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  Carson thought about all the mistakes he had made, the lives he had ruined by being young and arrogant, and hoped that what he had planned tonight would help ease the guilt he carried. He was on a mission to right his wrongs, to make amends, to surprise New Orleans with a gift at his charity ball.

  Too many lives had been affected by him in his younger years. Looking back now, he could admit he had been young, stubborn, and determined to prove himself to his father. The thing he most regretted was the prototype of the self-driving car. It had been a great project, the possibilities infinite; the only problem had been that they had pushed too quickly, too far, and in the process had killed a young girl. Even now, fifteen years later, the memory still haunted him.

  With his father gone, and Carson free of the invisible cuffs that had come with his father’s approval, Carson planned on doing something that had never been done before.

  He could never bring back the girl that had lost her life that day, but he could go a long way towards making the memory slightly less bitter.

  Carson swallowed back the last sip of water and checked the time. The Mardi Gras ball was about to start.

  Downstairs in the lobby, the middle-aged woman breathed a sigh of relief when Carson Royal didn’t recognize her. After all, it had been fifteen years since he fired her.

  Jeanine Gibson had been head of the project of the self-driving car. A project that was meant to bring her name to the attention of global inventors; a project that was going to bring her fame and fortune. But after just one slip, Carson had fired her and shut down the project.

  Did he really accept that genius inventions happened without sacrifice? That girl might have lost her life, but if Carson hadn’t canceled the project, it would have led to a breakthrough—creating a sensor that would make the self-driving car stop in an instant.

  But Carson hadn’t given her the opportunity. No, instead he’d blamed her, used her as his scapegoat, and fired her. She had hidden from the world for long enough. It was time that Carson Royal paid for what he had done to her. She was becoming an old woman; she still had the fire in her, of course, but she wanted a comfortable pension to settle down with, and with the help of Razorback and his gang, she was going to get it after tonight.

  “He’s here,” she breathed into the phone, glancing over her shoulder when Carson followed the hotel manager into a corridor.

  “Security?” Razorback asked with a rough voice.

  “Torvald and three other men.”

  “Good. Don’t get made,” Razorback barked into the phone before hanging up.

  Jeanine set the phone back in her purse and breathed a sigh of relief. She was done being Carson’s scapegoat; she was done hiding. When Razorback had approached her with an offer to right a wrong, she hadn’t hesitated. Razorback had a penchant for robbing the rich and famous, and with her help, they had been robbing Carson for months. All she’d needed to do was to give a few account numbers; Devilbunny, Razor’s girlfriend, had done the rest. Without even realizing they had siphoned millions from his accounts, Carson Royal was literally paying to be robbed. His money had paid for their gear, their new bikes; everything they needed to pull off the heist. Jeanine’s thin lips lifted slightly as she touched her hand to the gray bun on top of her head.

  She didn’t need to be here tonight, but she wouldn’t miss it for the world.

  3

  Delilah walked across the street, the sounds of Mardi Gras music to her ears. People cheered, sang, and danced in anticipation of the floats that would soon make their way through the busy streets. From the balconies, people leaned over, their necks heavy with beads. Most wore costumes; anything and everything from Batman to fairies. Some held umbrellas, other held cocktails, but every single person was smiling, embracing the carnival that was about to start.

  Forty-two parades were marching tonight; forty-two floats to entertain and awe the crowds while Delilah executed her revenge.

  As soon as she reached the opposite sidewalk, she blended in with the rich and famous that were attending the ball. She fell into step behind a couple as if she were arriving with them.

  The hotel security didn’t give her a second glance; she knew she looked the part. She walked into the lobby with her evening bag in one hand, aware of the cool polymer gun against her thigh. As soon as she stepped inside, she glanced around for a sight of Carson, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  The guests arriving to attend the Mardi Gras charity ball headed straight for the elevators that would take them to the ballroom on the twelfth floor. But before Delilah could make her way towards her quarry, she needed a room.

