When the recording finished, Niall said quietly, “Send us the file.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As she uploaded the recording, Sydney stared across the hologram at Winter. There was a strange look on his face—horror, clearly, for the kind of scene that he had never witnessed before in his life … but also something else. A haunting. Sydney didn’t know what else to call it.

  She nodded at him. “Tell them what happened to you tonight,” she said.

  Both Niall’s and Sauda’s gazes flickered to Winter. He cleared his throat, tapped on his phone, and played for them a recording from his bugged earrings, the entire conversation he’d had with Penelope. It ended with the sound of them dropping frantically to the floor.

  “One shot came through the window,” Winter said as the video finished. “It left a bullet hole in the window, but no other cracks. Hit one of the couch cushions between us, inches away from her.”

  Niall rubbed a hand across his face and sighed. Then he looked again at Sydney and asked, “Eli Morrison’s time of death?”

  “Zero three sixteen,” Sydney said automatically.

  “Did you ID any of the others present?”

  Sydney pulled the wallet out of her pocket that she’d stolen from Eli’s killer, then flipped it open for everyone to see. Inside was the faded driver’s license of an unsmiling man with dark eyes and a coarsely shaven beard, the ID stuffed into the same slot as a crumpled wad of Corcasian cash.

  Recognition sparked in Niall’s eyes. “You stole this off of him?” he asked.

  Sydney nodded. “All of them spoke Corcasian. The third also spoke English. One had a slight irregularity in his walk, possibly an injury somewhere on his right leg.”

  “That’s Edward Johannsen,” Sauda said, nodding at the ID. “One of the buyers we’ve been tracking.”

  “What does that mean?” Sydney asked.

  “It means the Corcasians are in town with the express permission of their government, and that their prime minister sanctioned Eli Morrison’s murder. I wouldn’t be surprised if they also sent the sniper after Penelope. They will try a hit on her again soon.”

  “Why would they want her dead?” Winter asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Sauda replied.

  “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?” Sydney said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Niall said, “because your jobs there are done.”

  Sydney blinked. “What do you mean, done? We need to put together a new mission.”

  “As in, we’re bringing you both home. We’re not entangling ourselves in official Corcasian government business without regrouping with the CIA. Everything just got a lot messier.”

  Sydney narrowed her eyes. “I thought Panacea operated free of all the red tape that the CIA has to deal with.”

  Niall fixed a stern gaze on her. “Don’t be such a child,” he grumbled. “We can take certain liberties, but we aren’t here to start a bigger war than we want to prevent.”

  “We haven’t solved anything!” Sydney hissed.

  “You weren’t there to solve anything,” Sauda said coolly. “You were there to do a job. And now that job’s dead.”

  “What about all that talk of making the world better? Of saving the lives of half a million people? Of being able to do what’s right over what’s diplomatic? Or was that just recruitment talk?” Sydney clenched her teeth. “That ship’s still bound for Cape Town. We leave now, and half a million people will die.”

  “Then so be it,” Sauda snapped. Sydney quieted instantly. Sauda’s temper came rarely, but when it did, it seemed to suck all the air out of the room, leaving Sydney breathless.

  “What’s the first rule?” the woman said in a low voice.

  “Come home alive,” Sydney murmured back.

  Sauda nodded once. “The ripple effect of Eli’s murder has only just begun. We answer to higher powers. We’ll do what we can, we’ll figure out a new path, but we also know when we must step back. You can’t save the world if you’re dead. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sydney whispered. She could feel tears of fury welling in her eyes.

  “Say it louder.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She could see Niall looking at her with those furrowed brows, the expression in his eyes more sympathetic than stern, telling her silently to behave. He opened his mouth for a moment, but then closed it.

  “Good.” Sauda glanced at Winter, who still sat silently, watching the exchange, his face still haunted. “Apologies for the mess you’ve been dragged into, Mr. Young.”

  “What about Winter’s appearance at the final party tomorrow?” Sydney demanded. “Penelope has thousands of guests in attendance here, and I suspect she’ll push through in order to avoid a scene. She doesn’t know about her father yet, either. We pull Winter out now, and it’ll look too suspicious.”

  “Let her figure out her guests and her scene,” Sauda said. She glanced at Niall. “Flight ETA?”

  Niall looked like he was typing away at something. “Early tomorrow morning, at nine.”

  Sauda nodded. “Don’t say a word to anyone. When Penelope’s final party rolls around in seventeen hours, you should both be back here in America. Understood?”

  Sydney wanted to scream at them both. She could feel the frustration searing through her bones, stinging the tip of her tongue. Her skin tingled with anger. They had just gotten a breakthrough. And now all of it had been a waste of time.

  When she spoke again, though, her voice came out steady and cold. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You know there’s no other way,” Sauda told her, her words solemn.

  “You taught me there’s always a way,” Sydney replied.

  “In the training arena, yes. In the real world?” The woman’s eyes flickered, and for a moment, Sydney felt as she had when Sauda first discovered her stealing habits, when she’d sat in Sauda’s office as Sauda patiently ran her through drill after drill of resisting the temptation to take.

