Chews once. Twice. Swallows.
Never looking away from me.
Something detonates low in my stomach. Heat spreads through me so fast I almost forget how to breathe.
Holy. Fuck.
The bell above the door jingles, snapping the spell.
Boris.
He looks rough. Bruise blooming along his jaw, a faint cut at his hairline, shirt wrinkled like he slept in it—or didn’t sleep at all. But if it bothers him, he doesn’t show it.
“Smells like heaven,” he mutters, eyeing the plates. “Good man, Lev. Knew you’d order for me.”
Lev winks. “Stack of pancakes. Extra syrup. Just the way you like it,dorogoy.”
Boris grins, already snagging a piece of bacon off Lev’s plate before the waitress even circles back with his.
Then his attention shifts. To me.
He reaches into his jacket, pulls out two tiny black devices, no bigger than matchbooks, and slides them across the table until they stop in front of my plate.
My brain short-circuits.
For a moment, I just blink at them, scrambled eggs steaming beside what look suspiciously like props from aMission: Impossiblesequel. Then— Oh. Right.
This is it. The change. Not the USB anymore. Now my job is simpler. Or scarier, depending on how you look at it.
Sneak into Caleb’s office. Find a place. Drop the devices. Walk away like I didn’t just plant Russian spyware in my regional vice president’s personal space.
No pressure.
I slide the devices into my bag as discreetly as possible, praying the waitress doesn’t come back at that exact second to ask if I want more coffee.
That’s when my phone buzzes against the table.
I freeze.
It’s face-up beside my plate, right next to the toast I’ve barely touched. The screen lights up bright enough to spotlight me, and there it is in bold white letters:Incoming FaceTime – Jasper.
Oh, God.
Of course he would call now, when I’m sandwiched between Anton Malikov, Dima the Destroyer, Lev the Chaos Gremlin, and Boris the Gadget Guy—with actual espionage hardware rattling against my lip gloss in my bag.
My pulse spikes. I fumble for the phone, flip it over so the screen faces down, and shove it closer to my coffee cup like I can smother the problem with caffeine.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
It keeps vibrating against the Formica, loud enough that the whole table feels it. My toast jiggles like it’s in an earthquake.
“Someone’s calling you,” Anton says flatly, without looking away from his coffee. Like I needed the reminder.
I clamp my lips together, praying it stops. It doesn’t.
With my luck, Jasper will keep calling until Anton confiscates my phone and hurls it into traffic, so I snatch it back up and swipe to answer—switching it tovoice call only,like that’ll somehow make me less exposed.
“Good morning, sugar tits!” Jasper’s voice blasts through the speaker, so bright and chirpy it physically hurts. “Guess who’s back in town? Me! Are you at work yet? No, wait, don’t tell me. Let’s do lunch, I’ve got SO much to spill—”
