With all the guests having arrived and all hands needed elsewhere in the hotel, the front desk was—for the moment—unstaffed. The door behind it was old and not properly hung; there was enough of a gap between it and the frame to fit a hook from Sebastian’s lock-picking kit through and slip the latch open.
The coat room wasn’t precisely small, but the presence of full racks along both walls contributed to a close, confining atmosphere. At the back of the room was a row of small lockers for those valuables the guests didn’t feel safe leaving in their pockets.
Sebastian moved along the racks of coats until he found a numbered hanger matching Stoddard’s ticket. A pat-down of the pockets, however, turned up nothing.
At Sebastian’s dissatisfied look, Jay suggested, “The lockers?”
The locks on each of those were light and cheap; it only took the jiggler in Sebastian’s set of picks to get them open. He focused on the locks themselves, while Jay followed along behind him, searching the contents of each locker.
He found several handbags and satchels, but no drive.
“All right,” Sebastian muttered, closing the last locker. “Where else—?”
Behind them, the door opened.
There was just the one exit, and a severe shortage of places to hide. Sebastian only had about half an excuse formulated when Jay grabbed him by the shoulders; Sebastian’s back hit the row of lockers with a metallic rattle and thud. Instinct briefly took over, muscles tensing to fend off the attack—but Jay’s body against his was by now a familiar sensation, and the sense of threat evaporated.
Especially once Jay’s mouth sealed over his.
Sebastian gasped into the kiss, clutching roughly at Jay’s arms. He’d been itching to touch all evening, drinking in every bit of contact between them as he watched Jay move, unflinching, among the wealthy and powerful. Among those completely unaware what Jay really was.
They couldn’t see him—but Sebastian could, and he wanted.
He went lax and pliant against the lockers, helpless to hold back the low, hungry sounds he was breathing into Jay’s mouth. Both of Jay’s hands curled around Sebastian’s neck, dragging him in close; Sebastian grabbed at Jay’s arse, then his thigh, hitching it up to grind their hips together.
Nothing mattered except Jay’s lips on his, Jay’s tongue in his mouth, Jay’s warm body under his hands, Jay’s weight against the pulse pounding in his groin.
He barely noticed when someone loudly cleared their throat, but Jay tore his mouth from Sebastian’s with an exaggerated gasp.
Details filtered in one at a time. A young woman stood just inside the door to the coat room, wearing the uniform of the hotel staff. She had her arms crossed. There was a deeply unimpressed look on her face.
… Because she’d just caught two of the hotel’s guests going at it in the coat room. Probably not the first time that had happened, either.
“Sorry.” Jay pulled away, wiping his mouth; Sebastian stifled the urge to reach out and pull him back. “Excuse us.” Avoiding eye contact with the girl, he grabbed Sebastian by the wrist and dragged him out the door.
They stumbled away down the hall, Jay releasing his grip on Sebastian’s arm once they were out of sight of the front desk. “All right,” he said, a little breathless but otherwise unaffected. “If I can get into the cameras, we can see where Stoddard has been—might lead us to the drive.”
His tone of easy authority was not helping Sebastian’s current state. “Need a minute,” he groaned, leaning a hand against the wall.
Jay turned to face him, his confusion quickly lifting as he took in the flush across Sebastian’s skin, the ragged edge of his breathing. His eyes darkened; he licked his lips, and Sebastian bit back a desperate noise.
There was a door not far from where Jay was standing; he sidestepped toward it and turned the handle, peeking into the room beyond. Then he looked back at Sebastian and said, “Come here.”
Sebastian was moving before he’d made any conscious decision to do so. Jay caught the end of Sebastian’s tie and wrapped it around his hand, pulling him along as he backed into the room. Sebastian had just enough presence of mind to lock the door behind them.
They were in one of the hotel’s meeting rooms—smaller and more intimate than the lounge, but with the same extravagant decor. The lights were off, thick curtains drawn over the windows into the courtyard. A long, heavy wooden table occupied the centre of the room, and Jay kept hold of the tie as he backed toward it, leaving Sebastian to follow obediently after him.
