27. Mina

TWENTY-SEVEN

mina

I let out a low whistle when Brian steps out of the bathroom, Friday night. My brain is barely able to comprehend what I’m seeing. Brian, in a suit.

Brian. In a suit.

“Mina? Are you okay?”

I shake my head. “I am not okay. You’re wearing a suit. You look so… suave.”

He smirks.

“Like James Bond,” I add helpfully.

“You could have stopped at suave.”

Fair enough.

“Where are you going?” I don’t know if I want to let him out of the house looking like this. I mean I know his energy doesn’t exactly invite a lot of women to cozy up to him, but still.

“Where are we going,” he corrects.

“Where are we going?” I ask, playing along, but on the inside, I’m excited. And more importantly, what am I wearing?

He answers both my spoken and unspoken question by laying a black garment bag across the bed and handing me a thick cream-colored invitation on Crane stationery.

“I scored this invite to the Windsor Estate tonight.”

I goggle at the envelope in my hand. “I thought you said the job wasn’t until Halloween. That’s still almost six weeks away. We’re not ready.”

“It is on Halloween. This is just a cocktail party. Just a little reconnaissance.”

I unzip the garment bag to find a black floor length evening gown. He glances down at the Longines watch he liberated from the Stryker building back in July. Though it isn’t cheap, it’s certainly nothing close to a high-end luxury watch, and Brian doesn’t generally care much about that anyway. I’m sure he’s only wearing it because it’s a trophy from our last kills.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” he says, “Party starts in an hour.”

Thanks for the notice, Brian.

I pull the invitation from the envelope and scan it. “So how did you get invited to this again?”

“The same way I’m on the guest list for the Halloween Masquerade Ball.”

I’m actually not completely sure how that happened, either.

Off my expression, he says, “I know Drake Windsor.”

I stare at Brian, waiting for a punch line that never arrives. He knows the target?

“If you know him already, why do you need the murder wall?” I wave an arm dramatically at the wall in question.

“Distance. It’s more dangerous to take a job where you know the target. Too easy to get sloppy and leave a trail. But there are five other contract killers who’ve been invited to tonight’s party, so when it does happen, suspicions will be spread out.”

“How do you know him?” I ask, skimming right past the fact that this Windsor guy seems to be cozy with at least six contract killers.

Brian arches a brow and points at the dress I’m still half staring at. I begin to strip out of my Queen of the Damned uniform and get into the evening gown.

“Happy?” I ask, once dressed.

His gaze sweeps over my body in that predatory way that still sends a shiver down my spine.

“Very.” He rotates his finger in the air. “Turn.”

I turn and pull my hair up for him to zip the dress. His tongue trails up my back just ahead of the zipper, then he slides a hand between my legs, and I open for him. If I had any doubts before, I have none now about why this dress has such a high side slit.

“Take off your panties,” he growls in my ear.

“W-why? We’re going to be late.”

He smacks my ass with his other hand. “You’re being such a bad girl right now.”

“Brian…”

“Because I want easy access at the party tonight.”

His words send a bolt of desire through me even more potent than what his hand between my thighs commands.

“How do you know Drake?” I ask again, leaning back against him. He presses open mouthed kisses over my throat, playing at the edges of my collar that most people outside the house believe to be just a nice piece of jewelry. The platinum filigree choker, inlaid with onyx stones to match my grandmother’s ring really does go with everything.

“I’ve done a few jobs for him in the past,” Brian says.

I pull back and spin around to face him. “What?!?”

“How else would he know so many professionals?” He says this as though the only profession in the world is murder for hire.

“So now you all are fighting to be the one to kill him?”

Brian shrugs. “It’s just business.”

I think there’s more to it, but I let it go.

“Is it an open contract?” I ask as I go to our closet and slip into a pair of black heels.

“I’m assured I’m the only one who’s been asked, but I’m not sure I trust the guy.”

“If you don’t trust the guy, then why are you taking the job?”

Brian shrugs, and I know he has no plans to say anymore about this right now.

It’s after dark when we arrive at the Windsor Estate. The heavily guarded iron gate extends around Drake Windsor’s massive property which seems to go on for miles. I grip Brian’s arm and lean in to whisper in his ear as we walk along the well-lit path up to the front door.

“What about weapons?” I whisper.

“No weapons,” he says. “They’ll pat us down and send us all through a metal detector inside.”

“Then how in the fuck are we going to do this? Are you planning to kill him with your bare hands?”

Brian shrugs. “I could. He’s too refined to get his own hands dirty. He’s old money.”

“What does he do? Besides hiring assassins to kill all his enemies.” You’d think Brian would have listed this man’s profession on the murder wall.

“Oil magnate.”

“Is that even still a thing?”

“Apparently,” he says.

“I thought you’d tell me he was in the tech industry.”

Brian laughs. “I said old money.”

“Fossil fuel. Checks out.” Dinosaurs are for sure old.

I stop talking as we get closer to the house. It’s so big, even the word mansion doesn’t quite cover it. The security detail are all big burly guys wearing suits and electronic ear pieces. They give us both a once over, their eyes staying on me a bit longer than is actually necessary.

The first one pats Brian down, and then goes for me, but Brian closes a tight grip over the man’s wrist.

His voice is low and calm when he speaks. “Elvin, I swear to every power living and dead that if you touch her, you will not survive to see your daughter’s first Christmas.”

The guard swallows hard. “I have orders…”

“You have metal detectors. You and I both know that’s the real security. This pat down business is just security theater—a display of Windsor’s power and nothing more. You think about whether it’s worth your life to participate in this charade.”

