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Like the dead.
Still disappointing.
Seamus didn’t say anything for a few moments, his eyes still on the board, but soon he was shaking his head, the melancholy disappearing from his face as if it had never been there.
“The plan,” he smiled broadly, the carefree man returning, “is simple. Ava is going to be attending the gala with Leon, one of Matthias’s enforcers.”
“Why isn’t she attending with him?”
His mouth twitched into a scowl. “Because the two of them still have some issues to work out, apparently,” he sneered. “No one outside of the family and his men knows they’re married. Not even my mother.”
“Oh.”
A twinge of sadness nipped at my soul for his sister. Much like me, she’d grown up believing her family didn’t love or value her above what she could offer them. I was fifteen when it became abundantly clear that, to my father, the only usefulness I held was a marriage alliance and providing my husband with an heir.
It was at that age that I’d been forced to endure my first examination to make sure I was fertile and able to carry children. Because, according to Sarah, a woman was only as good as her womb. I nearly shoved the doctor’s forceps into her neck. Instead, I snapped back.
“Guess you’re pretty useless then, right?” I spoke. “Since all you birthed was a girl, and now you’re as barren as the Sahara?”
That earned me three days locked in my room with no food and barely any water.
Good times.
There was one difference between us, though. Ava had found a family that cared for her. That wanted her. While I was still nothing more than a tool to be used until my uselessness became inevitable.
“Ava’s job is to mingle and point out the people she’s seen with Elias,” he continued. “Your job is to slip us the information from the computer.”
Wonderful.
“The gala serves two purposes,” he informed me. “The first is to bring the most powerful and corrupt people together under one roof for what appears to be a good cause. The second is, during that time, those who are entering goods into the auction will have a chance to drum up interest with bidders and sellers.”
Well, that sounded positively wretched.
“How will Kiernan know who the other sellers are?” I wondered.
Seamus pointed to a small blue lapel pin on the board with a black dahlia in the center.
“This identifies sellers, and this one,” he pointed to another pin that was red with a blue rose, “identifies bidders. If they’re wearing both pins, they are entered as both.”
“How are we going to get me to the auction?” I asked. “Once I go back home, I’m going to be watched like a hawk.”
Seamus smirked.
“We’re going to kidnap you,” he paused. “Again.”
I snorted. “Good luck with that.”
“We have a plan,” he admitted with a shrug. “It’s a bit of a wibbly-wobbly plan, but there are a lot of variables we can’t account for. The one thing we can account for, however, is having an exit plan in place in case things go south.”
“We’ll all be wearing wireless communication devices that can’t be tracked.” With a hand on my lower back, Seamus steered me toward a small table in the corner. He picked up a small earpiece and showed it to me. “They can’t be tracked or traced or detected. They work off the vibrations in your jaw. All you have to do is speak, and we’ll hear you. We’re going to sew this into the clothes we send you home in to ensure we have open communication with you.”
“Cool.” Now that was some James Bond technology right there.
“If for any reason you find that things are going south with your father, your code word is whiskey.” He smirked at me. “Thought you might like that.”
I wrinkled my nose in distaste.
Whiskey and I weren’t friends any longer.
