Under Covers

eighteen | paris

A/N: y'all ready for this? let me hear you SCREAM! xoxo Ami

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eighteen | paris

the Eiffel tower is the most valuable landmark in Europe, valued at an estimated four-hundred-and-thirty-five billion euros

RAYNA

May 8th, 20:44 (GMT +2)
7 days until it happens

YEAH, I SLIPPED a sedative into Steve's drink. No, I'm not guilty about it.

My heels clink against gleaming hardwood as I escape the ballroom en route to Drapeau's personal office.

The official part of tonight's mission was to bug Nikitin and monitor his conversations for info about Cassidy. (Which is fucking stupid, since I am 96% certain that he has no idea where that spoiled brat is, and that he really couldn't care less.) The unofficial goal that wasn't included in the mission brief is to learn what Dalton is hiding. We need to figure out why our governments are pretending that Cassidy is missing, and why the Russian mob is happy to take credit for it.

When I left the ballroom, Drapeau was in the middle of a raucous argument about the relative merits of assorted French vineyards. His office is unguarded; Jake is already inside.

I lean against the doorjamb. "You suck at this whole teamwork thing, you know that, right?"

He doesn't look up from the stack of papers he's perusing. "Teamwork is for those too useless to do things properly on their own."

"You're an arrogant piece of shit."

"Nothing I haven't heard before, darling."

After abandoning me with that insipid, self-absorbed, ignorant cringefest, he deserves a knee to the nuts. I'm trying to be upset with him, but he looks really damn handsome in a tux and my ovaries won't fucking shut up about it.

His broad shoulders fit snug beneath the black fabric as he leans over the solid walnut desk. Dark, closed-cropped stubble shadows his strong jaw. The bowtie knotted around his neck is a deep blue-grey, the same glacial shade of his eyes. Old British money, privilege tainted with carelessness. Dapper is the only word for him. Dashing and roguish. Alright, apparently there are more words.

As if sensing my thoughts, he lifts that iceberg gaze towards me and catches me checking him out. With a wolfish grin, he quips, a quiet rumble, "Take a fucking picture, why don't you?"

Warmth attacks my neck but I ignore it. I join him behind the desk, my gown swooshing around my ankles. "What've you found?"

"Trying to decipher these financial records," is all he says. My knuckles catch a cool scrap of his cufflink as I peel a sheet from the top of the pile.

I study the numbers and charts. Our arms bump when I point to the dates listed in a column. "Look at these. The cost-per-share of Dalton Enterprises took a huge jump the day they announced Cassidy had gone missing, and it's been trending high ever since."

Internally, he crunches through the calculations. "The market has been abysmally low for months, but Dalton's profits have spiked by hundreds of millions of dollars in less than a week."

There are only two reasons why people do shady shit: money and sex. "It's all about the money," I whisper. It's corrupt as hell but it makes total, complete sense. "Ayb el shoum. You mean... They sent us on a wild-goose-chase following cold leads all around Europe... Just to give Elias Dalton's stock price a boost?"