  It’s impossible, Sydney remembered saying as she failed a drill.

  Nothing’s impossible, Sauda had replied. Do it again.

  But now the woman was staring at her with a look of resignation. “In the real world,” she went on, “we are pushed by forces greater than ourselves. Survival depends on knowing when to succumb to those forces.”

  “But—”

  “No more questions, Sydney.”

  Sauda’s gaze was so piercing that Sydney finally looked away toward Winter. He said nothing.

  “See you both at customs,” Niall said.

  Then he and Sauda ended the call, and their images vanished.

  Sydney let out a long, slow breath. Her shoulders hunched with sudden exhaustion, and she stared down at her open palms curled in her lap. Then she looked up again, locking eyes with Winter on the other side of her silent phone.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  He shrugged and looked away toward the shaded window. “What for?”

  “I know this isn’t what you expected.”

  “Has it ever gone how you expected?”

  She shook her head. “More often than not, no,” she admitted.

  “It never does,” he murmured.

  The haunted expression still hovered on his face, and in it, she could see a remnant of something in his distant past, memories plaguing his mind. It reminded her of the way he’d looked during the tour of Panacea’s headquarters, when she had brought up Artie Young more callously than she should have.

  His eyes skipped back to hers, and his grieving look vanished as quickly as it had come. He looked down. “We can’t leave like this.”

  She nodded. “And we won’t.”

  He searched her gaze. She stared calmly back. There was something hypnotically soothing about his presence, something that gave her strength. She wanted to be nearer to him. She wanted to do something about the sudden charge that the air seemed to hold.

  “You’re suggesting going rogue?” he asked.

  “Maybe.”

  A pause. “Sauda and Niall are going to be so pissed off at you.”

  She shrugged. “Let me handle Sauda and Niall. This is bigger than any of us now. So if I have to go it alone, I will.”

  Her phrasing made him scowl. “What do you mean, alone?”

  “I mean I’m going to do it, but you shouldn’t. You never signed up for this.”

  The way his gaze now seared into hers sent a jolt through her heart. She frowned at him. “I signed up to be your partner on this mission.”

  “And I’m telling you to get on that flight tomorrow morning.”

  “What are you going to do here without my help?”

  She cast him a withering look. “I can work faster without you.”

  He leaned toward her. “Would you have known that the so-called affair happening between Penelope and Connor Doherty is nothing more than an act?”

  “It’s—what?” she said.

  “I’ve witnessed enough secret relationships in my world to know a fake one when I see it.” Winter reached into his pocket and pulled out a bejeweled hairpin. Immediately, Sydney recognized it as the same hairpin that Penelope had worn at the Alexandra Palace. “I took this from her flat,” he said as he handed it over.

  She gave him a skeptical glance. “You stole it?”

  “I think I learned more from you than I should,” he answered dryly. “Based on what I heard at the after-party, Connor gifted this to her. I thought it might be a useful clue for us about their relationship.”

  “Which you said was an act,” Sydney said, turning the pin carefully in her hands. The diamonds crusting it glittered.

  He nodded. “They aren’t seeing each other. They’re only pretending. I don’t know why.”

  Sydney’s fingers ran across the hairpin. They stopped as she touched something metal underneath the diamonds. She took a closer look.

  “This is more than a hairpin,” she murmured, holding it up so Winter could see the port installed under it. “It’s a mini-drive. There’s data on this thing.”

  They stared at each other for a moment before returning to the hairpin.

  “There are things happening under the surface here that we don’t understand,” Winter finally said in a low voice. “And you are going to need someone to help you if you’re going to stay.”

  She took a deep breath, her eyes still on the hairpin. “You don’t need to do this. You don’t have to put yourself in this kind of danger. This isn’t even your line of work.”

  “Hey.” He held his hands up. “Where you go, I go. Right?”

  She felt a tingle down her limbs at his words. Where you go, I go.

  No one had ever promised her anything like that. Where she went, she went alone.

  And yet, she could feel the earnestness in his voice. The nearness of him.

  “I’m just not used to people staying,” she said.

  It took her a moment to realize that she’d said something unguarded to him, that he was now staring at her with a questioning gaze. She let her guard down around people like Niall and Sauda—and even they saw a filtered version of her. But Winter wasn’t a secret agent. He was a superstar who somehow happened to be one of the most normal people she’d ever met, and something about that combination made her say things like this to him.

  He was still studying her with slender dark eyes. “What now?” he said quietly. “We only have six hours.”

  “All we have to do is buy ourselves some more time,” she said.

  He frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

  “You want to help me? Then we’re about to take advantage of who you are.” She gave him a small, dark smile. “We’re about to cause an uproar.”

  22

  The Hunter, the Hunted

  ATTEMPT ON WINTER YOUNG’S LIFE!

  RUMORS ALLEGE GUNFIRE AT WINTER YOUNG IN HEIRESS’S HOME

  WINTER YOUNG ATTACKED AFTER PRIVATE PARTY

  Leaking rumors about gunfire at the home of Penelope Morrison turned out to be the easiest thing in the world. Within minutes of Sydney posting anonymously about it on one of Winter’s fan channels online, people began showing up outside their house. An hour later, a rowdy crowd holding homemade signs had gathered in a shifting mass.

