I Slept With My Fiancé's Hot Uncle novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Wrong Loop

The Pickering Foundation held its autumn gala on Saturday night, in the same ballroom I had wrecked four days earlier.

Costa had picked the date.

For four days I had waited for Russell's tape to land on every phone in town.

It hadn't, and that scared me more than if it had.

"He's holding it," Costa had said. "He wants us to know he's holding it."

"Then we go while he still thinks that's enough," I said.

"Russell will be on the stage at nine for forty minutes," he said. "Every guard in the building will be watching the room, and the vault is two floors down."

"You want to walk into his party?"

"I want you to," he said. "You're the best cover I have. Nobody will look at anything else."

I wore the green dress.

It had been my father's choice the first time, and I had resented it, and it turned out to be a very good dress.

Costa wore a black suit and no tie, and when we crossed the lobby together, every head in the place turned.

"They're staring," I murmured.

"They should."

"Is that a plan?"

"That's a dare," he said, and offered me his arm.

I took it.

I felt the heat of him through the sleeve, and I noted it, and I left it there.

The room went quiet in patches as we moved through it.

I heard my name and Nigel's name, and the word "recording" more than once.

Russell stood on the stage, shaking hands, silver hair gleaming.

His eyes landed on us, and the smile stayed on his face.

"Ten minutes," Costa said in my ear. "Then we go."

At nine, Russell stepped up to the microphone.

We slipped out through the service door behind the coat check.

The stairs smelled like bleach and old carpet.

Two floors down, a steel door sat at the end of a hall, with a keypad on the wall and a lock below it.

"The code is Russell's birthday," Costa said, and tapped it in.

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