54. Leona
LEONA
Iwalked into the fundraiser gala with cum sticking to my thighs. What I thought was hot earlier was now unpleasant. I needed to find a bathroom to clean this up. Immediately.
Obi’s consequences be damned.
How he expected me to walk around glad-handing with sticky thighs was beyond me. If I were careful enough with the cleanup, he wouldn’t even notice.
Crowds of people entered the building alongside us.
The event was being hosted on the top floor of one of the older historical buildings with a view of Central Park.
It screamed old money mixed with new agendas, and I had already spotted multiple people from Ciel’s dossier as we made our way inside and up the elevators.
All seven of us carried hidden weapons, and we’d gone over the plan multiple times on the way here.
Get the mayor on our side. Figure out what the fuck was up with the police commissioner. Try not to get arrested. Make friends and grease hands where necessary. Don’t get murdered.
Hopefully, we crashed this party and got home with no bloodshed.
Greco wouldn’t be pleased we were here, but we were taking a calculated risk on his polite sensibilities.
He had too much riding on this event to make a scene publicly.
If he went after me or any of my men, we had a backup plan in place.
He couldn’t take us down without also dooming himself.
I smiled, channeling the entertaining persona of my father, and looped my arm around Obi’s, leaning on him slightly as I walked forward while trying to avoid the sticky feeling between my thighs.
I was raised to be a socialite and nothing more.
Entering this room, with all my armor in place, felt like I was revisiting the woman I used to be.
The event space was overflowing with carefully styled flowers.
It was already bustling with people dressed to the nines.
An open bar at the north wall had a huge line of chatting attendees, though many already mingled with all kinds of drinks imaginable.
Waitstaff carrying trays of hors d’oeurves and glasses of champagne flitted through the crowds.
TVs hung from columns lining the walls, showing videos of the mayor and the work she’d done over the last year since she’d been elected.
Long tables were artfully organized around the room, already plated with deep red and gold accents.
Greco had outdone himself here. If this didn’t impress the mayor—or the countless rich people who were ready to drop massive amounts of cash tonight—I didn’t know what would.
I glanced down at my dress and the hair that cascaded over my shoulder. I didn’t mean to match the decor, but this truly was the most beautiful and perfect gown for this event. Max caught my eye while I observed the room and winked. I blew him a kiss in quiet thanks for the dress.
Obi noticed the strange gait in my walk and leaned over to whisper in my ear. “If you clean my cum off your legs, I will tie you to the bed when we get home and punish you. You’re overdue as it is.”
My head snapped up, my smile still plastered in place. We were also wearing ear comms, so every single one of my guys heard that comment. “You will not.”
“Test your luck, ifunanya’m, I do not mind.”
“Obi!” I whined. “How am I supposed to—”
Ryu came up on my other side and pressed a hand to the small of my back. “What’s this about cum on legs?”
I huffed, but Obi spoke first. “Leona has my cum slipping out of her pussy right now, and if she attempts to clean it up, I will tie her to the bed and punish her by not letting her come.”
My eyes widened. What kind of punishment was that!
“He’s being ridiculous!” I hissed, trying not to draw attention to us.
People were already watching us, murmuring about who we were.
One woman flanked by six hot as fuck men who bordered the line between model-status and dangerous criminal was an unusual sight.
“I can’t talk to the mayor with sticky cum-soaked legs. ”
“Sounds to me like you need to face the consequences of your actions,” Ryu answered with a heated smirk.
He adjusted the tie of his suit, looking devastatingly handsome.
The eyes of a woman behind him roved up and down his broad back, and it pissed me off even further.
“Next time, we’ll get you a plug to keep it all locked up inside you. ”
“Yes, that is a good idea,” Obi rumbled. My eyes went wide as I remembered the way he’d pushed his cum back inside me the first time we’d had sex. The glint in his eyes said he remembered the same. “I’ll get one immediately.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I said with a roll of my eyes, putting my smile back in place as I pushed forward. “You two are impossible.”
They shared a stupid grin while I did my best to ignore the laughs of my men echoing inside my ear. I scanned the room.
“Any eyes on Greco?” I asked quietly.
“Not yet,” Wynn replied. The seven of us fanned out so it didn’t look weird, but everyone was still in close range in case of an emergency. “His men are stationed at all the doors. Look at the balcony.”
