“Wisdom,” Winter said with a respectful smile, even as he felt his anger rise. This was a man who worked to buy and sell things that destroyed lives, who blithely wrote down numbers in a ledger as he helped load ships with illegal weapons.

  Through the haze and smoke around him, he could almost see Sauda leaning toward him, her eyes solemn. Have you ever witnessed war?

  And in that moment, he felt the shift inside him. He was no longer just a boy enduring the company of wealthy people, tolerating them in his own ambitions of climbing the world’s ladder. He was here for a reason, using the experience of his years in such circles to now take down one of their worst.

  A thankless good deed. Sauda’s words echoed in his mind. And suddenly, he thought he could understand what had once fueled Artie.

  “Now,” Connor said with a nod to them both, his eyes returning to the game happening behind him, “if you’d like, I’m happy to invite you into this next round. Be warned, Mr. Young, that we don’t always play nicely with others.”

  “That’s a generous offer,” Penelope said. Winter could feel her leaning slightly against his arm. “But I think I really am bored with this party.” She gave him a smile and a nod. “We can catch up tomorrow?”

  Connor gave her an affectionate look of disappointment. “Hard to keep you happy, eh, Miss Morrison?” he said. Then he smiled and held her gaze for a moment. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell your dad. See you tomorrow.”

  She nodded, touched his arm, and then turned away with Winter.

  As she did, Winter noticed the spark in her eyes fade—and the charming, flirtatious smile she’d given him turning off like a light switch.

  Odd. Again, he felt like something was off about the subtle way these two flirted with each other. His mind whirled, trying to pin down what it was—

  And then he realized it. It was in the way that spark vanished so abrubtly from her eyes.

  It was how celebrities acted when they were putting on a show of being in a relationship, for the benefit of drumming up press and getting headlines. It was an act.

  Winter could spot this kind of false romance every time—he and Claire had a running bet for every time this happened, and he always won. He’d even done it himself before, had been paired up with another popular singer earlier in his career, knew what kind of emotions he was supposed to put on display and how it’d come across to the public. Knew when to turn it off when he sensed no one was paying attention anymore.

  Connor and Penelope weren’t having an affair. They were playing at it.

  But why would they do that? To annoy Eli? Was there another reason?

  Winter let none of his spiraling thoughts show. All he said to Penelope instead was, “Where to now?”

  She smiled hopefully at him, then glanced toward the tunnel leading back to the main floor. “Want to get out of here?”

  Winter raised an eyebrow at her. It was hardly the first time he’d ever been propositioned, but somehow being on a mission made him more anxious.

  She bit her lip, then seemed to realize exactly what she’d said. She hurriedly looked down. “I don’t mean”—she rushed to say—“that is, I’m not trying to insinuate that—” She paused, beet red. “I just meant if you wanted to hang out somewhere more private. That’s it.”

  He smiled at her. “Sure.”

  She gave him a bashful smile. “Really?”

  He looked around the party space. “It might not be obvious,” he said, “but I’m an introvert.”

  She brightened at that. “Me too!” Then she realized her outburst and laughed a little. “My place isn’t far from here. I could make us some coffee.”

  Sydney. Her name was the first thing that popped into Winter’s mind. She’d want him to handle this alone, his nerves be damned. Would she follow along? Would she hide out in the bushes outside Penelope’s home? He tried to picture how the night would go, how missions usually went for Sydney at this stage.

  All roads lead to Penelope, she had said.

  So he made himself smile at her. The mission closed in around him like a vise.

  “Let’s go, then,” he replied.

  19

  Dead End

  Winter and Penelope were gone for a good thirty minutes.

  Sydney found herself restlessly wandering the party space, checking constantly for messages from Winter, monitoring his location to make sure he was still here. She had to be an attentive bodyguard, after all. Maybe she was starting to believe in her cover so much that her anxiety over his absence was real. She found herself loitering near the tables, picking up a few of the gold spoons and tea light candles out of nervous habit before forcing herself to put them back. Now was not the time to get caught for stealing. Still, she found herself circling back to the tables and, when she was sure no one was watching, finally stashing several spoons in the hidden pocket of her pants. The habit soothed her nerves. Somewhat.

