R I L E Y

Jake called everyone to the living room after meeting again with Johnson, the Club member he'd apparently gotten information from. Having not been there the first time, of course I didn't know exactly what had gone down. But I'd heard that Jake had threatened to kill Johnson's child. Knowing that he'd done that, I wasn't exactly excited to hear what he had to say now.

"I got Johnson to inform me of the masked assassin's next mission so that we can be there to catch him."

"Where is it?" Kane asked sharply. He was doing his best to look like his normal stoic self, but I knew that he was internally distraught.

"Your brother has been assigned to extract information from guests at a gala tonight and then kill a man named Henry Waterson," Jake informed us matter-of-factly. "The gala is luckily being held downtown at five, so we'll be able to make it."

"Wait," Gigi said, waving her hands as she tried to catch up. "How are we going to take him down in a room full of hundreds of people?"

"Not with violence," Jake announced. "Riley's going to poison him instead."

I raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Your expertise in plants, poisonous or not, will aid us in incapacitating him enough to entrap him and drag him to Hunt."

"How am I supposed to poison him without being seen? Poison darts won't work in a room so crowded and I can't easily inject him with anything." I couldn't believe that I was actually debating doing this, especially after what Kane had told me about Benny.

"There will be waiters serving various beverages. You'll just pose as one of them and he won't suspect a thing when you slip a non-lethal dose of poison into his drink." I wasn't quite sure how Jake knew that I had poisonous plants in my possession. I doubted that I wanted to know.

"And what if he does?" I asked, crossing my arms flippantly. "What if things go wrong and he goes after me instead?"

He stared me down. "You'll live. The rest us will also be stationed at points in the crowd or venue, watching your interaction with him. If he makes a move to injure you, we will step in."

I looked down at my red-painted nails for a moment. "How soon do you want the poison to work?"

"Fifteen minutes or less after he drinks it," Jake instructed, having already thought this whole thing out. "Once it begins working, he'll realize that someone there poisoned him. He'll try to leave but won't make it because we'll reach him before he can. In that weakened state, he'll be much easier to apprehend."

"Alright," I agreed after a few seconds of hesitation. "I'll prepare the poison."

Before I left the room to head upstairs to my quarters, I made eye contact with Kane. His gaze was unreadable and I wondered if I was doing the wrong thing by poisoning his brother. He may have been a mass murderer, but he had once been a young boy with a good heart.

Once I was inside my room, my gaze swept over the familiar place. Plants of various kinds sat out on almost every flat space: on my side table, perched on the windowsill, even growing from a crack in my wall. The parts of my room that weren't dominated by plants held cages of small animals I'd gathered. As I walked by, one of my snakes hissed through the glass. A tarantula scuttled across the wood shavings in her enclosure.

Running my fingers over my plants, I searched for one in particular. When I found it, I needed to be careful not to touch it without gloves. Then, I spotted it: a dark green, dry-looking plant with small purple berries hidden between the leaves.

Belladonna. Deadly Nightshade. A couple of those berries ingested by themselves could kill a grown man in just minutes.

I regarded the plant for a few seconds before I grabbed a pair of gloves and began picking them off one by one.

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I stood nervously with the rest of the waiters in the kitchen. With my hair in a tight bun and an apron over my black outfit, I blended in with the others. I looked perfectly normal except for the fact that I had a small vial of toxic liquid hidden up my sleeve.

The cooks were busy at work as the event planner gave us our orders: to be polite, accommodating and get the guests their orders quickly and discreetly. This event was clearly only for the elite; the food alone that they were serving looked pristine and very extravagant. They were serving champagne and wine to the guests, which I would be delivering on a silver platter for them to grab as I walked by.

When the event planner had ended her speech to us, we lined up to receive our trays. The man handing them out barely gave me a second glance; that was good, I technically wasn't supposed to be here and it would be unfortunate for our plan if someone found that out.

I was careful to balance the delicate glasses on the platter as I followed the waiter in front of me into the main room. The buzz of noise got louder once I entered.