“I like this,” Jay purred. “You should wear ties more often.” A devious expression crossed his face, and he yanked at the tie to bring Sebastian closer. “Or maybe I should put a collar on you, instead.”
Sebastian couldn’t stop the breathy whine that escaped him as his mouth crashed hungrily into Jay’s.
Jay’s lips opened against his, quickly taking control of the kiss as they collided with the table. Sebastian hauled Jay up by the thighs to sit atop it, and Jay’s knees spread to welcome Sebastian between them.
“Somebody’s eager,” Jay said, grinning into the kiss.
Sebastian groaned. “Been wanting you since I first saw you in this fucking suit.”
Jay’s grin widened as he unbuckled his own belt, tugging his zip down. “Tell me you have a condom.”
Sebastian did indeed have one in his wallet, which he retrieved while Jay kicked his shoes off onto the floor. Then he was grabbing at Jay’s waistband, the both of them working together to drag his trousers and pants all the way off. Jay eagerly unzipped Sebastian and rolled the condom into place; Sebastian made a breathy little noise under his touch, mesmerised for a moment at the sight of Jay’s hands on him.
Then Jay’s calves wrapped around the backs of Sebastian’s thighs, pulling him in close. Sebastian’s breath stuttered a little as Jay took him inside.
Once more, nothing mattered except Jay—wrapped around him, moving with him, holding him. Sebastian crushed their open mouths together; it was clumsy and fumbling and messy, but he didn’t care. He’d left all his masks outside this room; Jay had seen Sebastian at just about his worst and somehow not run away screaming. For once, Sebastian had nothing to hide.
Jay’s lips slid along Sebastian’s jaw to his neck, kissing and mouthing down the length of his throat; he yanked impatiently at the collar of Sebastian’s shirt, tugging it aside to get at more of his skin. He latched onto the muscle joining Sebastian’s neck and shoulder, setting his teeth against it.
Then he bit down, hard.
Something between a gasp and a yelp burst from Sebastian’s mouth; he grabbed at Jay’s hair, and Jay let go of Sebastian’s neck to press their foreheads together, not quite kissing so much as breathing the same air. Jay’s hips rocked against Sebastian at a frantic pace, Sebastian panting harshly as he moved to meet him.
Jay’s hold on Sebastian suddenly clutched tight, his climax sneaking up on him with a shocked, breathless noise. With a groan, Sebastian pressed his face to Jay’s neck and followed him over the edge.
They stayed there, tangled up in each other, for long moments as they both caught their breath. Sebastian nuzzled into Jay’s throat, lips moving gently and mindlessly against heated skin.
“Better?” Jay asked, lightly teasing.
Sebastian hummed agreement, breathing a quiet laugh into Jay’s neck.
They carefully disentangled; Sebastian binned the condom, and they quickly tugged their clothes back into place. Both of them were unmistakably rumpled, flushed and breathless, and Jay’s hair was a mess; Sebastian did his best to comb it back into place with his fingers.
“Will we cause a scandal if we go back out there like this?” asked Jay, thoroughly unrepentant.
Sebastian shrugged and gave up trying to fix Jay’s hair. “It’d hardly be the first time someone snuck away from the gala for a shag.”
Jay chuckled and caught Sebastian’s retreating hand in his own, brushing a light kiss against his fingertips.
Sebastian struggled to recall why they were here in the first place. “You were saying something about the cameras?”
Jay nodded and—perhaps a little reluctantly—reached for his phone. He blinked at the screen and frowned. “No signal.”
Sebastian pulled out his own phone; he couldn’t get a signal either, but that wasn’t exactly a surprise in an old, stone-walled building like this.
Jay tapped at the screen for a moment or two, and his frown deepened. “No Wi-Fi, either. How is that—?”
The unmistakable sound of a gunshot rattled through the courtyard.