He nods. “Go on in, Mr. Sloan.” Then he nods at me, “Ma’am.”

I can tell he’s disappointed he won’t get to pat me down. I just smile at him as we pass. But I let out a shuddering sigh of relief once we’re to the second stage of security. I don’t know if Brian knows this, but I’m pretty sure a guy like that touching me in any way as intimate as a pat down would have sent me spiraling into flashbacks from my past, which is the last thing I need tonight.

The fact that Windsor manhandles all his party guests like this adds a mark against him and explains why someone might want to hire someone to remove him from the gene pool.

Brian helps me get the platinum collar off and put it in the bin for jewelry next to the metal detectors. Windsor doesn’t just have guards with discreet wands, he has full on metal detectors, like what you walk through at the airport.

I wonder if he gets a thrill out of making all his wealthy friends and acquaintances remove jewelry and cuff links to pass through his security—just a little humiliation ritual to make sure everyone knows who is top dog here. Brian removes a belt and his own cuff links. I didn’t even know he had cuff links. He’s clearly committed to playing the role of someone who belongs in this environment down to even the most non-essential trappings.

I stare up at the ornate vaulted ceilings. It does look a bit like a fancy airport in the entry hall. Once we get through security and put all our metal-containing finery back on, we have to pass through a second set of large walnut doors to get inside the main house and party.

White-gloved men in white tuxedos stand at this second set of doors. They nod at us and open them. I already hate this pompous Windsor guy. The display of opulence is disgusting.

“I thought wealth whispered,” I say to Brian as we pass into the ballroom.

“Not at home, just in front of the peasants.”

Well, that message has been delivered clearly. Brian leads me to an area away from the clusters of guests where we have some privacy.

“Why would he have two big parties so close together?” I’m sure it must annoy Brian that I have so many questions in a place where we should be keeping a low profile, but I’m just so curious. This is a pretty fancy party. Why does this guy also need to throw a masquerade ball on Halloween in six weeks? How often does he entertain?

Brian leans in close to my ear, one of his hands pressing lightly against my lower back when he does so. It takes a lot of concentration to hear his words over the loud rushing in my ears at the way my body reacts to these small touches. You’d think that after a while I would just somehow get used to Brian’s intense energy, but I never do. When all his focus and attention is on me like this, it does things to me.

“The masquerade ball is a charity event he holds every year. Tickets are through the roof but there are are a lot of aspirational wealth social climbers that aren’t part of his inner circle. Everyone here tonight is.”

“Except for us and the others like us,” I whisper back.

“I have my suspicions about that.”

As if on cue, an older man in a sharp suit that broadcasts wealth approaches us. Even if I hadn’t seen his photo on the murder wall, I’d know this is our target. He carries himself with too much confidence and just a dash of refined swagger. He knows he’s the king here, and he knows everybody else knows it too.

He claps Brian on the back. “Sloan! I wasn’t sure you’d accept my invitation.”

“It seemed like a good excuse to impress my lady friend,” Brian says.

Windsor turns to me, his gaze lingering longer than it should, and I can tell just by the look he gives me, that he thinks I’ve been hired for the night to be on Brian’s arm. I refuse to let it offend me. If this guy knows Brian well at all, the idea that he might actually have a love interest is far too extreme a leap for most. Brian isn’t exactly a big marshmallow.

Brian clears his throat, and Drake’s lecherous gaze shifts, then he’s all business again, dismissing me and going back to Brian. I hope Brian lets me kill this one.

“I’ve got to give a speech here in just a moment, but as soon as I’m done, I’d like to speak to you in my study about some business.” He gives Brian a meaningful look as though they are speaking in some sort of secret code and of course as the lady of the night on Brian’s arm, it’s above my pay grade. If only this motherfucker knew.

“Of course,” Brian says, with a tight smile.

Windsor excuses himself and winds through the crowd to get to the stage. As he starts his boring self-important soliloquy, I’m rescued from having to pay attention by the trays of champagne and hors d’ oeuvres winding my way. I take a glass of champagne off a tray and one of the stuffed mushrooms off the other. Brian shakes his head at me when I offer him one.

When the trays pass by and we’re alone again, he says, “I don’t eat avant garde tiny food.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s pretentious bullshit, and I don’t do pretentious bullshit. Food like this is a way for smug rich assholes to signal their wealth and old money because

nobody who just fell into money would wake up one morning and say, ‘Today I think I’ll have some fish eggs and snails.’ Meanwhile all these other assholes are rambling on about their ‘sophisticated palate.’ More like sophisticated bullshit.”

“But we need to blend in.”

“Fuck that.”

“Okay, so no on the stuffed mushrooms?”

“Definitely no.”

“You never told me why you took this job.” I wonder if there’s some kind of personal vendetta between these two or if it’s just another kill to him.

“Isn’t this enough?” he says, gesturing. And I know he means the entire obnoxious show and all the pretension surrounding us.

“Your logic is sound,” I say, popping the obnoxious, though admittedly delicious tiny food into my mouth.

“My logic is impeccable.”

“Brian, is that really the only reason?”

“The money was good. Normally I don’t shit where I eat but…”

“Tiny food?”

“Tiny food.”

Windsor finally finishes his speech, gives a meaningful look to Brian, and then exits off the stage.

“Well, that’s my cue. Be good while I’m gone.”

“I’ll do my very best,” I say as he leaves a lingering kiss against my neck.