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Would it be that simple? Another easy pass into thehouse?
She didn’t dare hope as she stepped up to theguard.
He held out a satin bag and she dropped in the burner phone Ronan had given her. Braden had tipped them off about the phone check, and they’d both brought untraceable phones that could be leftbehind.
The guard lifted the wand and she held out her hand, looking around like it was all a formality she shouldn’t have tobear.
“Name?”
“Pardon me?” She was careful to use the accent she’d beenpracticing.
The guard looked into her eyes. “Yourname.”
She tried to look mildly offended. “AnuskaKrál."
“Identificationnumber.”
Why was she being asked questions when the man in front of her had been allowed to pass without so much as aword?
She lifted her chin and rattled off Anuska Král's passport number. It was another tidbit from the man named Kane: passport numbers were used as Manifest IDnumbers.
The man checked the number against the tablet and looked again at Julia’s face, his eyes moving over herfeatures.
She met his gaze, trying to convey the superiority of wealth and privilege that must go hand in hand with inheriting so much money that you had nothing better to do than attend parties with corrupt rich people who sought pleasure from imprisoned women who couldn’t fightback.
It seemed like an eternity before heblinked.
He tipped his head toward the house and Julia stepped in, standing aside while she waited for Ronan to pass the same inspection. Instead the guard scanned Ronan’s watch, glanced at the tablet, and waved him forward without anotherword.
They werein.
17
Every nervein Ronan’s body was on high alert as they made their way through the crowd into the house. Had he been alone, it would have been just another job, if slightly more challenging given that he had to get someone else outalive.
With Julia by his side it felt too much like chumming shark infested waters with freshmeat.
The house was homier than he’d expected. It might have been the country estate of a wealthy Italian family, filled with luxurious but comfortable furniture and French doors open to the terraces that surrounded thehouse.
The ceiling soared to worn wood timber overhead and the walls were warm textured plaster. It was a house he would have enjoyed spending time in under othercircumstances.
They made their way farther inside and he noted the suited guards positioned throughout the rooms of the first floor. He knew they were packing from the bulges under their jackets — he would have expected no less — and he was unsurprised to find two of them stationed at the bottom of the frontstaircase.
If the house were set up like the Whitmore Club, they would bring the girls to the second and third floors. He could only assume they hadn’t yet arrived: no one approached the stairs, and the crowd seemed content to drink andmingle.
A uniformed server stopped at their side with a tray of champagne. Ronan took a glass and handed it to Julia, then took one forhimself.
She touched her glass to his in a wordless toast and he knew she was thinking about Elise, hoping this would be the day they would finally bring her sisterhome.
He turned his attention to the crowd around them. He recognized a handful of business titans, plus a couple of trust fund babies from the news. The other faces blended into a sea of polished flesh, tuxedos, silk and satingowns.
It was the women who bothered him most. It shouldn’t have mattered, but what kind of woman did you have to be to look the other way while men traded in members of your own gender, members who had spent centuries being used and abused by men, fighting and dying for the chance to befree?
Was it possible some of them didn’t know that the party was a Manifest showcase for the “assets” of an upcomingsale?
It was hard to imagine. The women had to know. Maybe it was just a relief to find themselves on the other side of the transaction for once. From that perspective, they seemed slightly less guilty than the men who’d always been on the otherside.
That was where he needed to focus hisanger.
