“I SHOULD’VE BEEN MORE careful,” Theo said, slamming his fist against the table. A whole week had gone by and there hadn’t been any sign of Walter since that night when we’d followed him. I’d managed to go back to my apartment to pick up some of my things too, and he hadn’t shown up there either.

“You couldn’t have known he would’ve come out with his guns blazing.” I was really, really glad there hadn’t been any other people in that alley and that Theo hadn’t been hit, because Walter had come out shooting without even checking first who was there. I supposed he’d expected to find me and didn’t want me to escape.

“If I’d picked a different hiding spot, I could’ve gotten him. It’s my fault.” He leaned on the table.

“We’ll find him.” I placed my hands on his shoulders and rubbed gently.

He relaxed into my touch and let out a sigh. “How? He knows I tracked him down somehow, and he won’t let that happen again. The Spiders are probably hiding him in their area. I’ll have to go there to check.”

“In the heart of the Spiders’ area? I don’t think that’s a good idea. Their area is, like, at the edge of the city. There aren’t as many people there as here, and it’s very likely they’ll spot you.”

He turned around to face me, his eyes filled with turmoil. “Then what do you suggest? That we wait until he pops up? He has time. He’ll wait for the right moment.”

“What about the leader of the Spiders? Can you track him down? Walter should be with him or at least meet with him from time to time somewhere. If the leader changes his routine or goes to an area that he doesn’t usually frequent, then that might lead us straight to Walter.”

“Jerome could be tracked down, I suppose, but it’s not easy to get to him. He’s surrounded by guards all the time, rides in a bulletproof vehicle, and he only goes to well-protected fancy restaurants, parties, or clubs. He doesn’t even live in his gang’s area but in an elite neighborhood. If he was our target, I’d find a way, but he’s not. Walter is.”

I wrung my fingers, wondering what we should do. The Cobras and Vix hadn’t had any better luck at finding Walter either. “Would tracking Jerome involve hacking into traffic cameras or what?”

“No. We’d have to plant a tracker on him.”

“Wouldn’t his guards detect that? And what happens when he changes his clothes or if he doesn’t meet with Walter that day? Can’t we just follow him somehow? If you know which places he frequents, we can wait there and go after him.” I didn’t want us to risk our lives to get that tracker on Jerome only for it to turn out to be useless.

“His guards would spot us if we tailed him. It would have to be a tracker. Jerome has a lucky suit jacket that he always wears outside. If we plant the tracker in the right spot, it won’t fall out or be detected. I have a few I took from the Rosa Nera. They’d been perfected to avoid detection.”

My eyebrows rose up. “A lucky jacket? How do you know that?”

“Everyone does. There’s a story behind it. Jerome was in a shootout, and apparently, he was one of the few who survived. His wife had given him that jacket, and there wasn’t a single drop of blood on it despite buckets of it being everywhere, so Jerome believes the jacket protected him and saved his life.”

“Do you believe that?” I grimaced, because I so didn’t think that was what had happened, or maybe Jerome had just gotten lucky and that was all.

“No, but Jerome does.”

“Okay. So all we have to do is put a tracker in Jerome’s jacket. Got it. But how do we do that? Can we just pass next to him at some club or something?” I had to admit, planting a tracker on a gang leader kind of sounded fun. Of course, only if we didn’t get caught.

“Not really.” Theo made a face. “His guards always make sure no one passes next to him, and he doesn’t go into crowds. If someone managed to get near him, they’d immediately check everything, and while the tracker isn’t easily detected, it isn’t invisible either.”

“But surely he has to get close to people at some point.”

“Yeah, but the guards will let his friends through, not anyone else. There are times when he might not have that many guards with him because it would look weird and suspicious, but those parties aren’t something you can just crash.”

“Are you sure we can’t do that? Can’t we climb through a window or something?” My lips tilted up, and Theo gave me a long look.

“I’d actually love to see you climb a skyscraper in high heels and a dress.”

“Can we predict where he’ll be?” Maybe Theo thought crashing a party was impossible, but not every party was being held at the top of a tower, and maybe we could get invitations somehow. “The Cobras could help us.”

He didn’t look too optimistic as he made his way to the computer and took a seat. After a few minutes of typing, he pulled up an image of one of the tallest buildings in this city.

“What’s that?” I asked as I approached.

“Jerome will be there. It’s a party for some very important business people.”