  “Miss Avery Lake, checking in for the night.” She offered a seductive smile to the bellhop behind the desk, who nearly swallowed his tongue as she leaned onto the counter, pressing her cleavage into his view. It was pertinent that no one remember her face in the morning.

  He cleared his throat, forcing himself to look at his computer before punching a few keys. “Miss Avery Lake. Room 1308, on the thirteenth floor as requested.” He held out a keycard and Delilah merely smiled when his eyes traveled down to her cleavage again.

  “Thank you,” Delilah said seductively before heading towards the elevators.

  Her room was the cheapest suite she could get, and the closest to the penthouse where Carson Royal would be spending the night. The ball was just one floor down, so it wouldn’t take her long to get Carson to her room.

  She stepped out of the elevator on the thirteenth floor and scanned the hallway to make sure it was empty before heading to her room. It was everything the Pearl Plaza’s website promised it would be. Luxurious, clean, and much more spacious than the double rooms on the lower floors. She glanced out the window, noticing the streets were lined with partygoers anticipating the float parade.

  Taking a deep breath, she ran over the plan in her head. Take her seat at the gala, make as little conversation as possible, and if she did, it would be with men who wouldn’t remember her face, only her cleavage. Locate Carson, and make her way towards him. She would compliment and flatter him until he took notice of her, even if she had to insult him first, before she would slowly seduce him.

  Delilah didn’t enjoy using her body to lure her victims, but it was a useful tool. The martial arts training and BASE jumping that Spike had insisted she learn were useful as well, but nothing made a man leave his security detail as quickly as the promise of sex.

  To date, she had never slept with any of her victims, and she wasn’t planning to sleep with Carson either. It would be over before it came to that.

  She pulled up the dress and slipped out her daggers before leaving them in the room. She had no intention of killing Carson with hundreds of witnesses, but she wasn’t stepping into the lion’s den unarmed. Her polymer gun stayed exactly where she had placed it, on the inside of her thigh.

  She smiled in the mirror, practicing her new personality. Redheads were bold, vivacious, and daring, and Delilah needed to be every one of those things if she was going to seduce a serial player like Carson. Even though he never confirmed or denied it, the gossip rags loved showing photos of him with his latest conquests.

  She threw back her head, laughing, keeping one eye on the mirror to make sure she was doing it right before playing with the gold pendant that hung from the fake gold chain between her breasts. The move drew your eyes to that exact spot.

  The laughter subsided, replaced by a sultry look as she moistened her bottom lip. “I knew I’d like you,” she said in a come-hither voice.

  “I’ve been a fan of your work for years,” she preened into the mirror. “I’ve always admired your …” she tugged her bottom lip between her teeth, “technique.”

  Delilah laughed at the sight she made. It was perfect; Carson Royal was going to be eating out of her hand.

  With one last glance in the mirror at the redhead she had become for tonight, she headed towards the gala. Welcomed with a glass of French champagne, she was shown to her table. Del
ilah smiled at the other guests as she moved through the ballroom. Within seconds, she spotted Carson at the front of the room, talking to a man almost double his age.

  Her heart skipped a beat as she took the first step towards him. Why hadn’t she realized how handsome he would be in person? She swallowed down the champagne for a little liquid courage before making sure her sexy smile was in place and walking straight towards Carson Royal.

  4

  At the roar of motorcycles rushing towards them, the crowd rushed to the sidewalks, just in time, as a throng of bikers raced through the streets of New Orleans. The carnival goers thought nothing of it; it must be a prelude to the show that was about to begin.

  All the bikes were black, with red A’s painted on the signs. The sign for Anarchy.

  But this was noticed by few. As the bikes wove through the narrow cobblestone roads, two black vans brought up the rear.

  Dale Weldon was sitting in the back of one of the vans. Of course, few knew his real name. To all his comrades he was simply known as Razorback. Mastermind thief, robber, and kidnapper who was a self-styled cult leader.