The gala was being held in an art museum as a celebration of a new exhibit's opening. The main room alone held hundreds of people talking with others, so tightly packed that I had difficulty navigating through the crowd. Overhead, the sky through the massive glass skylights was a clear blue, casting natural light into the museum. The walls, which were difficult to see at the moment, were covered in priceless works of art, varying in size and type. This was a very high-end event and I felt like I didn't quite belong.

But I unfortunately wasn't here to mingle with guests and sip wine. I had a mission.

Earlier, Delphinium had described what Benny looked like to me: a tall man a few years older than us with brown eyes, closely-cropped dark hair and obvious scars on his face. She'd told me that while those features might have made it seem like he'd stand out, he was also trained in espionage now, meaning that he'd be skilled in blending in. That made my job much harder.

Of course, it was impossible to find him. Every guest I could see was nicely dressed and looked impeccable. I'd never seen Benny's face underneath the mask and therefore had to go off of only what Delphinium had told me about him.

I also hadn't caught a single glimpse of any of the others. Jake had said that they'd be watching my every move, but where were they? I made sure to keep my wary glances around the room at a minimum to avoid suspicion; I could only hope they could see me.

When my tray was devoid of any more cups of lightly colored liquid, I headed back to the kitchen to get more. I was slightly worried that I hadn't seen Benny at all yet. It had been more than an hour and I'd walked all around the place, still without seeing anyone that fit Delphinium's description of her fellow assassin. What if this was all wrong?

That wouldn't happen. I was Riley Traversa. If things didn't work for me the first try, I made them work. I didn't let myself have doubts.

As a man in the kitchen refilled my supply of champagne, I gritted my teeth together in determination. I could do this.

So I emerged from the kitchen again, heels clicking against the marble floor. A warm smile was pasted on my face as I searched every face I passed.

But still, despite my sudden bout of determination to find Benny, he was nowhere to be found. This couldn't be a trap; he had to be here for his mission. Johnson wouldn't dare lie to Jake. Right?

Then, as I tried to fit between two older gentlemen with more hair in their mustaches than on their heads, I accidentally bumped into someone to my left. I was about to mutter my apologies to the person after I'd steadied myself, but right then, I looked up into his face.

His narrowed brown eyes were what caught my gaze first. As I took in his face, I noticed the deep lined scars that ran over the right side of his face. They actually didn't detract from his overall appearance, but it did help me recognize him.

The person I'd just ran into was most definitely Benny.

He was less than a foot away from me. I got my shock under control; he couldn't know how surprised I was to finally see him face-to-face.

"Excuse me," I said politely, showing no sign of fear. He said nothing but kept on his path through the crowd away from me.

When he'd gone, I glanced around into the corners of the massive room, again trying to see if I could spot any of my teammates. I wondered if they'd seen what had just happened. Once again, I was unsuccessful.

Now all I had to do was wait for dinner to be served, when I would find Benny at his table and lace his drink with the poison. Then, he'd be weakened and we could step in. I wasn't sure exactly how Jake expected to entrap Benny in this place that was teeming with people, but I was grudgingly sure that he had a plan to get us out without a problem.

I went back to the kitchen, as dinner was about to be served. Right before I entered through the door dividing the two rooms, I caught a glance of Benny across the room conversing with two old men. It seemed that he was fulfilling his mission and getting the information he needed for Imperium. I tore my eyes off of him before he noticed me watching.

In the kitchen, two plates of food were shoved into my hands and I found myself wishing that they were for me. As it turned out, stalking and poisoning a dangerous assassin worked up quite the appetite.

For the next while, I fulfilled the duties of any normal waiter, passing out plates of food and refilling waters. I couldn't think of any worse way to spend a Friday night.

I spotted Benny sitting across the room with the two men he'd been speaking with earlier. Knowing that his poisoning needed to happen now or never, I made my way to his table.

"More water?" I asked one of the white-haired gentlemen he sat with. The man obliged and handed me his empty glass.

