♣ b e a s t ♣

Among the festivities and the scandals in the making, far beneath the Golightly gala, Celine was shadowing a guard. Sharp ears had caught wind of the Pink Star Diamond as she was chatting him up, and his abrupt departure had given her an excellent chance to trail after him, her soft footfalls drowned out by the loud music and constant steam of chatter. The diamond was in the basement, and talks were underway about bringing it back up at the pinnacle of the party as a present for Bunny Golightly. It was perfect timing.

She kept close to the walls, pausing as her target slipped into a non-descript room in the basement of The Garden Hotel. Celine watched them speak to another man in uniform briefly, but she was too far away to hear well. The Pink Star Diamond would belong to the Russians tonight, if she had any say in it. She watched as other security personnel entered and left the room, counting six in total before she made her move. Opening her clutch, she took out a small needle, filled to the brim with a powerful toxin that would have easily taken out twenty men. She palmed the weapon before turning the corner, a vacant, dazed look on her face. “Oh my gosh, did I like, make a wrong turn… H-hey mister!” She waved at him, leaning against the wall for balance as she hiccuped. “D’you know where room 145 is? I was gonna…supposed to meet someone…” Celine slumped, dress crumpling as the deep vee revealed just a touch of extra tantalizing skin.

Celine heard him approach, her head lolling as she giggled to herself. “Hey, you know. You know you have just the most handsome face mister. Why don’t you come a little closer?” She smiled as he walked over to him, her arms reaching out for him as he knelt down to speak with her. “I gotta secret for you…” She leaned towards him, all vapid smiles and sugar-coated sweetness. “You’re a fucking moron.”

“Hey, you’re not-” The assassin didn’t think, launching into action like a viper. Her hand clamped down on the guard’s mouth, muffling his cries as the other sank the needle into his neck. Celine could feel his screams as he clawed at her, echoing in the hallway. But his resistance faltered and his movements became sluggish in a matter of moments. She could hear his radio going off, his colleagues asking him just what was going on outside. As soon as she let him go, he fell to the floor in an unconscious lump.

“Oops.“ Celine murmured, the needle disappearing back into her clutch as the guard convulsed before her, finally growing still after a few agonizing minutes. She propped him up so it looked a little less like a corpse and more like a man who had a little too much to drink, though the foaming at the mouth would likely give it away. She patted him down, taking his pistol and his identification in case there were tougher security measures further in. Given that she had already made it this far, it seemed a waste not to go for the diamond itself. Besides, once someone spotted the body in the hall, her timer would be running perilously quick. It was now or never. Might as well make the most of it.

She directed the gun to the corpse and shot, eliciting cries of alarm from both the hotel staff and the guards in the room.

But as she waited by the door, gun in hand and ready to take out the first security personnel to charge though, she spotted another figure making their way down the hall. It sure as hell wasn’t any guard, but another scavenger who had caught onto the scent of the diamond. Celine smiled at him, heart thundering with the excitement that came from a fresh kill, and many more to come. “So sorry dear, but this prize belongs to the Bratva. As dashing as you are, I don’t feel like sharing tonight.” The karakurt took in the sight of the stranger, mischief on her mind. After all, this was an opportunity. “…But I suppose we could race for it, if you’re good enough to keep up, that is.“

( @wvrlcrd )

But that was against the rules. Fucking rules he and the Irish hadn’t even made. So why the hell did he have to follow them?

Liam’s skin was crawling with the desire to do something, anything other than keep chattering to random celebrities and pissants. He needed air, he needed to pace, he needed to find someone to punch until they told him what he wanted to know. One of his crew approached him, and Liam nearly told him to go suck his own dick. But the man had info, a tiny glimmer of hope that maybe they could salvage this fuckup of a night. A woman, seen chatting up a guard. Guard left, she followed. His man had tried to pursue, but she was slippery and he didn’t know this place well. Then, two minutes later, an Irish insider working in maintenance saw the same woman—blonde in a black dress—tailing security to the hotel’s basement. A stroke of luck only the Irish could ever have, and Liam wasn’t about to waste it. He didn’t care if there was a chance the blonde and the guard were just meeting up for a quickie away from prying eyes. Liam lived by his instincts and his luck, and both were now screaming at him to take action.

Alex had given him specific orders the moment they’d arrived at The Garden: find the diamonds, secure them, and eliminate any competition. This was the best chance he’d had all night to do just that. So he followed the trail, slowly winding his way into the hotel’s depths all while looking for any signs of subterfuge or foul play. And soon enough, he found precisely what he was looking for. A slim viper of a woman, rising up from her position crouched over the body of a guard. She raised a gun and unloaded a slug into the corpse, triggering screams from behind a nearby door. An isolated room under heavy guard in the basement of a five-star hotel, wherein a spoiled brat was going to be gifted one of the most coveted diamonds in the world? Mystery solved—he knew exactly where the Pink Star was.

He needed to act fast. Whoever the woman ahead of him was, she was dangerous and after the same priceless target as him. She wasn’t Irish, so she was an enemy, and if it weren’t for the shouts of nearby guards, he would consider her threat number one. As it was, she might prove useful until he had the diamond in hand.

Liam took the hallway in long strides, adrenaline flooding his veins ahead of what he was certain was going to be the violence he’d craved all evening. The Sig tucked into the back of his waistband slipped into his hand with practiced ease just as the woman looked up and fixed him with an impish grin. Under any other circumstances, Liam would have taken it as an invitation for a very different kind of playdate. The smile he threw back at her equal parts jovial and feral as he loaded a clip into his gun. “Aw, you’re breaking my heart, babe. I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement.” The Russians, huh? Typical. The shouting behind the door rose. He could hear call signs and orders being barked into radios, demands for identification. “I wouldn’t worry about me keeping up, sweetheart,” Liam said with a bark of laughter, pistol now pointed at the door. “But you should think about leaving your shoes here, cause I’m not carrying you if you break a heel.”

“Unbelievable,” Ronan murmured to himself, observing from one of the high top tables scattered around the bar area, fiddling with a bowl of peanuts as he watched the tenders seamlessly work together behind the counter.

“Would you believe they don’t even seem to have premium Russian vodka on hand?” he asked, more musing aloud to himself than anyone else. He thought Celine might be nearby, perhaps, likely to respond to the retort with a snort and quip of her own, but he couldn’t be entirely sure.

Whoever this guy was, either he had horrifying taste, or he was with the Russians. Honestly, either could be the case. There were a lot of guests tonight who clearly had never heard of the concept of 'good taste’. But since he wasn’t able to be sure which category the guy belonged to, Liam affixed a jovial grin to his face and laughed. “Vodka? At a Golightly party? Come on, man, they have better taste than that. You should try the whiskys, they got some great ones.”

Archetype Inspirations - The Assassin