All the late nights he’d stay up rehearsing or writing lyrics, humming new melodies, putting together new songs, working, working, working. His father had so successfully reduced it to nothingness, made him feel like it was trash. And wasn’t that the real reason he pushed himself? Wasn’t his father right all along? Because he desperately needed to prove the man wrong, that he deserved to be heard? To be loved? Wasn’t that why he kept going back to Gavi, even when she hurt him over and over?
Winter paced the entryway, then slammed both fists against the wall.
As if on cue, a knock rapped on his door.
Still in a maelstrom of fury and frustration, Winter lunged at the door and swung it angrily open.
“What?” he snapped.
And found himself staring at Sydney.
16An Ocean Between Two Hearts
She hurried past him without a word. When the door clicked shut behind her, she turned to face him with her arms crossed. Her expression cut momentarily through the whirlwind in his head. Something had gone very wrong.
“I got a recording of Minister Seah in the middle of your concert,” she said. Her voice was stretched tight. “Tems thinks it’s solid enough evidence for what we need. He’s passing it along to the CIA now.”
Winter’s heart was still pounding from the call with his father, and Sydney’s words seemed to come to him through an underwater filter. He ran a hand through his hair, swallowed hard, and forced himself to concentrate. “Okay,” he managed to say. “Let me hear it.”
Sydney played the recording from her phone. As it finished, she pocketed her phone. “Tems is searching for the identity of the caller on the other line.”
“The guy keeps mentioning something called ku,” Winter said.
She nodded. “I was going to ask if you happened to know what it meant. Niall says it’s the name of a new neurotoxin making its way through the East’s underground scene.”
“Makes sense,” Winter said, clearing his throat and forcing himself tothink. “Kuwas an ancient Chinese ritual of putting poisonous creatures in a jar and seeing which emerged alive and victorious. The poison from that victorious creature would then be used on a target. I researched it once for a song.”
“‘Magic Poison’?” Sydney asked.
Winter looked at her in surprise. “So youhavelistened to the album.”
She scowled even deeper and looked toward the window. “Niall thinks Seah may attempt to use the neurotoxin on President Rosen at the gala.”
Everything was falling apart. “What’s the plan, then?” Winter asked quietly.
“Tems gathered intel during the ceremony that Seah’s car will be parked along the palace’s side entrance during the gala, along with the other ministers’ rides. Our assumption is that he’s going to make an early exit after he does his job, so that by the time Rosen reacts to the poison, Seah’s already gone.”
“So we cut him off from his escape route,” Winter said.
“We cut him off,” Sydney agreed.
Winter studied her face. There was a paleness about her that seemed not quite right, as if there was more to her words than she was letting on. “What else?” he pressed.
“Is that not reason enough to be worried?” she said with a scowl. The edge in her voice returned, a thin film holding back a tide of… fear? Anger? He couldn’t tell. “We have a potential assassination on our hands. Seah’s going to be seated next to Rosen at the gala, and we have twenty-four hours to stop him.”
He looked carefully at her. “Something happened to you,” he said.
She folded her arms and tightened her lips. Her weight shifted from one foot to the other, as if she ached to move. But when she spoke again, she said, “What happened to me is that, as I figured out the severity of the mission we’re on, you decided to sing that song onstage.”
Her answer startled him. “What?” he said.
“The song,” she repeated. There was an urgency in her voice and a speed to her words that nearly bordered on panic. “You pull it out now, of all times, in front of the entire world? When we chatted on the balcony that other night, you told me that you never meant for me to see those lyrics. You made it sound like it was a private track just for you, that maybe it should be something we keep a secret.”
He shook his head. “Are you afraid because you think it could have compromised us?” he asked incredulously.
“Who knows? That’s always the risk, isn’t it?” Sydney turned away from him, walked a few paces, and came back. “Do you understand that we are undercover right now?” she murmured, narrowing her eyes at him. “Do you understand that any unnecessary attention puts us in danger?”
His heart tightened. The world had started to spin again. “No one knows it’s about you. I’ve told no one—not even my producers. Not even Claire. There’s nothing in those lyrics to identify you in any way, something I did very intentionally. It could be about anyone.”