On the south side of the room, massive windows-turned-doors opened to a balcony covered in even more flowers and sparkling fairy lights.
At each door stood two soldiers dressed in expensive suits with badly concealed weapons.
To anyone else, they’d look like event security, but we knew they belonged to Greco.
“Two of his remaining capos,” Max said through the comms. “His underboss is by the bar.”
I caught sight of Greco’s second-in-command ordering a drink. Greco still hadn’t been able to bail out his capos, which was a small win. At least he didn’t have his best men here tonight.
“I see Rossi,” Ryu said. “Three o’clock, by the head table.”
Rossi, dressed in a dark and devilish suit, was in conversation with a man and a woman. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of me, and he gave me a subtle nod before he turned back to the two people in front of him.
“Who are they?”
Ciel answered. “Jay Lyons and Rosanna Daly. They’re political backers. Greco personally invited them, at least according to Lucia’s files.”
These were the big supplemental donors. Greco could drop millions into the mayor’s campaign fund, but that wouldn’t look great for her if someone traced the money back to a crime boss.
Events like this were to diversify the pot, to get a community effort behind a political candidate—even if we all knew who was dropping the most amount of money.
Which brought me to one of my major questions of the evening. Either the mayor knew who Greco and the Camorra were, and was fine accepting money from the mafia. Or she didn’t know, and she had done almost zero research into the benefactor of this incredible event.
On the one hand, she was dirtier than we thought. On the other, she was ignorant at best and stupid at worst. Neither would be helpful to us if Greco got his claws in her first.
“What about Sandrini?” I asked. He’d been Greco’s little dog since he stepped foot in this city. He would definitely be here.
“He’s headed toward Rossi right now,” Cas said. “Fresh from the bar.”
The older man carried two glasses and handed one to the woman speaking with Rossi. Then he laughed and joined in on the conversation.
“Monitor him, please,” I said. “I’m sure he’s got plenty of men here, too. Ciel? Are you ready?”
“Almost,” he replied. I spotted him over by the media booth, plugging in our escape plan. If anything went wrong, Ciel would put everything in motion.
“No sign of Greco yet,” Max said.
“Why isn’t he here?” I plucked a glass of champagne from a passing server. “Also, where is the mayor? She’s not here either.”
I sipped and scanned the crowd again. I recognized plenty of people from Ciel’s dossier, but the guest of honor and the host were nowhere to be found.
Ah, there was the bathroom.
“They could already be talking somewhere private,” Obi said. “Split up into pairs and see if we can spot them. Keep in contact; don’t do anything stupid.”
“Got it,” I responded, watching Obi and Ryu mingle toward the balcony. Max and Cas headed toward Rossi and the bar. Ciel instantly appeared by my side, and I spotted Wynn making his way through the crowd.
I pressed a finger to my ear comms to silence them. “My dearest hacker.”
His eyes crinkled with mirth while he paused his comms too. “You’re going to get me into trouble, aren’t you?”
I gasped. “Never!”
“What do you want to do?” he asked, laughing. “Hurry before Obi realizes we’re unusually quiet.”
I pointed toward the bathroom. “Gotta go.”
He barked a laugh. “Oh, now we’re both going to get in trouble.”
Wynn snuck up on my side. “You two are up to something.”
“I just have to go to the bathroom.”
Then it was Wynn’s turn to laugh. “You want to get punished, don’t you?”
I grinned. “Maybe a little bit. But come on, this is miserable.” I shifted from foot to foot, feeling the stickiness on my inner thighs. “Help me out a little bit. You know how much I love you both, right?”
“Your puppy dog eyes won’t work on me,” Wynn said.
Ciel gently ushered me toward the bathroom. “They work on me.”
“Thank you, thank you,” I breathed while we maneuvered around the guests. When we reached the door, I gave him a quick kiss. “I knew I loved you.”
He smacked me on the ass when I pushed the door open. “Go. Quickly, before we have to come in there and get you.”
Giggling, I closed the door behind me. My fingers rested carefully by my weapons as I quickly peeked at each stall, looking for hidden assassins or assailants. There was only one person in the far stall, and her heels were strappy and tall. Definitely not an assassin.
Well, my heels were strappy and tall, and I was an assassin.
After a quick mental debate, I decided she was likely safe. But if Greco thought to plant someone in here to murder me on the off-chance I went pee, then he kind of deserved the win.
Whatever. I just wanted to get clean.