Page 171 of Fall Before Her Throne

These were the big supplemental donors. Greco could drop millions into the mayor’s campaign fund, but that wouldn’t look great for her if someone traced the money back to a crime boss. Events like this were to diversify the pot, to get a community effort behind a political candidate—even if we all knew who was dropping the most amount of money.

Which brought me to one of my major questions of the evening. Either the mayor knew who Greco and the Camorra were, and was fine accepting money from the mafia. Or she didn’t know, and she had done almost zero research into the benefactor of this incredible event.

On the one hand, she was dirtier than we thought. On the other, she was ignorant at best and stupid at worst. Neither would be helpful to us if Greco got his claws in her first.

“What about Sandrini?” I asked. He’d been Greco’s little dog since he stepped foot in this city. He would definitely be here.

“He’s headed toward Rossi right now,” Cas said. “Fresh from the bar.”

The older man carried two glasses and handed one to the woman speaking with Rossi. Then he laughed and joined in on the conversation.

“Monitor him, please,” I said. “I’m sure he’s got plenty of men here, too. Ciel? Are you ready?”

“Almost,” he replied. I spotted him over by the media booth, plugging in our escape plan. If anything went wrong, Ciel would put everything in motion.

“No sign of Greco yet,” Max said.

“Why isn’t he here?” I plucked a glass of champagne from a passing server. “Also, where is the mayor? She’s not here either.”

I sipped and scanned the crowd again. I recognized plenty of people from Ciel’s dossier, but the guest of honor and the host were nowhere to be found.

Ah, there was the bathroom.

“They could already be talking somewhere private,” Obi said. “Split up into pairs and see if we can spot them. Keep in contact; don’t do anything stupid.”

“Got it,” I responded, watching Obi and Ryu mingle toward the balcony. Max and Cas headed toward Rossi and the bar. Ciel instantly appeared by my side, and I spotted Wynn making his way through the crowd.

I pressed a finger to my ear comms to silence them. “My dearest hacker.”

His eyes crinkled with mirth while he paused his comms too. “You’re going to get me into trouble, aren’t you?”

I gasped. “Never!”

“What do you want to do?” he asked, laughing. “Hurry before Obi realizes we’re unusually quiet.”

I pointed toward the bathroom. “Gotta go.”

He barked a laugh. “Oh, now we’re both going to get in trouble.”

Wynn snuck up on my side. “You two are up to something.”

“I just have to go to the bathroom.”

Then it was Wynn’s turn to laugh. “You want to get punished, don’t you?”

I grinned. “Maybe a little bit. But come on, this is miserable.” I shifted from foot to foot, feeling the stickiness on my inner thighs. “Help me out a little bit. You know how much I love you both, right?”

“Your puppy dog eyes won’t work on me,” Wynn said.

Ciel gently ushered me toward the bathroom. “They work on me.”

“Thank you, thank you,” I breathed while we maneuvered around the guests. When we reached the door, I gave him a quick kiss. “I knew I loved you.”

He smacked me on the ass when I pushed the door open. “Go. Quickly, before we have to come in there and get you.”

Giggling, I closed the door behind me. My fingers rested carefully by my weapons as I quickly peeked at each stall, looking for hidden assassins or assailants. There was only one person in the far stall, and her heels were strappy and tall. Definitely not an assassin.

Well, my heels were strappy and tall, and I was an assassin.