When I'd filled it, I moved on to Benny and picked up his cup from over his shoulder. He didn't make any move to stop me. After I poured water into his glass, I worked the vial down my sleeve and felt it drop into my hand. Popping off the top, I poured the toxic liquid into the assassin's now-full water glass and placed it back in front of him.

As I promptly walked away, I regretted not being able to watch if he'd drank it or not. Of course, the plan would only work if he did; if he didn't, then we'd have bigger problems to worry about.

I made it look like I was walking back to the kitchen again, but in reality, I was waiting for enough time to go by for the poison to set in. I'd diluted it already and adding it to the water afterwards would make it slower to work. However, once it hit his stomach, the symptoms would set in.

I didn't even reach the kitchen door before Benny got up from his seat suddenly. My gaze followed him as he let himself out the wide doorway of a side exit. Determined to not let him out of my sight, I followed after him.

Once I was out of the main room, the noise level significantly lowered. The chatter fell to the background as I strayed farther and farther from the crowd down the marble hallway.

As I trailed the assassin, I realized that I was severely outmatched. If Benny saw me, he could still kill me with one slice of his blade. None of my teammates appeared to know where I'd gone and I wasn't even carrying my pocketknife because I was afraid the security would try to check my pockets when I walked in.

Benny tried to turn a corner, supporting himself with one arm against the wall as he turned, but he caught a glimpse of me moving after him. My stomach dropped. He was far enough away that I could try to run, but it would garner too much negative attention if I went running back into the main room. I had to confront him. Thankfully, confrontation was one of my strong suits.

So I stood where I was as he took a few weak steps towards me. "You did this to me," he spoke for the first time, a Romanian accent marring his words.

"I did." He was getting closer; it was becoming more difficult to stay there with my feet planted.

He chuckled, a raspy dry sound. "You really think you can kill me? Even with the drugs you gave me, I've been trained for this. You'll meet a timely death."

"I don't think so," I said, crossing my arms across my chest and praying that Jake and the others would make a miraculous appearance.

He was near enough now that I could see how his brown eyes glimmered under the lights. Now that he had dropped his ruse and was coming at me with a weapon, I could see the danger simmering in his intense gaze. He was not quite sane.

I barely dodged the first swipe of his blade. Even from that first second of the fight, I could tell how skilled he was. His knife came back around to drag across my throat. I stumbled back, trying to buy myself time for the others to arrive.

Benny swung his knife through the air with swift, deadly strokes. With each swing, a metallic ringing struck the air. They came inches away from my skin as I kept being pushed backwards. The assassin gave me no chance to fight back, even with the poison in his system.

Then I heard a commotion behind me. "Get away from her." It was Jaxon's voice.

When Benny heard them, he grabbed ahold of me and held me tightly against his body. His knife was to my throat, I could feel the cold bite of steel on my skin.

I gave a loud sigh. "You guys couldn't have come earlier?"

Gigi nocked an arrow in her bow and aimed it at Benny's head above me. "Let her go or this arrow is going through your face."

"You won't kill me," he said and I could hear the smile in his voice. "You need me for information for your little anti-terrorism organization."

"Unluckily for you, you're a terrorist," Finn stated sharply. "We won't kill you, but that poison will do its damage."

I gritted my teeth and was about to stomp my heel into his foot when Benny grasped me even tighter. "Lower your weapons or she's dead."

"No," Gigi retorted angrily. "If you harm a hair on her head, you're dead."

But Benny just laughed once more. "Lies, again." I noticed that his words were beginning to slur together. That was a symptom of belladonna poisoning.

Then, his grip on me loosened and the knife was taken away from my neck. I heard a loud thump behind me.

"No!" Kane rushed forward. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

I spun around to see what had happened. Benny laid sprawled out on the ground, his eyes closed. On his face, a red flush was spreading as foam bubbled from his parted lips.

Shaking my head fervently, I crouched next to the unconscious body. This wasn't part of the plan.