The dress was already chosen, already packed. The only thing left was getting to New York without anyone knowing we were coming.
Sophie DuBois had the event intel waiting by the time we landed — buyer names, venue confirmation, flagged Iron Choir contacts. Sophie's Lyon PD, technically, but she's been running intel for Cerberus off the books long enough that the line between the two stopped mattering years ago.
Isabella knew it. At the airport she took her boarding pass from Sophie's courier, tucked it into her bag without a word, and walked away from me without looking back.
That was hours ago. The space she left behind still has weight.
The Knickerbocker puts us on an upper floor, two rooms connected by an interior door I keep unlocked. Luc has his own arrangements — one of his New York contacts keeps a place in Midtown, and my brother has never needed looking after. Isabella lands after me, checks in clean, and appears in the connecting doorway still in travel clothes: dark trousers, a silk blouse the color of cream, hair pulled back with the kind of effortless precision that takes years to learn. Maman's emerald dress hangs in a garment bag over her arm.
"Anyone follow you from the airport?" I ask.
"Two men on the same flight." She crosses to the window, looks out at Midtown without touching the glass. "Wrong shoes for the suits. You said that's how you spot the ones trying not to look like what they are."
"They follow you out?"
"No."
"Good catch."
"Hard to forget a lesson like that." Her mouth curves. "What's the timeline?"
"Event starts at eight. Luc's contact confirmed the venue: a private function at a townhouse on East 70th. Invitation-only, hosted by an international energy consortium. The kind of gathering where half the guests have legal cover and half don't bother." I set the tablet on the desk. "Asset's name is Lorelai. Blonde, mid-forties, red dress. She'll make contact, pass what she has on buyer names and the delivery timeline."
"And after we have names?"
"We start dismantling the network." I scroll further into Sophie's brief. She's flagged three Iron Choir contacts, possible attendance, unconfirmed. The second name stops me cold.
Dr. Stefan Brenner. Iron Choir synthesis chemist. Responsible for adapting at least two externallysourced research programs for weapons-grade application. Consider armed. Consider dangerous.
"Isabella." I turn the tablet toward her.
She reads it. It was the look of a scientist who'd already suspected the answer and hoped she was wrong. "I know his work. He published papers on aerosolized dispersion mechanics several years back. I cited him. The methodology was foundational to my delivery system." She pauses. "If anyone translated my research into a weapons application, it was him."
"Sophie built your cover around the event profile. European energy consultancy, industrial chemical procurement background. The invitation puts you in that room legitimately." I hold her gaze. "Brenner knows your name and your published work. He's never been in the same room as you."
She's quiet for a moment, turning it over. "We've never met. Only through the literature."
"Keep it that way. You identify the research if it comes up in conversation. Nothing more. You don't negotiate, don't volunteer information, don't improvise. Understood?"
She holds my gaze. "Understood."
She says it with an evenness that means she's heard me and made no promises. I recognize it now. The argument will come when it becomes necessary, which tells me she's thinking like an operative instead of a scientist.
Later, she walks out of the bathroom in emerald silk, and the operational timeline goes quiet.
Maman's dress does something different to her in Manhattan than it did in New Orleans. There, it was a woman trying on a role. Here it fits the way armor fits, close and functional, an extension of who she is rather than a costume laid over it. Her hair is up, a few strands loose at her jaw. Small gold earrings catch the light. The heels add height she doesn't need.
"Well?" she asks. Her tone is dry, the way it gets when she's steadier than she lets on.
"You'll do," I say.
Her mouth curves. She knows exactly what I mean.
Luc meets us on the block over, runs his eyes over us both with the professional detachment of a man checking equipment before a drop. He nods once. We go in.
The townhouse on East 70th sits between a consulate and a private equity firm, unremarkable from the street except for the security at the door. Two men with the particular stillness of professionals who stopped pretending to be decorative years ago. Inside, the event runs three floors. Tall ceilings, period molding, the smell of hothouse flowers and expensive perfume layered over something older and drier beneath: old money, or a very good imitation of it. A string quartet works through something Viennese in the rear salon. Waitstaff move through the crowd with champagne and canapés, their expressions trained to the same pleasant blankness.
The guests are everything the brief promised: energy executives, defense contractors, a scattering of Eastern European money, and at least two faces I recognize from Cerberus watch lists. Men who made fortunes in markets where the product has a body count.
