Fi claps. “Hell yeah, you are.” Bayo grins and starts typing on his phone, already booking us flights, probably. Cal raises his mug in a silent toast, and for a moment, his eyes meet mine with an encouraging nod.
Only Kat remains still, ,watching me with that cool, assessing gaze.
“You’re ready for this?” she asks quietly in Russian. A test, as always.
“Da,” I reply, matching her. “Ya gotova.”
She nods slowly. Then she gives me the tiniest ghost of a smile.
“Good,” she says, switching back to English. “Because if Van Veen is as smart as her file suggests, she’s going to eat you alive.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“I’m just warning you.” Kat steps closer, close enough that only I can hear. “That woman isn’t just intelligent—she’s obsessed. With Vanguard, with her work, with control. Obsessed people are dangerous, Mia. They don’t follow the rules.”
“Then good thing we don’t either.”
“No, but we know we’re breaking them. She thinks she’s above them entirely.” Kat holds my gaze. “Don’t let her get in your head. And don’t lethimget anywhere else. Not unless you get the kill order.”
Before I can respond, she’s already walking away, phone in hand, coordinating logistics.
I stand in the middle of our ramshackle headquarters, surrounded by the smell of burnt toast and Earl Grey, the weight of the file in my hands and everything else pressing down on my shoulders. In less than a week, I’ll be in New York, face-to-face again with a man who might be a hero or a weapon or something in between.
CHAPTER 5
VANGUARD
The hover carglides through Manhattan forty feet above street level, smooth and silent, the city sprawling beneath us like a circuit board of light. Below, the regular traffic crawls along in the old lanes—ground-bound vehicles for ground-bound people—while we float above it all in Global Dynamix’s latest toy. A Meridian-Class, they call it. One of twelve in existence, worth more than most apartment buildings in this city. The leather seats alone, made from rare yak hide that’s been pummeled into oblivion, probably cost more than Danny makes in a year.
I hate it.
Not the car itself, that’s fine. Cool, even. It’s what I imagined a flying car would be like when I was a little boy. No, it’s what it represents. Another reminder I’m not that little boy or even the man I once was, and I don’t belong down there anymore. That I’m not one of them. That every part of my life, down to how I get home at night, has to be a statement.
“You’re brooding,” Danny says from the driver’s seat—though ‘driver’ is generous when the car flies itself. He’s there for protocol, for appearances, for the insurance policy that isa human hand near the manual override. “I can hear you brooding. It’s very loud.”
“I’m not brooding.”
“You’re doing that thing with your jaw. The clenchy thing.” He glances over, dark eyes amused, and wiggles his jaw back and forth in an exaggerated manner. Danny Cordero has one of those faces that looks like it’s always on the verge of a joke, round and expressive, with a thin mustache and a mouth that curves easily into a grin. He’s former Army like me, two tours, one in Afghanistan and one in Ukraine, before a blown-out knee sent him stateside. Now, he’s my handler, my driver, my babysitter, and—if I’m being honest—probably the closest thing I have to a friend. “You know that thing’s going to shatter one of these days, right? Like a bomb.Poof. You’ll be picking bone fragments out of your molars. And don’t get started with how your bones don’t break. If anyone can break your own bones, it’s you.”
I give him a dry look. “I’d heal.”
“Yeah, but will the PR team? Can you imagine the headlines?Vanguard Defeated by Own Jaw. America MournsHis Bone Structure.”
I offer him a small smile. “How long until we’re home?”
“Eight minutes. Unless you want me to take the scenic route. Loop around the park, buzz a few tourists, really give them something to put on their socials.”
“Hard pass.”
Danny shrugs, unbothered. This is what I like about him—he never pushes, never treats me like I’m fragile, or dangerous, or a commodity to be managed. Orproperty. To Danny, I’m just Nate, the guy who doesn’t laugh enough (according to him) and tips too well and once ate an entire meat lovers pizza in under three minutes on a bet.
That was a good night. There aren’t enough of those anymore.
“Hell of a day, though,” Danny says, letting out a low whistle. “I mean, I know it’s all in a day’s work for you, but that shit with the crane? That was somethingelse!” He slaps the dashboard for emphasis.
I grunt. The crane. Right.
A construction crane in Midtown, forty-two stories up, had a cable snap during a routine lift. There were two tons of steel and glass swinging free over Fifth Avenue, three workers trapped in the cab as the whole thing started to tear away from the building. I was across the city when the call came in on my watch, at a fundraiser breakfast where I was supposed to smile and shake hands and pretend I cared about whatever new cause they were pushing this week.