  “What the hell is going on out here?” Claire yelled over the phone. Winter had to hold the phone slightly away from his ear as the screams coming from Claire’s side of the call clashed against the screams directly outside. He raised an eyebrow at Sydney.

  Sydney held up her hands. “Okay,” she murmured to him. “I didn’t expect this big of a response.”

  You insult me, he mouthed back.

  “Gunfire?” Claire’s voice rose into a squeak as Winter walked toward one of the curtained windows on their first floor. “You got shot at last night, and the Associated Press knows about it before I do?”

  “Penelope Morrison made me promise not to tell,” Winter answered. “I don’t know how word got out.”

  “And do you work for Penelope Morrison?” Claire demanded.

  “Well, technically, while we’re here—yes.”

  Claire sighed in exasperation. “Never mind. Why the hell doesn’t she want this out?”

  “Because she doesn’t want to talk to the media about how she almost died? We’ve been down that kind of road before. She wanted the matter privately investigated by the Met. Look—I’m okay. It was a stray bullet. Nothing hit me.”

  He could almost hear Claire narrowing her eyes on the other side. “You’re okay,” she said incredulously.

  “Yes.” He gingerly pushed aside the curtain of the window to see a sea of fans—a thousand, at least—being held back by a flimsy line of desperate police. A hint of worry twisted in him. He hoped no sniper gun was trained on him now—not with all these bystanders in the potential line of fire.

  “Whatever you do,” Claire said as Winter gave the crowd a single wave of his hand, “don’t look out the window and wave at them. You’ll cause a riot.”

  Sure enough, the instant the words were out of Claire’s mouth, the crowd burst into louder shrieks at Winter’s gesture. The sea of people undulated, and here and there, the police line temporarily broke.

  “I just wanted them to know I’m okay,” he said over the phone. “We’re not trying to encourage rumors here.”

  Claire groaned. “Forget it. Don’t you dare leave that house, Winter Young. We’ll come to you and strategize.”

  She hung up. As she did, Winter saw the stream of texts from Leo and Dameon on his phone.

  What the hell is going on?

  Did someone really try to shoot you last night?

  Everything in him ached to confide in his friends. He shoved his phone back in his pocket and took a deep breath. Was he making a mistake? He could still hardly process what had happened the night before—the party, the shooting, the argument with Panacea. The strange new pact he seemed to have with Sydney, with whom he was now officially playing the agent gone rogue. Loneliness gripped him like a vise.

  The bare handful of hours he’d gotten to sleep before morning certainly didn’t help, either.

  He walked over to where Sydney had taken a seat near the indoor pool, reading a message on her phone. Then he leaned close to her, so that their words wouldn’t be picked up, and whispered, “They’re on their way over. How’s your end?”

  She nodded tersely. “It’s impossible for us to sneak to the airport in this mess. Sauda’s aware of the news leak. Niall has postponed our flight. It should also protect Penelope from anyone attempting a second strike on her.” She held up her phone. “And give Panacea time to unlock the data I pulled from Penelope’s hairpin.”

  “We can’t read it?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Encrypted. Niall just let me know he received my upload. Whatever it is, it must be important. While they’re working, I’ve got some footage from Doherty’s snake ring.” The sound of trickling water muted her voice. “Look.”

  Winter stared down at her phone to see a black-and-white video playing from inside what appeared to be a museum, coming from the point of view of a man with a familiar voice.

  “When?” he asked.

  “This morning,” she whispered back. “This is the Victoria and Albert Museum, in South Kensington.”

  He recognized the interior now—the shallow pool in the central courtyard, the luminescent Chihuly sculpture hanging low from the main lobby, the rotunda filled with fashion through the centuries. The video swung jerkily as it broadcast from the ring on Connor’s finger.

  “Looks like the museum’s empty,” he said.

  She nodded. “Hasn’t opened yet.”

  As they looked on, Connor made his way through a set of double doors, then into what seemed like a maze of back corridors.

  “Eli donated the newest extension to the museum ten years ago,” Sydney explained, “and in return, earned a private wing of his own here that is mostly kept away from the public. Looks like Connor’s using a back entrance.”

  Winter narrowed his eyes. “Well, I’m guessing he’s not just enjoying a leisurely day indulging in the arts.”

  “Not after last night,” she mumbled. “If Penelope was the target, he might be moving to secure Eli’s holdings from her father’s attackers.”

  At last, Connor reached the end of a new wing where four guards were posted at each corner. He raised his hand in a possible greeting, and the video turned briefly up to show the ceiling of the wing arched up in an elegant dome. No windows were in this space—and even though Winter knew they were two stories up, he had the sudden feeling of stepping into a sepulcher.

  As he walked through the small corridor, one of the men nodded in silent greeting to him, then stepped aside. Connor pushed open one of the double doors before him and led them into a room lined with white, elegantly carved pillars.