Not far from Medway Castle, a few meters away from the road, was a large metal junction box. George’s bolt cutters had made short work of the padlock holding it shut; now she ran her fingers along the rows of cables inside, prying bundles apart to find the one she was looking for.
There was a blurry, incoherent mumble from her left side. She sighed and turned slightly to angle her good ear toward John, standing watch next to her. “Say again?”
“I said, aren’t we kind of obvious out here?” John gestured to the high-vis vest hanging off his broad frame.
George glanced at her own vest, then shrugged. “A pair of shady figures working on a junction box draws attention,” she said. “A pair of workers in high-vis gear don’t. We’re practically invisible, like this.”
John nodded to concede the point, although he still had a wary look. He was American, a towering slab of muscle with a few scars on his face and a nose that looked to have been broken at least twice; this was not a man accustomed to going unnoticed.
George’s questing fingers finally located the cable she’d been looking for; she pulled it free from the others and retrieved her snips from her tool belt. There was another mumble from her left side, and she turned towards John again. “I’m deaf on this side,” she said firmly, tapping the ear in question. “If you want to chat, you need to move.”
John had an apologetic look. “Uh, never mind.”
George cut the cable and tucked it back into its bundle, so a cursory glance wouldn’t reveal the damage. Then she closed up the box and hooked the padlock back into place; anyone who got close would realise it had been broken, but hopefully most passers-by wouldn’t notice.
The car waited for them just up the road. John climbed into the back on the driver’s side, giving George the passenger side—ensuring her good ear was turned toward the inside of the car, not the window.
“Job’s done?” Paul asked from the front passenger seat. Ringo sat behind the wheel.
Paul looked to be about forty; he wasn’t a particularly big man, but carried himself with an air of confidence and calculation that George had come to associate with the most competent of the NCOs she’d served under. Ringo, by comparison, was a fucking infant: soft-faced, somewhere in his early twenties, dressed like some middle-class kid’s idea of a gangster, and constantly bouncing with restless energy.
George didn’t know the others’ real names, and they didn’t know hers. It was safer that way. But they had to call each other something—hence the codenames.
“Good to go,” George confirmed.
Paul nodded to Ringo, who whooped loudly and turned the ignition. The car lurched forward, accelerating rapidly down the road to Medway Castle.
“So,” John asked quietly, “what happened to your ear?”
“Got blown up,” George replied, and left it at that.
As the car reached the turning for Medway Castle, they all pulled their masks into place: John and Paul both wore balaclavas, while George and Ringo had opted for face masks and hats.
Even the tardiest of the gala’s guests had arrived by now. All the private cars were gone, regrouping in town to wait until they were called back much later in the evening. As Ringo pulled into the car park, George spotted the security guard by the front door; he’d ducked under the archway of the portcullis, absorbed in his phone.
There were two bags on the seat between George and John: a backpack and a long holdall. John unzipped the holdall to reveal four shotguns; he carefully examined the stock of each before handing them out, one for each occupant of the car.
Paul had his phone out, eyes on the screen as he waited for the signal. Yoko was inside, undercover among the hotel staff.
George reached for the backpack and unzipped it. Inside was a black box about the size of a laptop, topped with an array of antennae that made it look a bit like a hedgehog: a signal jammer. This one was technically a desktop model, but George had hooked up a portable power source; they’d get a few good hours out of it before the battery ran out. She double-checked the settings, then laid her thumb against the power switch.
Paul’s phone vibrated in his hand as a text came in. He tucked it back into his pocket. “We’re on.”
George flipped the switch; a row of lights along the side of the jammer glowed green. The doorman huddled in the archway frowned down at his phone, irritated and confused as it suddenly lost signal.
Zipping the jammer back into its bag, George shouldered it and threw the car door open, joining the rest of the crew as they all piled out with guns in hand.
Medway Castle’s moat ensured there was only one way in or out of the hotel. John and Paul took the lead, moving quickly and confidently at the head of their little formation toward the drawbridge. The doorman saw them coming; he grabbed for his radio, but his warning to the rest of the gala’s security team drowned in static from the jammer.
