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I arch an amused eyebrow. “Don’t they? You got all dolled up and marched in here to sell your soul to Ivan Pushkin. Just like the rest of them.”
“Not you, too?” she murmurs. “Ivanthis,Ivanthat. Everyone can’t get enough of the guy. Who even is he?”
I join her at the window, gazing down at the partygoers below. “Everyone is here because they want to marry him.”
“I’m surehethinks so.” She wrinkles her nose and points at a paunchy man standing by the shrubs. “What about that one?”
I clock the person she’s pointing at immediately. My mind whirrs and conjures up the relevant facts. Valmor Shundi. Albanian underboss. Likes his whiskey aged for seventeen years and his women for less than that.
“Him, too. The poor bastard has a nasty drug problem and is about to get caught for stealing money from his clients. He needs his daughters to secure a good match now before his name turns to shit.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know everything.” I point out the scrawny Italian man next to the stage. Again, my mind hums and pulls up what I need to know. Alfonso Marciano. A Rossi family underboss. Cokehead. “That one is into group sex with his boss and his wife.”
“No way,” she giggles. “He’s wearing a pink polo with a popped collar. How is he having threesomes?”
“Foursomes, actually. He brings his own wife along.” I point out the woman in the brown bedazzled dress who is scanning the lawn like a vulture. “Though I’m not sure you can criticize anyone else’s appearance, all things considered.”
She glances down at my suit jacket and winces shyly. “Fair enough. But I looked better before that asshole ripped my dress.”
“Agree to disagree,” I murmur.
I didn’t actually intend to speak out loud, but that slipped out before I could stop it. Her blush is bright enough to see in the gloom.
“What about that one?” she asks, obviously changing the subject.
I follow her finger to see her singling out the emaciated blond hair of the one man I would have most preferred not to think about. The laughter disappears from my voice. “Konstantin Sokolov,” I say quietly.
“You don’t have any dirt on him?” she teases. “He’s not, like, a terrible poker player or secretly into dressing up like a furry in his free time?”
No,I think to myself.He’s the father of the woman I wassupposedto marry.
“He’s no one,” I said out loud instead. “No one at all.”
“Hm. Okay.” She turns her head to the side, dark hair spilling over her shoulder. “Final question: what’syourname?”
I have to admire her tenacity. She is really claiming she doesn’t know who I am. I’m still not sure I believe her, but it is nice to be anonymous. If just for a few minutes.
“Tell me yours first.”
“Or what?” she challenges.
“Or I’ll kick you out for trespassing.”
She narrows her eyes. “Are you sure you aren’t head of security? You’re on a real power trip.”
My gaze doesn’t waver from hers. The world shrinks around us. “I’ll answer when you tell me who you are.”
She hesitates for only a second. “Francia Delacour.”
I flip through my mental rolodex of names and contacts and allies and enemies, but there is no Delacour as far as I can remember.
Frowning, I turn to the bar cart and grab two glasses. “Care for a drink, Ms. Delacour?”
“God, yes. But you don’t get off that easily. You’re supposed to tell me if you’re the head of security or not.”
I hold up my glass and take a sip. “If I was head of security, would I be drinking on the job?”
