He narrowed his eyes. “I thought you didn’t care what others thought of you as long as you got the attention.”

  She scowled back at him, and in that, he saw at last that she did care. That maybe she really was afraid of what his father might have published about her.

  Winter stood up, the nausea even more powerful standing. Sydney looked at him, eyes searching his, but he just shook his head. “I’m going to head back early,” he said, nodding to Dameon across the firepit.

  Dameon turned away from his date to give Winter—then Gavi—a questioning look. “Already?” he said.

  “Headache,” Winter said. “I’ll catch up with you guys at breakfast tomorrow.”

  “Winter, wait,” Gavi called after him.

  But she didn’t make a move to follow him, as if she knew her words were futile, and he didn’t make an effort to say anything in return. He just stepped away from the booth and, without bothering to see if Sydney was following him, turned from the rest of the festivities and back toward the elevators.

  15

  The Reason You Strive

  Their hotel floor was quiet and empty, a stark contrast from the booming celebration upstairs. Winter’s ears were still ringing as he stopped before his door, swiping it unlocked with his key and stepping into the hallway of his suite. Everything around him seemed to be rippling, as if submerged—the side table in the hallway was made of moving lines, the view from the windows shimmered and trembled. He blinked and steadied himself against the wall.

  Nothing felt real anymore. Not the reason why he was here, not the mission he was on, not the people around him. He hadn’t seen his father in at least five years, hadn’t even heard his mother mention him. How could his father be back now, barreling into his life like a nightmare?

  He closed his eyes. His room disappeared, and in the darkness, he saw himself standing once again in his childhood bedroom, his head hanging as he stood before his father. The man had just found a drawer full of lyrics that Winter had scrawled on notebook paper. He held them up, then tossed them unceremoniously in the trash.

  What a waste of time, he’d said. Who’d want to listen to you?

  His father had hated his love for music, had taunted and scolded and ridiculed him for it his entire life. It seemed impossible that he was the author behind the tell-all book, that the same man who had thrown away his music could now stand to make millions off of it.

  On a whim, he took out his phone. His father’s number was no longer on it, but he could remember it all the same, and now he dialed with a shaking hand, wondering if it would still reach him.

  It rang for so long that Winter was ready to pocket the phone again—but the ringing stopped at the last second, and his reflection disappeared to make way for an older man.

  They both stared at each other.

  Winter looked exactly like him. It was the quality that had both vaulted him into global fame and destroyed his relationship with his mother—Winter had inherited the same lush hair and dark, thick-lashed eyes, the same subtle grace in his walk, the same smile that could shift between shy and mischievous. His mother couldn’t even look at Winter without remembering the traumatic relationship she’d had with the man, couldn’t be in the same room with Winter without wanting to leave, couldn’t tell Winter she loved him without feeling like she was validating a marriage that she regretted with her entire soul.

  His father recovered first, the surprise on his face fading into a sneer, the cold glint in his eyes something that Winter, thankfully, hadn’t inherited.

  “Well,” the man said. “What a surprise.”

  “You’re releasing the tell-all?” Winter replied, the words tumbling from his lips in a hoarse, angry rush. “You’re the author?”

  His father turned away, as if busy with some task in his house, then looked back up at Winter, unconcerned. “Did your girlfriend confess everything to you?”

  Everything in Winter’s chest felt like it was bubbling up now, years of suppressed rage and grief and loneliness. “Leave her out of this,” he said. “I figured it out myself. Pull the book.”

  His father lifted an eyebrow. “We don’t speak for five years, and this is the first thing you say when you decide to call?”

  There was always something manipulative in his father’s voice, a disappointment that made Winter feel like he was a child again, that he was at fault no matter what they were talking about.

  He gritted his teeth. “I wasn’t the one who chose to leave.”

  His father sighed. “It’s a shame that the first conclusion you jump to about the book is so negative. The book isn’t a hit piece on you.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I want to set the record straight about me, given your status as a public figure. I deserve to tell my side of the story.”

  “I’ve never talked about you in interviews.”

  “I hear there are rumors about me based on music you’ve written.”

  “People can assume whatever they want. I’ve never written a song about you.”

  “How about this.” His father’s voice turned compromising, even consoling. “Let me send you a copy of the manuscript. I’ve been meaning to do so. We can sit down together, catch up properly instead of abruptly on a call like this. We can decide what you like and what you don’t. Maybe you can fill in a few details?”

  “No, how about this. You pull the book and return the money you were paid in advance.”

  At Winter’s hard tone, the man narrowed his eyes. “I’m your father.”

  “That wasn’t a choice I could make.”

  He sneered. “You think I didn’t pay your mother to keep you fed after I left? Things may not have worked out between us, but the food on your table was bought by my hard-earned money.”

  Again, a familiar sinking feeling settled in Winter’s stomach at his father’s disappointment in him.

  “You were supposed to take care of us,” Winter said. “Spending money to feed me isn’t a loan I need to repay.”

  He made a disgusted sigh. “Your mother never taught you to be grateful.”

