“Then I keep lying to him. Keep sleeping with him. Keep pretending I’m just a journalist while his world burns down around him.”
“That’s the job, Mia,” she says lightly, as if she has any idea how fucking hard this all is. “I thought you would be used to this by now. Vanguard can’t be anything to you in the end. You’ll get over it.”
“What if I don’t want to get over it?” I explode, throwing my hands out. “God, Kat, can’t you just be a fucking friend for a second? Just for a second? Just try to understand what’s happening to me isn’t normal, that I never had the same luxury as you, to so easily discard people?” I look away, trying to calm my heart. Everything feels so impossible. “Don’t you ever get tired of it? The lying. The pretending. Being someone else so constantly, you forget who you actually are?”
Kat is quiet for a long moment. The wind picks up, carrying the smell of the river and distant rain.
“There was someone,” she says finally, to my surprise. “Years ago. Before you. Assignment in Prague. He was a musician—played cello in the symphony there. I was supposed to be getting close to his roommate, who had connections to a Russian oligarch.” She pauses, and I turn to look at her. “But I fell for him instead. Michal. He had these hands, these artist’s hands, you know? And he used to play for me in his flat after everyone else had gone to sleep.” A ghost of a smile appears as she speaks.
I’ve never heard her talk about anyone like this. Never heard her talk about anyone at all.
“What happened?”
“The mission ended. I got what we needed from the roommate, and London pulled me out.” Her voice is steady, but something in her eyes isn’t. “I left in the middle of the night. No note. No explanation. Just…poof. Gone. Like I’d never existed. I was a ghost—always was, always will be.”
“Did you ever see him again?”
“No. I looked him up once, a few years later. He’s married now. Has children. Plays in Berlin.” She shrugs, but the gesture doesn’t seem genuine. “He’s happy. That’s something.”
“But you’re not.”
“I’m…” She trails off, searching for the word. “I’m functional. That’s what we’re trained to be. Functional, useful. Good at our jobs.” She meets my eyes. “We don’t get to be happy, Mia. That’s not part of the deal.”
The words sit between us, heavy and true. You’d think I’d be used to that by now, but this last month has changed my life and made me question everything. Day by day, everything I thought was black-and-white is now shades of grey.
“So what do I do?” I ask. “About Vanguard. About all of it.”
“You do your job.” Her voice is gentle but firm. “You gather the intelligence, you write the report, you let the people above us make the hard calls. That’s the only way to survive this work without losing yourself completely.”
“And if I’ve already lost myself?” I whisper.
She doesn’t answer. We stand there in the dark, two women who’ve spent their lives becoming other people, and for a moment, the masks slip just enough to show what’s underneath. For just this minute, we are more than ghosts.
Then, Kat squares her shoulders, and the professional is back.
“Come on. We need to debrief Bayo before the night’s out. And you need to figure out how you can get closer to Paragon. Perhaps Vanguard knows more than you think he does.”
He doesn’t, I’m about to tell her again, but I stop.
Because now, I’m wondering if I’m not the only one being played here.
CHAPTER 28
VANGUARD
I surface in pieces.
First thing I notice is the taste: metallic, chemical, coating my tongue like I’ve been sucking on pennies. Then, the sound, a low hum that vibrates through my skull, familiar in a way that makes my stomach churn even before I’m fully conscious. And finally, the pressure, restraints at my wrists and ankles, the curved headpiece pressing against my temples, electrodes like cold fingers against my scalp.
The chair.
I’m in the motherfucking chair.
My eyes snap open, and the world swims, too bright, edges blurred. The ceiling is a wash of white interrupted by harsh surgical lights that make me squint. I try to move, but the restraints hold firm, tight enough to remind me I’m not going anywhere until someone decides I can. The irony is, I could break out of them if I wanted to, yet I swear, they’ve put something in me that makes it feel impossible, like my limbs are made of lead.
“Easy.” Julia’s voice, close. Too close. “You’re still coming out of it. Give yourself a moment.”
I turn my head slowly, and it feels like my brain is sloshing around in there. I wince and find Julia standing beside the chair, tablet in hand, watching me the way a sculptor might watch clay taking shape. She’s wearing a white lab coat over her usual elegant attire, her silver-blonde hair pulled back, and there’s something soft in her expression I don’t trust, not one bit.
