45. Cassie
CASSIE
The next night, we inched our way up the winding road to Villa Lysis behind a row of other limousines.
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 were employed 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.
I swung my legs out of the car, careful not to let the slit that ran up one side of my dress reveal too much, and stood next to him, feeling every bit the princess in the drapey white dress that slid over my body in a sea of white satin.
The halter-style collar wrapped around my neck before plunging to a deep cutout, all the way to my waist, between my boobs (I’d had to use fashion tape to make sure I didn’t spill out, which had thoughtfully been provided with the dress), with a matching back that started just above my ass.
The waist was fitted, the dress skimming the rest of my body in a silky drape, the deep slit on one side cut almost to my hip and offering a glimpse of my strappy black heels.
We made our way up a wide stone walkway, past towering columns and through the front doors, left open to the cool evening air.
An older couple in front of us handed their invitations to the two security guards at the entrance and I immediately recognized the thick envelopes Jagger had lifted off the couple at da Paolino.
I wondered what the couple was doing now, if they’d reported their invitations stolen or if they assumed the cards had simply fallen out of the woman’s handbag.
My heart raced as we stepped forward toward two dark-haired, dark-eyed security guards in expensive suits.
I forced a bored expression on my face — at least I hoped that’s what it looked like because the terror I was actually feeling would definitely be bad for our cover — as Jagger reached inside his jacket for the invitations.
He handed them over and one of the guards scanned the QR code, then handed the invitations back to Jagger, his gaze already on the couple behind us.
And then we were in, walking past security and into the villa, music playing from some far off room.
Jagger plucked two champagne glasses off the tray of a passing waiter.
He handed one to me and touched his glass to mine. “To successful hunting.”
I smiled and touched the glass to my lips to take a sip of the champagne. I wasn’t a big drinker, and the last thing I needed was to be tipsy when we were finally on Alina’s trail.
“How long do you think it will take Hawk and Vigo to get here?” I asked.
“They may be here now,” Jagger said.
He didn’t even look around, and I admired his calm, the way he acted like he belonged, like there wasn’t even a question that we’d be found out.
It was one of the things I loved about the Hawks: their confidence gave me confidence.
We wandered through the first floor of the villa, and I tried not to look too impressed as I took in the magnificent architecture: soaring ceilings and ridged columns, cavernous rooms framed by giant arches, chandeliers as big as our kitchen in Blackwell Falls, their lights reflecting off crystal teardrops.
And the crowd was every bit as beautiful: men and women ripped straight out of celebrity gossip sites and artsy types dressed in interesting and unusual fashion.
I spotted an A-list actress with her director husband, a political with a young woman who didn’t look like his wife, a tech billionaire with a beautiful woman on one arm, a handsome man on the other.
And then, someone familiar.
“Isn’t that…”
Jagger followed my gaze. “The guy on the yacht.”
He’d been younger in the picture from my parents’ storage unit, but it was definitely him. I’d done a reverse image search and come up empty, but here he was, at one of the regular parties on Alina Volkova’s circuit.
My pulse quickened. Could it mean that Dimitri would be here after all?
We wandered toward the back of the villa and I was glad the terrace doors had been left open on all sides. It was November, but the rooms were warm with all the bodies crammed inside and the breeze drifting in off the water kept the villa from feeling stifling.
A man dressed in a suit stopped with a tray full of jewels and Jagger paused to admire the glittering diamonds and emeralds laid out on black velvet.
It took me a minute to remember what was happening: the jewelry collection unveiled by Maison Valmont. It was the whole point of the White Night gala, and I forced myself to make quiet exclamations of awe as I looked at the shimmering jewels.
Jagger nodded at the suited man and he stepped away, looking for another victim.
“Will people buy them?” I asked. “Tonight?”
“Some,” Jagger said. “But really this is a PR event, a way to build buzz for the collection. Most of the people here have their jewelry custom designed, like your ring.”
I looked down at the engagement ring still on my finger from our ruse at the airport. “But… you said you stole it.”
“Actually we didn’t. You asked, and we said you didn’t want to know.”
“Wait…” I looked at the ring. “You had this made?”
“We wouldn’t give you a stolen ring,” Jagger said. “And we wouldn’t give you a ring someone else could buy from a store either.”
My mouth hung open as I searched for words.
But it turned out, there was no time to talk about the ring.
“There’s Hawk,” Jagger said.
I followed his gaze and saw Hawk standing near one of the open sets of terrace doors, wrists crossed in front of him.
And honestly, if I hadn’t known better, I would have assumed he was just another member of someone’s security detail, one of the many black-suited men who drifted through the crowd on the heels of their clients.
He didn’t even look at us.
“Where’s Vigo?” I asked.
“Around,” Jagger said. “Let’s look for Alina.”
We meandered through the villa’s first floor (we passed more than one set of stairs leading to the second floor, but they were all cordoned off with green velvet rope), gazing with admiration at the jewelry whenever one of the men with trays stopped to offer a glimpse, scanning the crowd for signs of Alina.
But in the end, it wasn’t her face that got our attention.
It was her laugh.
It rang through the room like a bell, bright and unabashed.
I followed the sound of it and spotted Alina, a sheath of white satin draped over her lithe body, hair falling in a sleek blonde sheet down her slender back.
She stood near a table of canapés, a glass of champagne in one hand, her phone raised in the other as she took a selfie with a young, good-looking dark-haired guy with a rakish smile.
She looked carefree in a way I’d never been, just a rich girl doing rich girl things.
A rich girl who was Dimitri Kaprolov’s daughter.
One who had no idea we’d tracked her from Dimitri’s plane to Capri to the gala.
No idea we were here just for her.