  Unlike his comrades or even the rabble, Dale hadn’t had a sad, underprivileged background. He had never been wronged by the system or abused. In fact, Dale Weldon was a rich kid who had never really grown up. At the age of thirty-one, he had never done anything worth mentioning, unless it was criminal activity. Smart, overconfident, deep-thinking, and a raging misanthrope, Dale Weldon didn’t answer to anyone and thrived on power.

  Like the power he had over the rabble and everyone working with him tonight. He controlled them down to their last move, and they knew it. He still lived with his parents in the Antebellum mansion on a plantation just outside of town. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to move out; he just simply couldn’t be bothered. A maid cleaned his quarters, a cook served his meals, and his parents were barely ever home anyway.

  A psychiatrist would have had a field day with his need for power and would probably have diagnosed him as a psychopath or worse, but Dale hid that side of him. To Razorback, it was all about power fantasies, just like it was with Devilbunny.

  Under his Mad Mac villain-style costume and armor, he was a conservative-looking man with short auburn hair and blue eyes. There was nothing distinguishing about Dale Weldon if you didn’t know him.

  If you did, you feared Razorback with everything inside you. Even though he had selected his comrades carefully over the years, he secretly disdained them for being stupid enough to follow his every word. Tonight was going to be their biggest take yet, and Razorback was going to make sure nothing went wrong.

  He kept in contact with the bikers via shortwave radios. The Rabble, as he’d come to think of them, were nothing more than hired muscle. Mostly guys with assault and anger issues, but useful on so many levels when it came to the takedown they had planned for tonight.

  Razorback had been planning this takedown for months. His sociopathic tendencies and manipulative manner had everyone begging to be part of the heist; of course he’d obliged. After all, there were going to be casualties; the more Rabble there were, the lower the chance of him being caught.

  Tonight was going to be prime take. Most of the guests were high-profile and very wealthy, guaranteeing a good take. With Mardi Gras in full swing outside, no one would even notice the Pearl Plaza being taken control of by the Rabble.

  A smile tugged at the corner of Razorback’s mouth as he glanced out the tinted windows. Underneath his costume, he wore his tux, for in case anything went wrong. No one would suspect Dale Weldon of Weldon Plantation to be the mastermind of the heist. After all, the Weldons had always been prominent figures in New Orleans society.

  The Rabble were overexcited, hassling revelers as they drove through the streets. Razorback cursed as he saw one grab a beer from a man standing on the sidewalk.

  “Clown, get on them,” Razorback demanded to his second-in-command. With his clown suit, a duplicate of John Wayne Gacy’s, Clown nodded before barking into the shortwave.

  “Either you fucking idiots stay on course, or I blow those fucking IEDs while they’re still strapped to your backs.”

  At twenty-nine, Clown was a former soldier and IED disposal specialist who had served four tours in Afghanistan and Yemen before getting out. Razorback didn’t know his full name and wasn’t sure he would still be alive if he did. All he knew was that Clown could blow up anything, even a vault protected by the best security money could buy. Because the wealthy were the people funding the war in the Middle East, Clown hated them even more than Razorback did. His huge beefy frame and hairy arms made people stand aside when he walked into a place; his bald, shaved head did nothing to soften his brown, almost-black eyes. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but he briskly brushed it away with the back of his hand.

  His face was painted a stark white with blue triangles above his eyes and the wide scarlet red smile that covered most of his face. Razorback nodded in approval; Clown was going to scare the shit out of most of the guests tonight.

  He turned to Devilbunny and squeezed her thigh as she chewed on the bubblegum that seemed to perpetually occupy her mouth. Razorback had never sought someone to mentor, but the moment he had met Devilbunny when she was ten, he had known she had a talent. Unstable, and loyal to the point of obsession, Razorback had taken her under his wing. By the time she was fourteen, she was corrupt, unstable, and the best goddamn hacker Razorback had ever met. She had violent tendencies, tended to self-harm, and looked like the walking dead with her white-dyed hair and calavera makeup. Her calavera makeup was expertly applied and would blend in perfectly with the Mardi Gras crowd.

