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Chapter Seven
Jo
It’s beentwo days since Quinn’s unexpected attack and counterattack in my surveillance room, and I still have a hard time piecing together what’s become of my life. The fact that I’m currently strolling through the halls of Quinn’s gorgeous Boston colonial home—wearing feathers—merely adds to the impossibility of it all.
“Pfft,” I try to clear space enough to breathe, but the peacock-themed femme fatale mask isn’t making that job easy. “Who picked this out? Did you pick this out?”
Mo, snorts beside me. “We were given two options with the birds of prey theme—birds or predators. I preferred the predator side of the equation.”
At Quinn’s dictate that I attend the party with a personal guard, I insisted that Mo Dinan could do the job as ably as any of his men. Once she proved her skills at Quinn’s personal firing range, he grudgingly agreed. I know I shouldn’t gloat over how much she surprised his security director, but I can’t help it. I’m not a fighter, as my pathetic attempt to hit Quinn in my surveillance room clearly proved…but she is.
Now Mo’s beside me, dressed in male gangster chic from the 1920s, including a snap brim fedora, crisp shirt and tie, and a long jacketed, bulky suit. She’d begged to carry a tommy gun to complete the costume, but she’d been overruled by Quinn.
No weapons are allowed on the premises tonight other than those carried by Quinn’s men—and the mansion has no outdoor spaces in use for this party. It’s a perfect, controlled lockdown…just like we planned it.
It’s also the first time Quinn has opened up his house to the second-tier families, so everybody who’s anybody—along with their most trusted security detail—are here. Which is exactly the group I need to complete my data set on the families.
“See anyone who surprises you?” I ask Mo.
“More new faces than I expected, that’s for sure. Your decision to have each guest bring in the spouse and two goons was smart. Most of the primary security I’ve seen before, but these new guys aren’t who typically follow the wives around. They’re higher grade. Quinn’s got people nervous enough to bring out the best on their teams to show respect.”
“Good. Are they talking?”
“They definitely are. It’s like the Pro Bowl of muscle in here—fortunately, I’m not the only female on the premises who’s not in feathers, but we’re few and far between.”
“Well, keep me posted if anyone starts boasting or talking stupid. Remember, once I set up near Quinn, you go mix among the others. I don’t need you to play babysitter. He’s got four guys orbiting him like satellites.”
“Will do.” The fact she doesn’t argue is one of the many reasons I appreciate Mo. Maybe it comes from being a driver. There are usually a dozen different paths you can take away from a job, any one of which will work just fine, but if you deviate from the planned route even a block—to take a shortcut, lose a tail, whatever—you risk compromising the whole job. Ninety-five percent of the time, it’s best to do all your legwork up front and map the cleanest possible getaway before the wheels start squealing. Once you’re rolling, you don’t want to be changing things up.
We enter a large, graciously decorated ballroom that actually saw legit balls back in the 1800s, and is now set up to allow for dancing and hobnobbing around small, white skirted tables. As Quinn intended, the room practically glitters, with nearly every woman dressed in brightly colored evening gowns and matching elaborate masks. Given the short notice, there wasn’t any additional costuming required, but that hasn’t stopped the wives. There are feathered scarves, capes and dresses that rustle and shine in the bright lights of the chandeliers, while beside the women their husbands appear credibly dangerous in 1920s gangster wear, with identical plain black masks that cover half their faces. As a result, the men look all shockingly uniform. All part of the same extended family, all of them supporting the same cause.
Once again, a masterful stroke by Quinn.
I color as my words hit me with their additional meaning. Quinn’s strokes could be described in half a dozen ways, but masterful is definitely up there. We’ve spent the last two days alternating between poring over supply chain data for all the second-tier houses and finding new places to have teeth-rattling sex, both in my Back Bay brownstone and his palatial mansion. Any time of day or night, no matter how long he’s been awake, Quinn can be ready for sex with the snap of his fingers, his eyes glinting with mischief, and his mouth…
“Jo.” Quinn’s warm, approving voice reaches me, and I look up to see him smiling from the raised dais where he’s arranged his table. The dais is only a few inches off the floor, but the subtle height change gives him the slightest psychological edge over all the second-tier families—as well as an appropriate birds-eye view.
I smile as he holds out a hand and welcomes me up on the dais, a move carefully tracked by the other houses. Good. Everyone here should know screwing with the Prescott family means screwing with the O’Reillys too. Now that I’m officially out as a female, it’d be far too easy for one of the more sexist houses to get some really dumb ideas about messing with me. I don’t have time for that.
And, truth be told, there’s a part of me that rather enjoys being held up as Quinn’s preferred house, after so many years of operating in the shadows. It’s going to go a long way toward building my credibility not only with the second-tier houses but with the Alliance too…as long as they don’t think his interest is purely carnal. Though, to be fair, I don’t even know whether his interest is more than carnal. Something else I don’t have time to worry about…at least not yet.
“You got the data you need?” he asks. I nod, pulling my phone out of my tiny clutch purse to call up the app.
“Everyone arrived by 9 p.m.,” I confirm. “We’re wrapping up the last of the scans and…oh good. it’s done. I’ll be right back.”
“Bob,” Quinn says, and the beefiest of his thugs moves up beside me. I roll my eyes, but don’t object. If I’m being totally honest, I get a personal kick out of Quinn’s mile-wide protective streak beyond the benefits it provides to my house. After being the unofficial head of the family for the last six years, never able to show any weakness, it’s nice to feel protected again, finally. To feel safe.
I step away from Quinn before he can kiss me, though I can tell his instincts are to wrap me in his arms and prove to everyone that I’m his. We’ve got a job to do first, though, like it or not. No distractions.
With Bob hovering behind me, I move into the small antechamber off the ballroom and get to work. The scans have completed and it takes only a few keystrokes to begin the analysis and cross referencing with all other surveillance video I’ve ever taken on the families, looking for anyone showing up where they shouldn’t be—an enforcer in a house other than his own, family heads meeting in disguise at each other’s homes—and I have a feeling something will pop pretty quickly.
Speaking of popping quickly…
I grin as I toggle over to the other video feeds recorded two days earlier in my surveillance room. I haven’t had the heart to delete them yet, though I know I should. But still, it’s a little chilly in Quinn’s air conditioned ballroom, and those images will definitely heat me up.
I scroll through the list, looking for the first recording with Quinn’s hand on my ass—and pause.
“That’s weird.”
“Miss Prescott?” Bob is right beside me, scanning the empty room around us, surveying for threats. “Anything wrong?”
“No—no. I’m good.” I’m not good, though. I scroll again through the video, and three separate feeds have been—oh. There they are.
Okay, that’s even weirder. I frown as Bob touches his earpiece and murmurs something, but I’m focused on my phone. While I’ve found the feeds, the video clips are only located in the archive folder. That generally only happens if someone has moved the original. Not just copied, but moved it off the server entirely. No one but me has the access to delete a file completely, but moving it…
Who would have moved my video feeds? And why those? I mean, yes, there was some pretty impressive sex captured in those feeds, but—
“Jo.” I look up as Quinn strides into the room, his face set, his eyes dark and angry. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“I…I don’t know, especially not until I get back to my full setup,” I say, handing the phone over to him with a grimace. “But it looks like we’ve become tonight’s star attraction for one lucky viewer.”
