the dutiful guard he was supposed to be, all the while trying to figure out how best to let this play out. He didn’t want any harm to come to Ginger, and yet he knew she was a little out of her league here. He had to stop her from taking this any further. He had to let her know that they were on the same side.
But Ginger didn’t like to play fair, and neither did the Wolf. As much as he wanted to fuck her, he knew there was a good chance she’d try to kill him. And then what?
Then what indeed.
Ginger and Alfred talked for a little while, all small talk peppered with flirtatious giggles from her, and leering on behalf of Alfred.
Eventually Ginger said she would see him around, giving him one last coy smile, and walking off.
But not before looking into the Wolf’s eyes one last time.
He could have sworn he saw her revulsion. She couldn’t know who he was, and yet he knew that look. Perhaps just his presence was enough to scare her off.
But he knew who he was dealing with, and he knew what he had to do.
The Wolf stayed by Alfred’s side for a while as he sauntered around the party, meeting with senators and celebrities and socialites, all the glitzy people with their shallow smiles, their tiny brains. The Wolf hated these kind of people, was taught to abhor them from a young age. When you were growing up in Mexico, struggling to put one foot in front of the other, to make something out of nothing, you learned to hate the upper class rather than envy them. You saw that it was nothing but luck and old money that got them where they were. Not their skills or their intelligence. Everyone at this party, all their success was handed to them. Nothing to envy about that.
Eventually the Wolf excused himself to go use the toilet, knowing that the three other guards would keep a close eye on Alfred. After all, they all thought the Wolf was someone else, the head of Alfred’s security detail, a man who was shot between the eyes with a silencer and currently stuffed into a closet upstairs.
But instead of heading straight to the bathroom, the Wolf set about locating Ginger.
She wasn’t hard to find.
She was inside by the ballroom, watching people dance, pretending to sip on a glass of champagne.
She saw the Wolf coming from across the room, her posture stiffening. He liked that he scared her, that he made her pay attention.
He walked right over to her, knowing she was probably hoping that this would happen.
“Mr. Carino wants to speak with you in private,” the Wolf told her, making his voice lower than usual and burying his Mexican accent with an Atlantic one.
Even so, Ginger frowned. “All right,” she said after a moment.
The Wolf put his hand at her back. “Right this way.”
He led her out of the ballroom and toward the staircase down the east wing of the mansion. As they walked, her long red gown trailing behind her, they passed by rooms filled with partygoers seeking privacy. And some, judging by the open doors, who obviously were not. They would call out for the Wolf and Ginger to join them, but they kept going down the hall, the moans fading in the distance.
Finally, after leading her up to the third floor, a floor that hummed with stillness, where only the slight vibrations of the music could be heard, he opened a door to a library.
“In here,” he said.
He could hear her swallow, and he didn’t have to touch her to know that her pulse was racing. This was what she wanted, a place where she could have Alfred all alone to herself. She figured that her flirting worked, and that she this was the next step.
But of course, that wasn’t going to happen. Not with the Wolf around.
He was very territorial, in more ways than one.
She walked into the bare room, her shoes soft on the wide carpet that stretched the entire length. There was no furniture, just bookshelves that stretched up to the ceiling.
“Are you going to turn on the light?” she asked, turning around to look at the Wolf in the doorway.
He smiled again beneath the mask. “No.”
He stepped inside and closed the door, quickly locking it behind him. She could escape if she wanted to, but he wasn’t going to let that happen.