  Winter recognized the mind-games part of his father’s personality. “At least she was there.”

  “I think you’re giving her more credit than she deserves.” He tilted his head mockingly at Winter, challenging him in the way that used to make him feel so small. “I remember calling the house and getting no one but you on the line. Her being gone for days while you were home alone. Is that what you call being there?”

  Winter could feel his temper boiling over. “And where were you? Mom was buried in those pills and struggling, and no one helped her. The government didn’t; we had no relatives; we were alone.” His voice hardened into steel. “Mom needed help. So where. Were. You?”

  His father’s eyes remained cold, sly, cruel. “Why didn’t you help her?” he said mildly. “Surely you have the resources now?”

  Winter swallowed hard, trying to contain his fury. He knew his father wanted to see him explode now, was using that manipulation again. “Pull the book,” he said.

  “I see you’ve learned to raise your voice.”

  Winter’s lip curled into a snarl. “Pull the book,” he snapped.

  “Or you’ll do what?” His father regarded him coolly. “Send your lawyers?”

  “Every last one of them.”

  At that, his father’s lips tightened. “Do you think you deserve this life, Winter?” he asked.

  It was a simple question, said in a simple tone. But his father had always known how to push a needle into his heart, and Winter felt the stab now, felt himself wince at the hit.

  When he didn’t answer right away, his father smiled, knowing he’d struck true. The man leaned against his table and regarded Winter closely. “Why do you strive?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Ambition tends to be fueled by something lacking in you. So what’s yours? What’s lacking?”

  Winter didn’t answer. He could feel his father’s probing questions surrounding him, suffocating him with their accusations.

  “Do you strive because you have something to prove? Because you’re trying to cover up for your inadequacies? Do you strive because you feel like the world owes you something, like you somehow deserve better? Do you strive because you think so highly of yourself that you want everyone to acknowledge it?”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” Winter snapped.

  “Is it because of me?” His smile turned cruel. “Am I the reason you strive?”

  Winter refused to give him that satisfaction. “I never think about you.”

  “That so?” His father leaned closer to the camera. “Let me enlighten you. You’re nothing but a lucky boy. You don’t work any harder than anyone else. You certainly aren’t more talented. You don’t deserve to be here any more than the rest of us. You’re only famous because you got my face and your mother’s voice, and you didn’t work for any of that. So why do you get to have millions, when everyone else who works just as hard as you doesn’t? What’s so great about you?” He raised an eyebrow at him. “Am I right?”

  Yes. Winter could feel the insecurities that haunted him being dragged to the surface, his father pulling just the right strings to haul them up.

  “Call me if you have something to add to the book,” the man said as he straightened. “Otherwise, put your feet back on the ground, kid. You’re just smoke and mirrors. You’re nothing.”

  Winter opened his mouth to reply, but his father had already hung up. He found himself staring at his own face again, pale and stunned in the darkness of the room.

  He threw the phone at the couch and squeezed his eyes shut, raking his hands through his hair. Sickness roiled in his stomach. The world around him felt like it was spinning. What the hell was he doing, cold-calling his father like that? Did he think it would have done any good, that making demands of him would somehow make his father change his mind?

  You’re just smoke and mirrors. You’re nothing.

  All the late nights he’d stay up rehearsing or writing lyrics, humming new melodies, putting together new songs, working, working, working. His father had so successfully reduced it to nothingness, made him feel like it was trash. And wasn’t that the real reason he pushed himself? Wasn’t his father right all along? Because he desperately needed to prove the man wrong, that he deserved to be heard? To be loved? Wasn’t that why he kept going back to Gavi, even when she hurt him over and over?

  Winter paced the entryway, then slammed both fists against the wall.

  As if on cue, a knock rapped on his door.

  Still in a maelstrom of fury and frustration, Winter lunged at the door and swung it angrily open.

  “What?” he snapped.

  And found himself staring at Sydney.

  16

  An Ocean Between Two Hearts

  She hurried past him without a word. When the door clicked shut behind her, she turned to face him with her arms crossed. Her expression cut momentarily through the whirlwind in his head. Something had gone very wrong.

  “I got a recording of Minister Seah in the middle of your concert,” she said. Her voice was stretched tight. “Tems thinks it’s solid enough evidence for what we need. He’s passing it along to the CIA now.”

  Winter’s heart was still pounding from the call with his father, and Sydney’s words seemed to come to him through an underwater filter. He ran a hand through his hair, swallowed hard, and forced himself to concentrate. “Okay,” he managed to say. “Let me hear it.”

  Sydney played the recording from her phone. As it finished, she pocketed her phone. “Tems is searching for the identity of the caller on the other line.”

  “The guy keeps mentioning something called kǔ,” Winter said.

  She nodded. “I was going to ask if you happened to know what it meant. Niall says it’s the name of a new neurotoxin making its way through the East’s underground scene.”

  “Makes sense,” Winter said, clearing his throat and forcing himself to think. “Kǔ was an ancient Chinese ritual of putting poisonous creatures in a jar and seeing which emerged alive and victorious. The poison from that victorious creature would then be used on a target. I researched it once for a song.”