“Oh, so he’s also a businessman? Can’t we get to him through his job? Does he have an office? We might be able to arrange a meeting and send one of the lesser-known Cobra members.” I bit down on the tip of my finger as I tried to come up with a solution for our problem. If Theo and I couldn’t do this ourselves because Jerome would recognize us, then maybe someone else could. Theo was too used to working alone, so he wouldn’t be searching for a solution that included involving a friend. “Do you think Jerome knows what we look like? Would Walter have told him? Or would he avoid doing that because Jerome could find a way to get to me and then blackmail Walter in some way?”

“We can’t be sure if he knows, but we’d have to disguise ourselves anyway if we went anywhere near him. And yeah, he’s a businessman, but he won’t agree to a meeting with random people. He doesn’t have a reason to.” Theo nodded toward the photo of the building. “And we can’t get in there without an invite anyway, and it would be extremely hard to get our hands on one. Everyone knows the businesspeople who’ll attend, and if they want to send someone in their stead, they have to notify the host about it a week in advance.”

“Do you know of any other parties he’s going to attend?”

“Not really. This one’s the only one that was announced in the press.”

“But if Jerome is such an important businessman, then how is he keeping the fact that he’s also the leader of the Spiders a secret? Could we try exposing him?” I sat down in the chair next to Theo. “Even if he only has to worry about rumors, he still might be distracted and wouldn’t have time to help Walter with whatever they’re doing. Maybe he’d even have to lie low, so he wouldn’t need Walter.”

“People have tried that already, but he’s very slick. Obtaining proof of his involvement with the Spiders would take months, at least the type of proof that would be useful. Simply spreading rumors would do nothing. Hell, it might even raise his popularity. And even if we found solid proof and he somehow got arrested, then his brother could take over the Spiders and everything would remain as it was.”

I let out a frustrated groan. “Okay, but what about the brother? Can we get to him? Could he be in on the whole Walter thing?”

“Jerome’s brother is out of the country at the moment, but if something happened to Jerome, he’d come right back.”

I stared at the article of the upcoming business party that was still covering the computer screen. What could we do? My gaze stopped on one of the names. “Alfred Hampton’s going to be there too!”

“So?” Theo’s brow furrowed.

“He’s Vix’s father.” And he’d been Ingrid’s husband once upon a time.

“I still don’t see why that would matter. Vix might be your friend, but we can’t trust her father and, if what I know of him is true, he won’t want to help people like us. And what would he even do? If he tried to plant that tracker on Jerome for us, he’d get himself killed. He doesn’t have the necessary skills for that.”

“Of course I wouldn’t send Vix’s father to do the job for us.” I smacked him lightly on the shoulder. “But maybe that party isn’t so important to him, and if he’s invited, then he might be able to get us on the guest list. Actually, we could go instead of him. The party is in ten days, isn’t it? That’s plenty of time to change the names of those who’ll attend. We could pretend we’re some people working for him.”

Theo’s eyebrows lifted up. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. There’s no reason for him to help us, and if he does it, he’ll want something in return.”

“No, he won’t want anything. I’ll call Vix.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “Would we actually have to do something at that party?” My finger hovered over the call button. “Because if we have to do a presentation or talk about the company we represent, then that might be a bit difficult.”

“That wouldn’t be a problem,” Theo said confidently. “I could handle that. I’ve already pretended to be a businessman a few times. It’s not as hard as it looks, and you mostly don’t give too many details about the company to anyone.”

“So if Vix and her father are willing to help, we can actually do it?”

He nodded. “Jerome’s guards would still be there, but there wouldn’t be too many of them, and he’d let us come over to him and ask him a question or two. Everyone who enters will be carefully vetted anyway. We’d only have to make sure no one recognized us.”

“Okay, then. I’m going to call Vix and see what she says.” I pressed the dial button and hoped this would work out for us. Hopefully, Mr. Hampton wouldn’t mind missing the party. It seemed to be an annual event anyway, so he could always go next year.

I believed Theo was good enough at planting trackers, so we wouldn’t have to worry we’d be discovered or that Vix’s father would end up being blamed for everything. In fact, if we got caught, maybe we could pretend we’d attacked or kidnapped the people who were supposed to go so we’d get their invitations. And Vix’s father had plenty of guards around him too, so if something went wrong... No, I wasn’t going to think about that. Theo and I wouldn’t get caught. I had to think positive, or I’d never dare to do anything.