John casually levelled his gun at the doorman, who dropped the radio and raised his hands. Paul stepped forward to zip-tie the doorman’s wrists behind his back and pushed him ahead of them as they proceeded through the archway into the hotel. While John stayed behind to cover the door, the rest of them moved down the hall into the lounge.
Just to make sure he had everybody’s attention, Paul fired a shot into the ceiling.
As the echo of the gunshot faded and the shock of the moment passed, Sebastian rushed to the window and twitched one of the curtains to get a look outside.
A clot of gala attendees and staff were hurrying unsteadily from the lounge, herded into the courtyard by a masked man with a shotgun in his hands. A second masked figure—this one a woman—circled around to clear the great hall, driving everyone there to join the others at the centre of the courtyard.
The two masked figures conferred briefly, and then the man positioned himself to hold the crowd at gunpoint while the woman tossed a bag amongst them and demanded their valuables. There was a brief murmur of alarm and discontent—Sebastian spotted Freddie Clarke, wide-eyed and pale—but the presence of the gun quickly subdued them as the bag was passed from hand to hand. Earrings were unhooked, watches unstrapped, phones and wallets retrieved from pockets.
The masked woman took notice when the bag landed in front of Thomas Stoddard. She asked her colleague a question Sebastian was too far away to hear; at the man’s nod, she turned back to Stoddard and barked an order at him.
Stoddard shook his head. A few ranks back among the crowd, Lucas Knox shifted uneasily.
The woman shoved her gun in his face, and Stoddard grudgingly emptied his pockets. His phone, wallet, and watch landed in the bag, and yet the two masked figures seemed dissatisfied, muttering anxiously to each other.
“They know about the drive,” Jay said, echoing Sebastian’s realisation; he’d crept up next to him, peering through the tiny gap between the curtains. “They were expecting Stoddard to have it on him.”
A flash of pink from the doors of the great hall resolved into Bernie, slightly dishevelled as she emerged into the courtyard alongside what looked to be a member of the hotel staff. They were prodded at gunpoint by another masked woman who, beneath her dark canvas jacket, appeared to be wearing a waiter’s uniform.
“Shit.” Sebastian ducked back from the window. “They’re sweeping the building.”
Behind them, the doorknob rattled. Someone was trying to get in.
Sebastian moved to place himself between Jay and the door as he scanned the room. This would’ve once been a dining room, which meant—
—there. A slight seam along the wood panelling of the wall: a door to the servants’ corridors.
Sebastian caught Jay’s hand in his own and bolted for the door, pulling Jay inside and quickly closing it behind them.
Jay would hesitate to call himself claustrophobic, but even he had to admit the servants’ passages were oppressively narrow. Moran hurried them away from the door as quietly as possible, careful not to alert whoever was searching the room they’d just left.
Checking his phone was an exercise in futility; there was still no signal. “They must be using a jammer,” Jay said aloud, for Moran’s benefit. “We need a wired connection.”
Moran nodded and led the way up a cramped staircase to the first floor. There was another door here, leading back out to the public part of the hotel; he cracked it open, scanned the hallway outside, then gestured for Jay to follow him out.
The hall was long and mostly empty, lined on both sides with doors—guest rooms. Jay kept close as Moran approached the nearest door; Medway Castle was still using actual keys instead of key-cards, and the lock opened easily under Moran’s picks.
The room appeared to be standard issue; it wasn’t particularly large, but did feature a hotel phone on the bedside table. Unfortunately, the handset was wireless.
A polished oak cabinet across from the foot of the bed served as a TV stand. Jay shifted the television away from the wall and breathed a sigh of relief to find a network cable running from the back of the unit. He yanked it free.
Jay’s phone didn’t have a network port, but it was also the only device he had at the moment. He fumbled in his pocket for the charging cable he’d brought with him. “I need to borrow your knife,” he said to Moran.