  At last she saw them emerge again from the back of the stairs. Sydney caught Winter giving her a single, meaningful glance.

  He was leaving the venue alone with Penelope, she gathered as he walked toward her to wave a quick farewell.

  “Don’t wait up,” he told her as Penelope stood behind him.

  “Have fun,” she replied, drawing close enough to give him a pat on the arm. In one fluid movement, she dropped the pen she’d gotten in the parcel into his pants pocket. “For your protection,” she whispered as she brushed past his ear, “since you’ll be on your own.”

  He must have felt the pen drop into his pocket, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he gave her a sidelong wink before turning away. “See you in the morning,” he said.

  Then he headed back to Penelope and walked to the exit.

  Sydney caught sight of his hand and noticed that the snake ring was gone.

  Maybe he’d made contact with Connor Doherty already.

  Well. He was halfway competent, after all. Surreptitiously, she tapped one of the diamonds on her bracelet and felt her phone buzz in her hidden pocket. The snake ring was recording now.

  Winter looked at ease, his head close to Penelope’s as they shared a laugh about something on their way up the winding stairs. Sydney watched in approval, then sent Claire a brief message. HU, Winter leaving party w P. Don’t thk I’m invited. He’s on his own.

  A reply came back before Sydney was even sure she had sent her message. Where? For how long?

  dk. They’ll b fine.

  Claire didn’t answer for several seconds. Finally, she responded with I’ll tell his driver. Just make sure he’s back by morning.

  Sydney answered with a quick K, then headed up the stairs behind them.

  Above the tunnel’s shaft, the cobblestone streets were slick with rain, their gleaming surfaces reflecting a carousel of color. A car was already waiting out here for Winter and Penelope’s emergence. Sydney caught sight of a group of fans loitering some distance away, behind a barricade set up around the shaft’s entrance by Morrison’s men. Somehow privy, as always, to Winter’s location. They screamed and waved as he went by. He gave them a terse nod, then climbed into the sedan behind Penelope.

  To the average onlooker, he must have appeared carefree, with a slight smile on his face and the wind blowing wisps of his hair across his face. But Sydney recognized the slight hints of his discomfort. There was a tightening of his jaw, an extra crease in between his brows.

  He was headed into the mission alone now, and she wouldn’t be there to protect him.

  She wanted to frown at herself for worrying. This was what they wanted. What could happen to Winter anyway, when Penelope was with him? Certainly nothing bad, not with Eli’s daughter there to witness everything. She had invited him here; he was an international superstar.

  Besides. Sydney had another reason to stay behind tonight.

  A fresh wind followed a pair of double-decker buses that roared down the street, and she winced against the gust. The smell of rain and the faint tang of the Thames nearby hung heavy on the air, musty and cold and damp, dripping from every balcony and tree branch. The cold air sent an unpleasant twinge through her lungs, but she still relished the crispness of it. She sank herself into the shadows near the entrance until she was entirely unnoticeable, then pulled a folded black jacket out of her purse, throwing it over her silken top. She slipped quickly out of her billowing pants and immediately into a pair of jeans, unclipping the antler band from her head and breaking it into several smaller segments, folding it neatly into her bag. Seconds later, she returned her attention to the sprinkle of guests entering and leaving the venue.

  She’d seen Eli and his crew head into the party, but had yet to see them leave. The murmur she’d overheard from Connor Doherty replayed in her mind.

  Tonight.

  Eli’s cargo shipment would be heading out soon. If she could just find a way to get close enough to them, if she could just record evidence in their conversation, she would be set. But Winter hadn’t crossed paths with Eli all evening, either.

  Another half hour passed after Winter and Penelope left before Sydney finally saw her targets emerge from the entrance.

