I scan the room, cataloging faces and positions even as my body hums with awareness of the man beside me. President Elena Vasquez is holding court near the main entrance—mid-fifties, elegant in navy blue, her smile warm and practiced as she works through an endless receiving line. She’d been the face of resistance during the Dark Decade, the prosecutor who brought cases against the regime’s worst offenders. Now, she’s shaking hands with the same corporate donors who funded the nightmare.
Same corruption, different packaging. If it wasn’t so typical, it would be disappointing.
Conrad Marsh is nearby, a slicked-back weasel in a suit, laughing too loudly at something a silver-haired senator said. Beside him, in a wheelchair pushed by a silent nurse, sits Elron Masters.
The founder of Global Dynamix looks like death warmed over—ninety-something years of malice crammed into a withered frame, oxygen tube in his nose, liver-spotted hands gripping the arms of his chair. He built an empire on surveillance tech, AI robots, and military contracts. He funded the politicians who dismantled democracy. And now, here he is, being wheeled around like a beloved grandfather instead of the monster he actually is.
My champagne suddenly tastes sour.
“You’re doing that thing,” Vanguard says.
I raise my brows at him. “I have a thing? What thing?”
“Where you look at someone like you’re calculating exactly how to destroy them.”
I force my expression to soften. “I must be the first real journalist you’ve met then. That’s how we look at everyone.”
“Mmm.” He doesn’t sound convinced. “Come on. There are people I need to say hello to, which means there are people you need to pretend to like. You can do that, right? Pretend?”
I stare at him for a moment, wondering what—if anything—he means by that, but he’s already plastering the superhero smile on his face.
He guides me through the crowd, his hand a constant pressure on my back. People turn to stare as we pass—women in designer gowns, men in tuxedos, all of them tracking our progress with barely disguised curiosity.
Who is she?
Where did he find her?
What’s she wearing?
Is that dress vintage Valentino? No, wait, it’s chain store.
I can practically hear the gossip forming, the social media posts being composed. By tomorrow, my face will be everywhere. Vanguard’s new woman. The journalist who somehow caught America’s Hero. From milkshakes to presidential galas.
My cover identity is about to get a lot more scrutiny than I anticipated.
“Relax,” Vanguard murmurs. “You look like you’re facing a firing squad.”
“Maybe I am.”
“If anyone fires at you, I’ll catch the bullet.” His thumb traces another circle against my spine. “That’s kind of my thing.”
Despite everything, I laugh, and something in his expression softens at the sound. His smile in return is genuine, a sense of being in this together, even though he does this every week, even though none of this fazes him even in the slightest.
Does anything phase him?
His past, I think. A place to keep pushing.
We make the rounds together, shaking hands and making small talk with senators and donors and tech executives whose names I file away for later analysis. Vanguard is charming and warm, playing his role perfectly, but I notice the way his smilenever quite reaches his eyes, the way his hand never leaves my back, like he’s afraid I might disappear if he stops touching me. I feel like his touch—this rare, wonderful touch—is the only thing keeping me upright, even as it weakens my knees.
I’m introduced as “Mia Baxter, journalist with Vantage” so many times, the words start to lose meaning. Everyone wants to know how we met, how long we’ve been seeing each other, whether this is serious. No one seems satisfied with the true cover, that I am just a journalist and he is just the subject, but still, I deflect with practiced ease while my spy brain catalogs everything—who talks to whom, which conversations go quiet when we approach, the subtle undercurrents of power and allegiance flowing beneath the glittering surface.
Across the room, I spot a woman with a camera moving through the crowd. Highlighted hair, Slavic features, a press badge that would identify her as Elena Varga.
Kat.
Our eyes meet for a fraction of a second. She gives me the barest nod—I see you, I’m working—before melting back into the crowd.
Then, I notice the man she’s been photographing.