Moran didn’t ask any questions, simply handing over the folded hunting knife he usually carried before moving to cover the door.
There was only a fine tremor in Jay’s hands as he severed the head of the network cable, then cut the USB-C end of the charging cable so there were about two inches left hanging off the connector. He peeled away the coating on both, then carefully stripped the smaller, finer wires bundled inside. That done, he carefully began to twist the bared ends of each copper wire together, splicing the charging cable’s connector to the network line.
Moran was still stationed at the door, head bent so he could listen for any activity in the hallway beyond.
“All right?” Jay asked quietly.
“For now,” Moran replied.
There were no doors to the servants’ passages in here. If someone came down the hall and started checking rooms, the two of them would have nowhere to go.
Jay finished twisting the wires together and, careful not to dislodge his work, plugged the spliced cable into the base of his phone. He had a local network connection, but no internet.
“They cut the fibre line to the hotel,” Jay said with a groan. “There’s no way to get a signal out.”
Moran took on a determined look. “I can find us an exit.”
“Just a second,” Jay replied; he still had access to whatever was on the building’s local network. “Let’s see what that other crew is up to, first.”
A quick query turned up a list of devices on the network, including the security cameras. Jay checked them one by one, scanning through the video feeds coming in from each.
There was a masked man stationed in the reception area, right by the front door; he was big and muscular and holding a shotgun. If the man were unarmed Jay would be more than happy to loose Moran on him and get out that way, but the gun made head-on assault inadvisable.
“Front door’s blocked,” Jay said, and turned his phone around to show Moran the video feed.
Moran contemplated this for a moment. “Could try a window,” he suggested, but didn’t seem enthusiastic about the idea. A quick glance at the room’s lancet windows explained why: they were barely wider than arrow slits, with small, diamond-shaped glass panels set in leaded frames.
And even if the two of them managed to break through and wriggle outside, that still had them landing in the moat. A long walk back to civilisation while soaking wet on a spring night had a number of potential outcomes, most of them bad.
Jay continued his scan of the camera feeds. Two from the courtyard indicated that the hotel’s guests and staff were still held hostage there, guarded by the masked man and woman who’d first rounded them up; their guns weren’t pointed directly at the crowd, but clearly kept at the ready. A hall camera showed that the woman they’d seen herding Bernie and her paramour into the courtyard was now somewhere in the north wing of the hotel, moving from room to room. Through the next camera, Jay spotted a man he didn’t recognise; he was searching the hall just outside the meeting room they’d fled a few minutes ago, moving toward the staircase.
“They’re searching the hotel,” Jay reported. “Might still be looking for the drive.”
“So if we leave,” Moran said, “we lose our chance at it.”
Jay shook his head. “No way it’s worth all this trouble.”
“Someone clearly thinks it is.”
He had a point. Five criminals did not hold at gunpoint several dozen of the nation’s most famous and wealthy for anything less than an astronomical payout. A simple dossier of vulnerabilities wasn’t enough of a prize to warrant all this—which meant the drive had to be something else entirely. Something much more valuable than Jay had first assumed.
Not that he’d have a chance to confirm it. He and Moran were unprepared, effectively unarmed, and their opponents had not only more bodies on their side, but also guns.
Except … the other crew were burning over half their resources just to keep the building locked down and the hostages under control. And the jammer kept them from communicating amongst themselves just as much as it kept anyone else from calling for help.
Most importantly, none of them knew Jay and Moran were here.
“Your call,” Moran said, watching him. Waiting for his order.
Jay turned his attention back to his phone. “I’ll roll back through the security footage—that should tell us where Stoddard hid the drive,” he said. “If we can get to it first—”
An alert appeared at the bottom of the terminal. The security system’s central controller was shutting down.
“Shit.” Jay only had a brief period of time before he lost access to the security archive. He scrambled through a series of commands, frantically working to countermand the shutdown order and pull down as much footage as he could.
From his station near the door, Moran tensed and took a step back. “Someone’s coming.”
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