  “‘Magic Poison’?” Sydney asked.

  Winter looked at her in surprise. “So you have listened to the album.”

  She scowled even deeper and looked toward the window. “Niall thinks Seah may attempt to use the neurotoxin on President Rosen at the gala.”

  Everything was falling apart. “What’s the plan, then?” Winter asked quietly.

  “Tems gathered intel during the ceremony that Seah’s car will be parked along the palace’s side entrance during the gala, along with the other ministers’ rides. Our assumption is that he’s going to make an early exit after he does his job, so that by the time Rosen reacts to the poison, Seah’s already gone.”

  “So we cut him off from his escape route,” Winter said.

  “We cut him off,” Sydney agreed.

  Winter studied her face. There was a paleness about her that seemed not quite right, as if there was more to her words than she was letting on. “What else?” he pressed.

  “Is that not reason enough to be worried?” she said with a scowl. The edge in her voice returned, a thin film holding back a tide of … fear? Anger? He couldn’t tell. “We have a potential assassination on our hands. Seah’s going to be seated next to Rosen at the gala, and we have twenty-four hours to stop him.”

  He looked carefully at her. “Something happened to you,” he said.

  She folded her arms and tightened her lips. Her weight shifted from one foot to the other, as if she ached to move. But when she spoke again, she said, “What happened to me is that, as I figured out the severity of the mission we’re on, you decided to sing that song onstage.”

  Her answer startled him. “What?” he said.

  “The song,” she repeated. There was an urgency in her voice and a speed to her words that nearly bordered on panic. “You pull it out now, of all times, in front of the entire world? When we chatted on the balcony that other night, you told me that you never meant for me to see those lyrics. You made it sound like it was a private track just for you, that maybe it should be something we keep a secret.”

  He shook his head. “Are you afraid because you think it could have compromised us?” he asked incredulously.

  “Who knows? That’s always the risk, isn’t it?” Sydney turned away from him, walked a few paces, and came back. “Do you understand that we are undercover right now?” she murmured, narrowing her eyes at him. “Do you understand that any unnecessary attention puts us in danger?”

  His heart tightened. The world had started to spin again. “No one knows it’s about you. I’ve told no one—not even my producers. Not even Claire. There’s nothing in those lyrics to identify you in any way, something I did very intentionally. It could be about anyone.”

  “That song’s not on your official album. You never released it.”

  “I perform surprise songs all the time. No one will find that strange.”

  “But they will analyze it. They do all the time.”

  “The lyrics don’t say, ‘Sydney Cossette is a secret agent.’”

  Sydney threw her hands up. “You draw attention to those closest to you when you hint at your love life like that, especially with the way you turned in my direction at specific parts in the song.”

  He frowned at her. “You’re that afraid of the song?”

  “Of you blowing the damn lid off our cover, yes.”

  “I don’t think that’s why you’re scared.”

  “Well, it is.” She tore her eyes away. “Your ex-girlfriend is here with you as your date. We’re about to risk our lives tomorrow. Why are you releasing this song now? Why add to all this?” She turned back to him and pressed a finger into his chest. “Were you planning to put that song in your original set list before we arrived?”

  “No,” he said.

  “You added it after our conversation, didn’t you?”

  “I’m sorry, all right?” he snapped. “It’s a spontaneous interlude. I have one in every concert. I didn’t think it’d bother you. After our talk … I thought, well, never mind. If it concerns you that much, I won’t perform it anymore. It’ll never see the light of day again.”

  “Why does it matter so much to you, anyway?” Everything seemed to hurtle out of her. “It’s just a song.”

  She seemed to regret her words the instant they came out, but it was too late. Winter winced and took a step away from her. Her statement stirred the whispers that haunted him all his life, echoing the conversation he’d just had with his father.

  You’re just smoke and mirrors. You’re nothing.

  “It’s not just a song,” he said quietly.

  She paused, taking a deep breath, and lowered her voice. “Look, Winter,” she said. “It’s not even the song. But we’re on a mission together—have you forgotten that?”

  He closed his eyes. Everything in his chest felt ready to boil over.

  “That’s our purpose, nothing more,” she went on. There were tears shining in her eyes now. “So why did you do it?”

  “Because I’ve thought about you every single day since London!” he blurted out.

  Sydney flinched as if she’d been struck. “What? No, you haven’t.”

  But Winter couldn’t stop anymore. Too much had happened—Gavi’s betrayal, his father’s cruel words, this. A dam had broken in him, and he had no desire to fix it. He was tired of bottling it all up. He was tired of holding himself together. “I tried my best, you know,” he said in a low, urgent voice. “Every day, I wished you would show up unannounced on my doorstep or in my practice room or anywhere I happened to be, and whisk me back into your world. Every day, I missed you. And you know what? I was okay with that. I’m not a fool. I know we aren’t meant to be, and I was ready to move on. Then you appeared out of nowhere and pulled me right back in, and now we’re here and I have no idea what to do. I tried my best, but now I think I’m losing my mind. So I sang the damn song, okay?”