I hadn’t slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Oliver’s face and Ophelia’s quiet devastation when I’d told them to leave. They’d looked at me like I’d betrayed them.
I had. To protect them.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. Seven years ago, I’d severed ties with Elise and James to protect myself—from their growing demands, from the weight of responsibility I wasn’t ready to carry. Now, I’d done it again, but for the opposite reason. This time, I’d cut them loose to keep them safe. That made the wound deeper. Because this time, I knew exactly what I was losing.
Rafe, who’d left hours ago to look into the breach at the Thorned Thistle, walked in. He looked as haggard as I felt.
“I found it. Six weeks ago, someone accessed the booking system remotely. They deleted records and created blind spots in our camera coverage.”
“How did they get in?” Gus asked.
“Maintenance credential. Someone who worked for us during the east wing renovation two and a half years ago.” He looked up. “The credential was never fully deactivated. Whoever did this learned our systems from the inside—every gap, every weakness.”
Someone had walked our halls and exploited our vulnerabilities. I dragged my hands over my face as the possibility of who might have done this settled in. But why now?
“Kiernan.” Callen’s voice cut through my racing thoughts. “Snow’s team just checked in.”
“And?”
“Oliver and Ophelia aren’t in the penthouse.”
The words didn’t register at first. “What do you mean?”
“His people went to do a status check, and the flat’s empty.”
I jumped to my feet. “When?How long have they been gone?”
“Working on it. I’m trying to reach Snow directly.” Callen’s phone was pressed to his ear.
The next few minutes were chaos. His calls went to voicemail. Finally, one of Snow’s men—an operative named Harris—answered.
“Where’s Snow?” Callen demanded.
I couldn’t hear the response, but his face went blank. Never a good sign.
“When?” A pause. “And no one thought to inform us?” Another pause. “Right. Keep me posted.”
He lowered his device. “Snow went dark in the middle of the night. His team says he got a priority call and left. No explanation, no timeline for return.”
Doren Snow disappearing wasn’t a surprise. He was Unit 23’s ghost—the operative they sent when everyone else had failed. He answered to almost no one, disappeared for weeks at a time, and had a body count that existed only in classified files buried so deep they might as well not exist. God knew where he was now or who he’d been sent to kill.
“So what you’re saying then is Oliver and Ophelia are missing and we have no idea where they are?” I said through gritted teeth.
Gus and Rafe both raised their heads.
“Harris is pulling footage now. Give him ten minutes,” said Callen.
“Like hell,” I muttered, opening my laptop and pulling up the penthouse building’s security feeds. My building. My bloody security system. At least that gave me direct access without having to explain myself to anyone.
“Gus, take transport networks. Tube stations, bus routes, anything with cameras within a mile of the penthouse.” I didn’t look up from my screen.
“On it.”
Callen was on his mobile again, working his own contacts. “I need eyes on every private airfield within fifty miles of London. Any flight plans filed in the last twelve hours…” He positioned himself by the window, and his voice dropped.
The lobby cameras showed nothing useful. Neither did the underground car park or the main entrance. I scrubbed backward from the current timestamp, watching Snow’s team patrol the corridors, check the lift, andotherwise maintain their positions. They were professional, attentive, and completely fucking oblivious.
“Wait.” I switched to the thirty-second floor. There—a service corridor marked MAINTENANCE ONLY. At eleven hundred hours, the door opened and two figures slipped through. Oliver first, then Ophelia. They were going fast and staying low like they knew exactly where they were going.