  One of the men was Eli Morrison, and the expression on his face looked stormy. She didn’t recognize the other two suited figures with him.

  Sydney let herself stay relaxed and slouched against the wall, but every single one of her senses sharpened as she watched the men disappear into a waiting car, which then pulled quietly away from the street.

  She turned her phone up and pointed the camera toward the departing car. Then she tapped it on the screen.

  A blinking red dot appeared over it.

  “Track,” she said in a low, clear voice.

  The red dot stopped blinking, and the camera swiped away to reveal a dot on her maps.

  She pocketed her phone and pushed away from the wall. Her boots turned in the direction of the car.

  The sedan paused at the light, then turned left, the same way that Penelope’s car had gone. As Sydney reached the intersection and turned with it, the car changed several lanes. Then it veered left into a lane of parked cars and sped up, screeching to a halt at the end and cutting back over into the right lane. It made an abrupt left turn and disappeared around the corner.

  A classic maneuver to throw off anyone who might be trying to tail them.

  Sydney broke into a sprint. She cut across the traffic, ignoring the honks of complaint from drivers, and burst onto the opposite sidewalk. As she turned the corner, she checked her phone and noted the car making another left, then right. She ran down the street parallel to it, then darted under an archway that led into an alley of mews. At the end of the row, she kicked off against the wall and grabbed the edge of a hanging flower basket for balance, raining petals down as she pulled herself up to clutch the railing of the second floor’s balcony. She swung her legs over the side, and jumped up to grab the balcony door’s upper ledge. Two more kicks, and she’d grabbed the edge of the roof.

  Her lungs squeezed in protest at her sudden burst of activity. She hung there for a second, forcing herself to take in deep, measured breaths, trying to ignore the low waves of pain pulsing through her.

  It eased slightly, enough for her to swing herself up onto the roof. She crouched there for a moment, wincing. As she did, she saw the car come back into view, zooming down the street at full speed.

  Damn. She couldn’t keep chasing it on foot through the city like this. Sauda’s gentle scolding came back to her from her recruit days, when she was doing timed laps on the training floor.

  Speed it up out there, Cossette! Sauda had called to her.

  Sydney had just nodded, swallowed the pain in her lungs, and pushed herself onward.

  After, Sauda had made a surprise appearance during dinner, coming to sit beside her as she took a quiet meal by herself in one of the headquarters’ dining rooms.

  Sydney could still remember straightening up out of respect as the woman approached, and then hunching back down when Sauda gave her a nonchalant wave.

  I can run the circuit again tomorrow, Sydney had started to say, in apology for her performance on the track. But Sauda had cut her off with a shake of her head.

  Tomorrow, come with me, the woman had replied. You don’t have to run the fastest to beat your opponents. She’d given Sydney a wry smile. You just need to be the smartest.

  Now Sydney instinctively fixed her posture and breathed deeply. She ducked low, until her figure was completely hidden behind the chimneys, and then studied the street from her hiding place.

  Her gaze settled on a parked motorbike beside a rubbish bin surrounded by black garbage bags.

  “Apologies in advance,” she muttered, as if the bike’s owner could hear her.

  As the car drove past her, she darted out from behind the chimneys and swung over the side of the house’s roof, dropped down to the balcony, then down further to the street. Once she landed, she ran to the motorbike, pulled out a tiny gadget switch hanging on her keychain, and glanced quickly around. Shuttered row of supermarkets and nurseries, no pedestrians.

  She undid the hood of the bike, exposing the tangle of wires underneath. There, she pulled apart the ignition lock and inserted both ends of the wiring into the slots.

  Vroom.

  Sydney smiled as the engine rewarded her with a satisfying roar. Then she straddled the bike and hit the pedal, skipping with a lurch onto the road.

  The wind blew cold against her face, stinging her cheeks. She veered sharply left to follow the car, then slowed down and hung back as the vehicle hit a red light. She turned off the motorcycle’s lights. Her outfit blended her into the night.

