Chapter 118

**Hadassah POV**

The turnout is better than I expected.
None of the staff members—the internal crew working behind the scenes and the servers forced to cater to the men’s needs. None of them are here by their own free will and are willing to risk life and limb at even the idea of escape. The servers gave me a set of their uniform, which is black on black with a miniskirt that covers nothing—no exaggeration.
I watch from the sidelines, trailing the borders of the expansive kitchen and watching as the real servers spike the drinks with drugs. Trays upon trays bedeck the elongated stretch of the island counter, all grouped with arranged shot glasses from corner to corner, occupying every inch. In unison, each woman lifts a tray with fluid grace and they strut towards the exit of the kitchen. And I move by to fetch the last tray with an elegant sweep as I follow the long line from the rear.
Eventually, we make it to the primary entry hall of where the entrance of the ballroom is. And that’s when I fall under the vigilant gaze of one of the guards and he sidesteps to stop me.
“I thought you were personally entertaining Armend.”
“And now he wants me to personally entertain his guests before I go back to him,” I retort assertively, arching a challenging brow at him. “Would you like to check with him or something because honestly, you would be doing me a favor.”
He steps aside and jerks his chin to grant me entry.
I offer him the tray, and he doesn’t even glance at it.
“That’s a shame,” I comment before walking on.
The ballroom exudes an intoxicating atmosphere, its sultry ambiance thick with sin and indulgence. Low light spills from the overhead, casting a seductive glow over the room, their facets glittering like captured stars. The shadows dance along the richly adorned walls, covered in deep burgundy velvet drapes, which pool onto the gleaming floors. Strains of music hum in the background, the kind that make you want to gyrate and grind slowly, the notes swirling through the smoke in the air.
Servers move with practiced precision through the crowd, a sultry sway in their hips with each strutting step, their presence discreet yet polished. They glide like shadows, each bearing silver trays gleaming under the muted light, piled high with crystal-clear shot glasses. Each glass sparkles, reflecting the opulence of the room, filled to the brim with world-class liquor—whiskeys aged in hidden vaults with cognacs worth more than most people’s livelihoods.
The men ogle as they sashay by, despite having women draped all over them, talking in hushed tones, their eyes sparkling with the night’s promise. The servers approach, offering the shot glasses with the grace of a ritual. Hands adorned with expensive rings and bracelets reach out, taking hold of the drinks with an air of indulgent anticipation. A clap makes my eyes jump to a server who nearly loses the balance of her tray because a man decided to slap her ass so hard she staggered forward.
I make my rounds, smiling sweetly, serving and watching until every man in the ballroom has a shot in his hand. The clink of glasses punctuates the rowdy howls as most of them take a swig at the same time, and the others follow shortly, each shot like liquid gold slipping down their throats. The heat of the spirits mirrors the heat in the room—the air thick with the heady mix of money, power, and temptation.
I pass my tray to one of the servers before I alone leave the ballroom. Another server and I share a wicked grin as I leave. I pass the guard and I look over my shoulder to send him an ominous wink. And I make my way back to the double room office—a guard posted just outside and yet…
I flash him an innocent smile at him before I open the door, just enough to slip through before I close the door behind me. Emilia stands behind Armend, flipping and twirling the dagger, still stained with his blood, toying with it in her hand playfully but with expert ease. Armend is on his knees in front of her with his back to Emilia, so Armend sets his hate-filled glare on me the moment I enter. A drying patch of red stains the sleeve of his shirt with his arms bound behind his back.
“Is it done?” she asks.
“Almost too easy,” I say with a smile, then my eyes drop to Armend and my lips thin into a tense line. “And now it’s your turn.”
“It won’t work,” he objects quickly. “They won’t leave the palace unguarded.”
“We don’t need all of them to go. Just most.”
Emilia thrusts a brutal kick to his back so it drops him on all fours.
I peer down at him with a condescending slant of my head as I search for his eyes. “Doesn't that feel nice? Back in your natural state, bitch.” I step back, fluttering my fingers upwards. “Get up.”
Armend groans grudgingly as he clambers to his feet, wincing as he does.
“Stick the script,” Emilia warns icily and takes the dagger to bring the tip of the blade against a chord in his neck and draws a languid line only to stop at a certain point. “If you don’t. This goes in your jugular vein faster than you can say—help.”
Armend yields a tiny nod and moves forward with us behind him. Emila moves to encroach his rear at an intimate—stabbing—distance, so with just any wrong word or any sign of encoded talk. She’s ready. Armend opens the door with a hairline crack and beckons the guard closer with a sharp whistle and he scurries closer.
“Tommaso gave me a heads-up about a potential attack by a rival gang. I need you to take the team to the south-east territory—it’s where the forestry is the most dense, perfect for a staging area to make a brute-force attack.”
He responds in a foreign language, and Emilia pricks the point of the dagger at the back of his throat as a friendly reminder.
And Armend replies in English. “Just take as many as you can to secure the perimeter.”
The guard complies and breaks off to radio-in and apprise the rest of the security team. Armend closes the door and Emilia flips him around and pins him against the surface of the door. And we wait, and wait for a few moments more so that whoever is summoned to patrol the perimeter at least clears the hallway and vacates the interior of the palace.
After a long while, Emilia and I share a look and I give her a nod. She rips Armend away from the door so I can open it. I poke my head outside to see the too-still passageway, moving outside as I signal for Emilia to follow. She shoves Armend forward, gripping the scruff of his collar and essentially using him as a human shield. And inevitably, a bargaining tool when the time comes because it will. We just don’t know when. We move carefully through the labyrinthine hallways to make the way back to the ballroom. With each corner we have to round, I pioneer ahead to check, scouring for any anger—almost missing the one behind us.
An oblivious guard enters the network and halts abruptly when he sees us ahead. And Emilia only glances once before she completely whips around to launch the dagger at him and it lodges itself directly in his throat with a burst of blood before he smacks the floor with a short slide. She races for him and Armend turns away, thinking he can run past me but with a casual flick of my leg—he dives to the ground but scrambles to his feet fast.
With no choice, she fires a warning shot that grazes his ear—a supersonic crack that makes him stumble to a halt with one hand slapped against his ear and the other raised in reluctant surrender. Instantly, I move aside to flatten myself against the wall and seconds later two rifle-carrying guards pour down the corridor—fatally, they hesitate when they see Armend standing in the center and Emilia juts out behind him to pop them off one after the other.
I break into a smile when I catch Armend’s mouth agape. I hurry towards the men who are wearing kevlar vests beneath their tuxedos but Emila got them both in their third eye. I move and maneuver the rifle from out and under one of them, assessing the assault rifle with a sadistic smile.
“Now this I can work with.”
“Neither of you are making it out alive,” Armend decrees.
“We will,” I say with a confident cheer, “and watch us do it in our heels”