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Chapter Three
Jo
After Quinn’sbombshell of an announcement, the families burst into rough and angry chatter. One message has already been sent to the second-tier families. The fact that a second message is necessary is beyond insulting to these men. But insults or not, that’s what we’re facing.
I sit back and let them yell. None of them act surprised that I’m female, but I suspect most of them had no idea that Mary Josephine Prescott is the real brains behind the Prescott family business. They don’t know the half of it. I graduated from MIT as one of the youngest students in the university’s storied history, and during my last two years in college, I was working low-level scams to hack first academic systems, then medical, then government, then big business. As it turned out, the oldest family operations proved the easiest to hack…which of course, led me to hacking the systems of every one of these men, at one time or another. Quinn O’Reilly’s included.
He at least caught on to my game, or his tech people did. When I sensed the game was up, I bailed immediately. I wasn’t trying to take anything away from the Big 5, I just wanted a peek at their intel. Because on a need to know basis, I’ve always needed to know.
“As you’re aware,” Quinn speaks above the shouting, immediately silencing the group. “Each family brings something to the table. I’m sorry to say, that’s not always a good thing. We have a traitor among us.” He pauses and pulls in a deep breath as he takes his time looking every person at the table in the eye, including me, before addressing the room again. It’s a smart move, letting everyone know he’s watching them. “Ms. Prescott will be working with me to ID who that is.”
I don’t recall agreeing to his terms. Still, the thought of finally having a permanent seat at the table is too strong of a draw to deny. And I certainly did my level best to prod Quinn along with my fake flirtation bit with Ivanov and Siccario…an effort that appears to have been successful. Excellent.
“So, what will your first step be?” This question is directed at me from Ivanov, who doesn’t bother disguising his physical interest. I don’t mind. It’s the men who hide their desires who are the scary ones.
That said, I know my path into the Alliance, and it’s not through the Ivanov family. Quinn is the only man here who can punch my ticket. Fortunately, it’s a ticket I want him to punch, over and over again.
“My first step will be to coordinate with Mr. O’Reilly on any intel you’ve already collected, and compare it against my own data set.”
That gets their attention. “You’ve already begun collecting information? Why?”
I immediately see my mistake. The Alliance is a very private group of powerful men, and they wouldn’t appreciate knowing how much I know about them. They’ll also instantly assume the worst if I brag about the files I have on my own peers.
“I’ve gathered only the bare minimum, to show you the value I bring to the table,” I say smoothly. “I’ve always respected the privacy of the families. But now that I understand there is a betrayer in our midst, I’ll work more diligently to gather the intelligence we need to help eradicate the threat.”
They seem to accept this, but I don’t miss Quinn’s sharp eyes on me. He knows me more intimately than any of them, obviously, and I wonder how acute his bullshit meter is. Probably pretty damned acute.
Still, I can’t help being concerned about the idea of a second betrayal among the families. When Siccario’s enforcer, Demetrius Kostas, took out Viktor Petrov, I saw that coming from a mile away. I had phone conversations that alluded to a hit coming down, and Petrov had been shooting off his mouth for months. He’d always stayed just shy of outright mutiny, I thought, but I wasn’t surprised to learn he was working additional deals on the side to supplement his public campaign to strengthen the less scrupulous second-tier families.
But I haven’t seen anything that indicated a second betrayal was in the works. Now I’m burning up to know what Quinn uncovered…and burning up in general for Quinn.
The rest of the meeting turns to more mundane business, detailed enough that I’m surprised they allowed the second-tier families to remain for most of it.
“This concludes the portion of the meeting requiring our guests’ attendance. For those of you invited for your introduction, we thank you for your attendance and will be in touch.” When Quinn finally stands to usher us out of the room so the top-tier families can discuss more sensitive matters, it’s all I can do not to affix one of my portable bugs to the table. I carry those trackers on me like some women carry breath mints—deactivated, so as not to trigger any electronics sweeps—and my fingers are so twitchy to trigger one I have to clench my hands into fists.
Instead I smile sweetly at Quinn as he watches me closely, and demurely accept his instruction to await him in his office. I’m once again faced with the almost overwhelming need to plant a tracker while I’m left alone in the sparely furnished room, and barely keep myself on the side of angels until the door opens again and Quinn steps inside.
“They’re gone?” I ask, and he grins.
“They’re going. You impressed the Alliance.”
I lift my eyebrows. “I don’t see how. I didn’t say more than three sentences.”
“And that’s what impressed them. Most of the second-tier family heads talked on and on. To show off what they knew, and discount what they didn’t. You didn’t do that. You listened. You watched. You absorbed. You made half the room uncomfortable, and the other half mad with desire.”
“Which half was which?”
Quinn barks a sharp laugh. “I thought you’d ask that. You played everything well—except that little slip on having constructed full dossiers on all the other families. Including the top-tier families.”
I fight to keep my tone perfectly neutral. “I never said that.”
“Not in so many words, but the underlying message was perfectly clear to anyone with ears to hear it. So, who’s the mole?”
I grimace. “You’re not going to like this answer but…I don’t know. I knew Petrov was a threat, but he didn’t make a secret of that, it was only in exactly how he’d bring that threat to bear. As to the rest?” I give a dismissive wave. “It’s a half-dozen families who are low-level thugs and criminals, and about four others who have enough going on to be interesting. Including my family, for that matter. But as to a specific betrayal, that’s harder to guess. I heard Grimm’s own son was selling intel. One of the smaller families could have gotten equally lucky—”
“This isn’t luck,” Quinn says. He’s moved closer to me now, making it difficult to focus. “Charles Grimm took care of that leak, yet we’ve had three of our international operatives killed in the last month, all in the midst of drops where the hits were deliberate, precise, and sophisticated. The money is gone, while the bodies of the operatives were disposed of in public places and generally found by the authorities before we could move in for damage control. Even if the mole is low level, the people he or she is selling information to are not. This leak has disrupted our business and is on the verge of making us look bad. We can’t have that.”
“No,” I agree. I’m trying to stay focused on Quinn’s words, but as he gets nearer to me, I keep getting more and more distracted by his mouth. There’s something about the man’s mouth that I’m pretty sure is criminal, and I can’t wait for him to break the law with it again.
