Chapter 12
WEAPON OF CHOICE
Jamie pulled on his Rolex—platinum again, with a diamond-encrusted face and bezel this time around—watching in bemusement as Kyle gamely attempted to tie his bow tie in the full-length mirror hanging from the wall near the walk-in closet.
“I can see you laughing at me,” Kyle said around a scowl. “If I can see you, I can shoot you.”
“Having trouble? Is it too much for you? I could have sworn the attendant showed you how to tie it in the store,” Jamie said, trying for innocent and failing miserably.
“I was a little more interested in watching you than watching what he was doing.”
“It shows.”
Kyle gave up and stalked over to Jamie, thrusting his hand out with the scrap of silk in it. “I hate tying these things. You do it.”
“Haven’t you had to do this for mess dress before?”
“Once. And I made Alexei do it because he’s better at it than I am.”
Jamie laughed softly as he took the length of black silk and smoothed out the hint of wrinkles from Kyle’s efforts with his fingers. He unabashedly took Kyle in with a slow, deliberate once-over. “You clean up nice.”
Kyle snorted. “I should hope so, considering how much money you spent on this outfit.”
“I like spending money on you.”
Kyle bit his lip at that statement, shrugging a little self-consciously. To Jamie’s eyes, he was the epitome of sleek sensuality with just a hint of rough edges that would prove to every eye at the gala he didn’t come from money. Jamie didn’t care because he wouldn’t have Kyle any other way.
The narrow cut of the tuxedo jacket followed the lines of his body exactly.
The pants were tailored for a slimmer fit than was strictly on trend, but Jamie rather thought Kyle might start a new one by the end of the night.
The crisp white dress shirt layered beneath the trim vest wasn’t bunched in any way.
The tuxedo jacket, hanging in the closet still, had a narrow cut, which would follow the lines of Kyle’s body exactly.
Jamie reached out and flipped up Kyle’s collar in order to slide the bow tie around his throat. He deftly tied the bow, carefully tugging it into form and knotting it in place before folding the shirt collar back down and smoothing out everything else.
“See? Not so hard,” Jamie said, giving Kyle a quick kiss on the lips. “Put your jacket on. We need to get going.”
“The museum isn’t that far away. I thought Katie wanted us to be fashionably late?”
“We will be, if only because London traffic on a Friday night is ridiculous.”
Kyle pulled his jacket off the hanger and slipped it on, tugging it firmly into place. He didn’t bother with the buttons since they would be getting in the car soon.
He made a face at Jamie. “I want a gun.”
“You’re not carrying a weapon. They’ll be on-site when we need them.”
The UMG had swapped out quite a number of workers setting up the gala space with their own agents in order to lay the groundwork for their plan.
Weapon caches had been hidden under several food and drink tables scattered throughout the gala space.
Several members of the Royal Legion and a few other UMG field teams would be acting as bartenders and museum security guards for the night, keeping an eye on the gear they’d brought in for everyone.
Liam wouldn’t be one of them, since his identity was too noticeable to pass off as someone else, but Samaira was commanding all UMG metahumans inside the museum.
When the fighting started—because Jamie doubted this would end peacefully—the members of Alpha Team would put on the nanotech strips stowed in their pockets or purses.
While it couldn’t hide their features to a person’s naked eye, it would blur their faces on any security feed, video, or pictures.
With the UMG controlling the museum security feed, they would help minimize the risk of someone identifying the metahumans in the field.
They’d tried to plan for every contingency, but on such a short timeframe, with limited access to the location to stave off suspicion, Alpha Team was in a tight spot.
Getting the in with the Pavluhkins and the Presnenskaya Bratva while stopping the Reborn IRA from targeting the gala was going to require more than a little sleight of hand.
It would necessitate them playing their roles just right before switching them out for their real identities and hoping no one noticed in the panic.
Which meant Jamie had to embody the ultra-wealthy, arrogant bastard Jansen expected him to be.
Just thinking about how he needed to act left a sour taste at the back of Jamie’s mouth.
Some days, he couldn’t believe how self-centered he used to be before the Marines straightened his ass out.
He was thankful, he realized, that out of everyone on the team, only Katie really knew what he used to be like.
Jamie doubted Kyle would want him as he once was, and that was a sobering realization.
“You’re thinking too hard,” Kyle said, drawing Jamie’s attention back to him.
