What the hell does the CEO of Global Dynamix have to do with a warehouse full of Russian traffickers?
“Walk us through the extraction,” the woman says. “Did you leave anyone alive, any witnesses? Last I saw, you were running toward me.”
A pause. Too long.
“Things got…chaotic,” Mia says carefully. “Kozlov’s men started dropping. I don’t know if it was infighting, or if someone else hit the warehouse at the same time, but I saw my window and I took it.”
She’s lying. I can hear it in her voice—that slight hesitation, the way she’s choosing her words too precisely. She knows something and she’s not telling them.
Fuck. She knows it wasme.
And she’s keeping it to herself.
“Infighting?” The man sounds skeptical. “In the middle of a firefight with an intruder?”
“I don’t know what it was, Bayo. I just know I might be hurt but I’m not dead, and I’d like to keep it that way.” An edge of finality in her tone. Subject closed.
The woman lets out a frustrated breath but doesn’t push. “Fine. We’ll debrief properly tomorrow when you’ve had medical attention. What about Vanguard? Have you heard from him?”
My chest tightens as I wait for her response.
“No.” Mia’s voice changes. Softer. Pained. “Not since…not for a few days.”
“Good. Keep it that way until we figure out what we’re dealing with. Now that we know what Global Dynamix and Marsh are capable of…well, it’s looking more likely that Vanguard is a weapon after all.”
I want to break through the window and ask them what they mean. What is Global Dynamix capable of? And why was Marsh involved with a Russian Mobster?
“Don’t say that,” Mia says, voice razor sharp. “We don’t know that.”
“We don’t know anything for certain, that’s the problem. But Mia…” The woman pauses. “If London decides he’s a threat, you know what happens. You know what you might have to do.”
The silence that follows is heavy. Loaded.
“I know,” Mia says finally. “I know.”
I stop breathing.
If London decides he’s a threat.
You know what you might have to do.
She’s not just a spy, and she’s not just gathering intelligence. She’s been sent to assess whether I need to beeliminated.
She’s a motherfucking assassin.
The whole thing—every touch, every kiss, every moment I thought was real—it was all just reconnaissance. She wasstudying me. Cataloging my weaknesses. Figuring out the best way to put me down if her masters decided I was too dangerous to live.
“This is the most real thing in my life.”
That’s what I told her. On Lady Liberty’s torch, with the city twinkling below us and her head on my shoulder and my heart opening for the first time in years.
“The only thing that feels like it’s actually mine.”
And she sat there and listened and let me believe it!
Let me fall.
Something tears inside me, a seam giving way under too much strain, thread by thread, the fabric that’s been holding me together starting to pull apart enough for the darkness to slip through.
