The ornate hall of the Mayor’s mansion gleamed beneath the golden glow of chandeliers, marble floors mirroring silk gowns and polished shoes. The air hummed with cultured laughter, genteel gossip, and the steady clink of champagne flutes. Money speaking softly to money.

“Keep your eyes open for opportunity, Arthur,” Dutch had told him, pressing a borrowed suit jacket into his hands. “Rooms like this? They’re built on vanity and loose pockets.”

Now Arthur stood amid the finery, tugging at the stiff lapels of the ill-fitting suit as his eyes swept the room. He felt every inch the outsider. Wolves didn’t belong in parlors like this, but wolves knew how to hunt. And he was the epitome of a wolf in sheep's clothing tonight.

That’s when he saw her.

She stood near the grand staircase, poised and luminous, wearing wealth as though it were second skin. Her laughter came easily, polished, inviting, drawing attention like a tide. Arthur caught her name drifting through the room on admiring lips.

Wakefield.

Spoken with reverence. With the subtle hunger of people hoping to be noticed by her.

Old money, they believed. Influence. Respectability.

Arthur’s interest sharpened.

She was exactly the sort Dutch favored. Rich, connected, and blissfully unaware of how dangerous the evening truly was.

What Arthur couldn’t see was how Miss Wakefield guided conversations with gentle precision, how her eyes flicked to exits, how she watched others with immeasurable wealth in the hopes to rob them blind. While Saint Denis’ elite drank and boasted, she was already at work, stealing secrets first, valuables later, each detail quietly passed to a gang of her own waiting beyond the iron gates.

Wakefield was a name given to her, (not hers but she would play the part smoothly), stitched together with lies and lineage by her gang’s leader, polished until it passed for pedigree. Tonight, she wore it flawlessly.

Arthur found himself moving toward her before he fully meant to, drawn like a moth to a flame he hadn’t yet realized could burn him. He had a job to do and who better than this striking beauty to begin with?

“Miss Wakefield?” he said, voice low as he caught her attention with the name he assumed was hers. When she turned, he dipped his head politely. “Would you care to dance?”

He watched as she turned to face him, her eyes sharp beneath their graceful warmth. Little did he know she was measuring him as carefully as he measured her.

Two outlaws, standing in silk and crystal.

Neither aware the other was playing the same dangerous game.