  The scars of her self-harming habit were well hidden by the tattoos that covered her body. She wore a revealing skintight spaghetti-strap top and a short skirt with clunky thigh-high boots. On top of her head were the light-up bunny ears, her only notion towards a costume. On her lap, she guarded her precious laptop in an armored case with a demon painted on it.

  Razorback had pushed her too far once and had learned she also carried a gun in it and some knives she could throw with impeccable aim.

  “You ready?” Razorback asked her.

  She blew a bubble until it popped before smiling at him. “Always.”

  Ace gave him a curt nod, making it clear he didn’t need to ask; he was ready. Just like most of the gang, Ace had been recruited via the internet and radicalized before he’d been allowed to join them. Ace had been with Razorback for four years, training and committing petty crimes. Although he was a show- off, drugged up, and sloppy at times, Razorback knew he could depend on Ace to have his back at all times. Beneath his pilot costume, he was a typical skinhead, anarchistic to the point where he didn’t think twice about killing the rich.

  In the distance, Razorback could see the Rabble stop in front of the Pearl Plaza. The crowd parted as their bikes parked on the sidewalk. The vans pulled up against the sidewalk, blocking the view of the entrance from almost every direction.

  “Go!” Razorback shouted into the shortwave before Clown shoved open the doors of the van. Razorback and Clown jumped out, followed by Ace.

  Within seconds, the Rabble charged the entrance with Razorback, Ace, Clown, and Devilbunny bringing up the rear.

  “Rooms, go. Exits, go. Staff, go!” Razorback shouted as he stepped into the lobby. Just as he had recruited most of the Rabble through a propaganda website, making them hang on his every word, they now followed his every command. Within minutes, the foyer was taken. All rooms were auto-locked, locking guests in. All exits were covered and booby trapped with heavily armored angry men. The staff was herded into a single room, being cussed and insulted as they moved. The door was auto-locked by Devilbunny who chewed happily on her bubblegum as she hacked the hotel’s security system.

  A few guests who had the dumb luck of getting out of elevators, or hanging around in the lobby, froze, shocked by the gang of bikers taking control of the hotel.

  “Start walkin
g, or I’ll blow your fucking head off!”

  “Move, and I won’t kill you yet!”

  “Get walking, grandma, or you’ll meet your maker!”

  “Move! Move! Move!”

  The voices of the Rabble taking charge of the lobby brought grown men to tears as they shouted insults, herding them into one room.

  Within five minutes, the first stage of his plan was executed beautifully. Razorback glanced around, getting a thumbs-up from his commanders before nodding in approval. They had taken the entire foyer with little resistance, and no one upstairs in the gala, or outside waiting for the parade, had any idea what had just gone down.

  Just like he had planned.

  He called the commander of the Rabble, who hurried towards him. “Razorback?”

  “The Gala. Take control now. No one leaves; use force if you need to. We’re going for the vault.”

  Dumb as a rock but built like tree, the man nodded before calling his friends. Razorback turned to Devilbunny, Clown, and Ace. “It’s showtime.”

  5

  Delilah had just reached Carson as the doors of the ballroom crashed open. She spun around to the sound of men shouting and breaking through the doors. Uncertain of what was happening, she was frozen in place for a few brief seconds. Gunshots rang through the air, roaring over the light classical music as people began to shout and fall to the floor. As if watching it happen in slow motion, she saw heavily armed men in costumes rush inside, grabbing hostages as they went.

  The heavily paid security that guarded their socialite quarries didn’t hesitate to open gunfire at the sight of the armed men. Without forethought for bystanders, they engaged fire; after all, they were paid by their clients to do just that.

  Knowing she didn’t have anyone to protect her, Delilah’s eyes widened.