to my heart."

Leah nodded. "Close to mine, too." The secondary job was close to her heart, anyway.

Shandra surveyed the room. "For now, I'll go talk to the waiters and make sure they know what's up." She clapped her hands together. "This is going to be fun." She gracefully made her way through the maze of tables.

Leah reached into the box for another set of place cards. "I can't believe how long it took us to decide where to place everybody." It never failed to shock her how many people didn't get along, especially extremely wealthy entrepreneurs. She took a moment to admire her friend's gorgeous outfit. "I love your necklace."

"Oh, thank you." Mallory touched her diamond collar with the thick amethyst in the middle. "I do like to sparkle."

"Don't we all?" Leah laughed. She took a handful of the nameplates, making sure she secured the correct ones for table number fourteen, which would hold some British royalty. Well, very-distant-to-the-Crown royalty.

They worked in tandem for nearly half an hour and finished up near the entrance. The clock was ticking. "Do you understand the plan from beginning to end tonight?" Leah finally asked.

"I do." Mallory's eyes lit up. "You go meet him in the coat room before the event. You'll get the location of the kids, and then we'll immediately inform the inspector."

Leah rolled her neck. The plan was solid. "I'll record him with my recorder that looks like a pen at the same time, just in case. We'll need evidence." Then she could find his partner, who she would've had the night before if Jasper hadn't screwed everything up. How shocking that an immortal Kurjan was working with human traffickers.

Mallory straightened. "My phone alarm just buzzed." Her face pinched, and she took a steadying breath.

Leah glanced at her watch. "Crap. You're right. It's time." Her stomach dropped, but she straightened her shoulders, placed her empty box on top of Mallory's, and fetched her sequined clutch from the table by the door. Then she walked as confidently as she could outside the double-wide oak doors and down the lavish hallway with its breathtaking chandeliers. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears as blood rushed through her head.

This had to work.

* * * *

Jasper sat in the alley, leaning his head back against the worn stone of the building while flexing his broken knuckles. His brothers flanked him on either side. Dax groaned as he audibly popped a rib back into place while Klyde straightened his leg and apparently repaired his femur.

Jasper sent healing cells to the wounds on his side. "You think we should've let that guy go?"

Dax groaned, blood pouring down the side of his face. "We did promise we'd release him if he gave us the info. We killed five of his buddies."

Klyde spit out two teeth. "He was young. I would've felt bad killing him."

"He's a Kurjan," Jasper protested, mentally popping three of his ribs back into place. They'd come upon a squad of six Kurjans, and the fight had been brutal. They'd killed five of them and left the youngest one alive to talk.

"Aren't we at peace with the Kurjans now?" Klyde asked.

Very unlikely. "We're only at peace with the ones who stayed with the coalition. They're going to have an internal war for years." Jasper spit out more blood before the thick liquid could choke him.

"It was a good fight, though," Klyde said cheerfully.

Jasper tilted his head and let his neck pop back into place. "How's everybody feeling?"

"Fine," his brothers said.

He studied them, one at a time. While Dax was only a year younger than Jasper, Klyde was fifty years younger. He'd hit three hundred and fifty years old just last summer. "Why don't you two go after Vester? I'll take Leah home and then hunt Wallace." Now that the Kurjans had declared peace with all other species, the treaty between Jasper's family and Baston's, their grandfather's enemy, was over.

Baston had three nephews, and Jasper now knew the approximate locations for two of them. It was kill or be killed as far as he was concerned.

Klyde twisted his leg out in front of him and popped his ankle back into place. "I'll go after Vester, Dax will kill Wallace, and you can take Leah home. Baston has yet another nephew out there, and we don't know where he is."

"I expect one of you to find him after interrogating Vester and Wallace." Jasper forced himself to his feet. "Then I'll deal with him." As soon as they could isolate Baston, they could take him out—before the bastard tried to kill their grandfather, Cathal. Their feud had lasted for more than three thousand years. It was time to end it.

Jasper's phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket. "What the hell?" He didn't recognize the number, but picture after picture of Leah with a date stamp of that afternoon showed across his screen. She'd gotten out of the zip ties.

"What is it?" Klyde asked, not moving.

"It's Leah. She escaped the penthouse," Jasper said slowly.

Dax threw his head back and laughed. "I told you that you couldn't zip tie and rope her in place. She's too smart, and she's older than you think. You keep forgetting that."

Jasper frowned. "She's still human and hasn't developed additional strength. How'd she get out of the zip ties?"

"I don't know." Klyde shoved himself to stand and looked over Jasper's shoulder, letting blood drop onto the screen.

"Hey." Jasper tried to wipe it off.

"Whoa, that's a nice dress," Klyde said. A picture showed Leah running into the convention center dressed in a sequined blue ball gown. "Who sent those to you?"

Jasper shook his head. "I don't know, but it looks like I'm going to the convention center."

Dax stood and wavered on his feet. "You know it's a trap, right? It has to be."

Jasper straightened his shoulders. "Of course, it's a trap. All right, you two execute your missions, and I'll go on mine."

"You want backup?" Dax asked.

"No," Jasper growled. "If anybody needs backup, it's Leah after I handle whatever threat this is."

He was done playing around.