Jamie blinked, turning his face into the warm touch of Kyle’s hand. “Tonight is going to be a mess. I can feel it.”
Kyle studied him, green eyes full of a calmness Jamie wanted to drown in. “You realize if any of the Splice chemical bombs go off, you won’t lose us, right? We’re already metahumans.”
Jamie was abruptly thrown back to last summer, watching helplessly as Kyle took down Cora Everly in a secure lab to keep the rest of them safe.
Mixing Splice with the attempted vaccine had resulted in a destabilization of metahuman DNA.
Everly hadn’t survived the infection, and only Kyle’s rapid healing power had enabled him to live after a wrenching touch-and-go period.
Jamie took a deep breath, letting it out slowly to help steady his mind. “I know. But I hate the thought of putting most of the people at the gala at risk. Criminals or not, no one deserves to die from Splice.”
“And that’s why we’re doing this. If we get accepted into the Pavluhkins’ sphere of influence, we’ll have a better chance at finding those Splice labs.”
Kyle stood on his tiptoes, pressing his mouth to Jamie’s in a soothing kiss. Jamie opened his mouth to Kyle’s questing tongue, sliding his hands underneath the tuxedo jacket Kyle wore to grip his hips.
“We’ll get through this,” Kyle promised after breaking the kiss.
Jamie tightened his hands on Kyle’s hips. “I need you to know that whatever happens tonight, whatever people say about us, whatever I have to say when it comes to you, that’s not how I really feel.”
Kyle rubbed his thumb over the seam of Jamie’s lips. “I know. Now, come on. We’ve got a job to do.”
Almost everyone was waiting for them downstairs.
Alexei and Sean were impeccable in their own tuxedos, though Alexei didn’t look happy about wearing his.
Much like Kyle, they didn’t seem comfortable in expensive clothes.
Sean, on the other hand, wore his like he’d been born to it.
Jamie thought Sean’s ability to change personalities within seconds was helpful for the mission, if more than a little creepy.
“Just waiting on Katie,” Madison said with a cheerful wave.
She, like most of the others, was dressed in much more functional clothing—dark suits and boots with sturdy soles, her thick black hair tied back in a no-nonsense style.
They’d blend in with the other men and women charged with protecting their employers.
None of them would be staying behind in the cars, which necessitated UMG agents getting behind the wheel.
The cars might have a self-driving mode, but none of them wanted to risk anyone tampering with the vehicles.
A door slamming upstairs had Jamie looking over his shoulder.
Seconds later, Katie came into view at the top of the stairs in a stunning red vintage Valentino couture gown.
The off-the-shoulder gown had delicate lace sleeves extending to her elbows.
The ball gown skirt consisted of voluminous layers of red tulle with an embroidered belt nipping in at the waist. Her hair was done up in a complicated twist picked through with diamond hairpins, and a choker of rubies borrowed from a jewelry house circled her throat.
She hadn’t gone the route of cutout dresses or the more risqué ones that were little more than artfully placed fabrics.
Most evening gowns were on the fitted side these days, the details setting them apart through design or technology.
Katie opting for an older look would definitely draw attention to her, making the meet and greets they had to make for their cover easier.
“You look beautiful, but can you fight in that?” Jamie asked.
“The dress is a two-piece. The outer skirt comes off, and the rest is a minidress, which is why I chose it,” Katie replied as she descended the stairs.
Trust his second-in-command to go the practical fashion route. “All right, let’s get this show on the road.”
The weather that night was cold, with the threat of rain later on.
They took their usual pair of SUVs, leaving the house behind under the secure watch of UMG agents.
The Victoria and Albert Museum was located south of Hyde Park, and Cromwell Road and Exhibition Road both had traffic detours going on to compensate for the many arrivals of the attendees.
The way was a crush of vehicles the closer they got, the sidewalks leading up to the venue packed with police on traffic and crowd control duty, revelers walking the rest of the way, onlookers, and paparazzi angling for the best photos and videos.
The airspace nearest the main entrance on Cromwell Road was packed full of hovering drone cameras recording every second of the arrivals.
Jamie had a feeling some of the attendees would arrive via the side entrance to spare their identities from making it to the top headlines of gossip sites. As much as Jamie would’ve liked to join them, they had to grit their teeth and smile for the public.