  As they hit a second stop, the car suddenly sped up and made a sharp right when it wasn’t its turn to go. The car on the other side of the intersection screeched to a halt. As Sydney sped past it, she could hear its driver shouting something angrily at the disappearing vehicle. She revved her bike. As the intersecting driver started pulling forward, she zoomed past him. The shouts behind her faded away.

  Up ahead, the car turned onto a bridge, merging with a rapid stream of other cars. Sydney followed it on. Some distance across the water, she could see the silhouette of Westminster Bridge against the black horizon. Where were they heading?

  As soon as the thought crossed her mind, the car made a quick turn halfway on the bridge, its tires bumping hard up the middle divider. Cars behind it swerved, screeching at its abrupt move.

  The car skipped over the middle divider and merged onto the lanes going in the opposite direction.

  Sydney shifted gears and forced the motorcycle to do a rapid turn several hundred yards down. The bike’s wheels slammed against the divider, threatening to flip her, but she hung gamely on to the handles and guided it over. She merged with the opposing lane and revved the engine again.

  The car had succeeded in widening the gap between them. But it didn’t matter, because when Sydney synced her watch with her phone, the red tracker still showed up on her map. Now it was exiting the bridge and heading south, out of the city center and westward along the Thames.

  She kept up her pace. As the end of the bridge appeared, she saw that the street parallel to the bridge was newly jammed with cars, all honking loudly. A second later, she realized that Eli’s car had zipped around a street right before it could get stuck behind a garbage truck that had paused to collect the piles of bags at a street corner. Sydney swore under her breath, remembering the neighborhood’s late night bin collection schedule.

  As the cars ahead of her stalled, she veered sharply off the road and skipped up onto the sidewalk. The bike hurtled straight for a set of stone stairs leading to the top of the short wall running along the riverside.

  She gritted her teeth, sped up, and tilted the bike’s front wheel off the ground.

  She roared up the stairs and launched briefly into the air.

  The wheels landed with a thud and a screech on top of the wall. She sped down the riverside.

  Moonlight reflected off the rippling black surface of the Thames. The world blurred by her in darkness. Up ahead, she saw the first hints of the car’s taillights turning in the evening fog. Then the mist was upon her, and the river disappeared into the gray shroud. All she could see ahead of her were the faint shadows of building silhouettes and the faint scarlet blur of taillights far ahead.

  “Display my maps,” she called out to her phone.

  The screen went bright, and suddenly there appeared a virtual grid of the city before her—the streets and the Thames and the flats lining the other side of the road—all passing her rapidly as she hurtled through the fog.

  Up ahead, the car disappeared down another street.

  Sydney skipped the motorcycle back down onto the road, then turned with it. They’d gone far outside central London and, according to her maps, had reached a lock on the river in the borough of Richmond. She frowned. If Eli Morrison had business out here, it couldn’t be good.

  A small pair of footbridges emerged and faded repeatedly in the thickening fog. It was between these footbridges that Sydney saw the red dot on her grid come to a sudden stop.

  She stepped on the motorcycle’s brakes. The bike sputtered to a halt in the thick of the fog. Sydney opened the hood again and twisted the wiring out of the ignition lock.

  The bike’s rumbling engine cut off abruptly. Its lights faded, and Sydney found herself shrouded in the night.

  The fog muffled the sounds of the water and the distant scream of sirens. Up ahead, she could make out the faint sounds of three voices—none of whom sounded like Eli Morrison—along with their boots tapping on the sidewalk. The roar of a plane overhead covered up any chance of her hearing what they were saying.

  As they went, she could hear the footsteps shift from cobblestone to the hollow thud of a pier’s gangway. Then one of them changed from walking to being dragged. The boots scraped long lines of noise against the wooden flooring.

  Her skin prickled. They either had a prisoner with them, or someone unable or unwilling to walk. Who had Eli brought with them in the car? Who had been held captive in there before they’d climbed in?