“Are you nervous?”
“I’ll be fine.”
But behind Niall’s deep growl, Sydney could hear a hint of fear. She recognized it from their own conversations—she heard it each time she had a brush with death on a mission or pushed her lungs too hard or missed a rendezvous. Sydney recalled the day he’d shown up at her high school in her decrepit, dying town, a secret agent disguised as a recruiter from a local factory. He had been touring the West, looking for promising agents to join Panacea’s training program, and she had been a fifteen-year-old girl who spent her days cutting class, who shoplifted as a coping mechanism, a girl still grieving her mother’s death from the same illness she had. A girl searching for a way out. Niall had caught her breaking into the school’s locked gym, had noticed her penchant for acquiring languages, and offered her a job. She wouldn’t find out until weeks later what Panacea was—or who she was about to become.
Niall never talked about Quinn, but his silence said more than anything. Sydney knew it must have been hard to have a relationship with a daughter who never saw you, whose childhood you missed but could never explain why.
“She’ll talk to you,” Sydney said gently.
Niall didn’t answer right away. “Here’s hoping, right?” he finally replied, and Sydney felt a pang of envy.
It was stupid, of course, to be jealous of Quinn. She’d never met the woman, and Niall wasn’t Sydney’s father. Hers was an alcoholic who hit her whenever he had a bad day at work, would taunt her for wanting to see the world beyond their small, suffocating town. Her father had let her mother die alone at the hospital because he was too much of a coward to be at her bedside.
Her father was not a good man, and Sydney had turned her back on him long ago.
She shoved the memories aside and stared up at the hotel. She knew the truth behind her pain—she was grieving Niall’s retirement as if hewere giving her up along with Panacea. After this mission, he would be gone, off to make amends with his estranged daughter, the one that really mattered. Per the agency’s strict rules, he would never make contact with Sydney again. She would be truly alone.
She still had Sauda, Panacea’s director and her advisor of sorts, but Niall was the one who worked directly with Sydney on each and every one of her missions, had trained her from the start, had vouched for her when her thieving habits returned, when Sauda wanted her kicked out of Panacea for good.
Served her right, Sydney supposed, for letting herself get attached to someone. Hadn’t that been one of her first lessons at Panacea?
Loyalty to a secret, above all else.
Above emotions, above human bonds, above love. Loyalty to duty, to making the world a safer place.
“Just get the van back before ten.” Niall was still talking, and Sydney’s mind snapped back to the present, to the task at hand. A humid drizzle had begun dotting the van’s windows.
“I’ll have it back to you with a bow on top,” she replied.
“Leave off the bow, please.”
“You’re no fun at all,” she said, and he hung up.
Sydney put her phone away and slumped in her seat. At least Winter was a welcome distraction.
How long had it been since she’d seen him, anyway? A year?
Before she met him, Sydney—like the rest of the world—had her own assumptions about the superstar. Too aware of his good looks, too aware of his charisma, too aware of what he could do.
But then she’d learned that the truth was much worse. He was too aware ofher. Sydney Cossette was good at being the girl no one noticed—better yet, she enjoyed it. But Winter had seen her immediately, in a way that made her feel exposed, in a way that unsettled and excited her.
She and Winter had had their fair share of arguments during theirfirst mission together, and had gotten a bit… carried away with each other during a rather heated tryst in an indoor swimming pool. It all came flooding back, her cheeks starting to warm at the memories.
Maybe their reunion would be a painfully awkward one. But she still found herself looking forward to seeing him. She might walk through this world alone, but when she was with Winter, she had someone to walk with. And on this night, when she was feeling particularly vulnerable, the thought was comforting.
Unless… he didn’t want to see her again. Maybe he remembered their time together differently—maybe he didn’t remember it at all.
“Only one way to find out,” she murmured to herself, her eyes gazing up at the window to his room. The rain was picking up. With a sigh, she settled deeper into the van’s seat, trying to get comfortable for a few hours of sleep. Changing someone’s life at four in the morning was going to require getting some rest.
3Old Flames, New Fires
Winter took one look at Gavi and immediately pulled out his phone.
She crossed her arms and pouted—her signature look. “Oh, come on. Don’t bother Claire at this hour. You’re not even going to let me rest in your room for a sec before kicking me out? After the night I had, I’m positively exhausted…” she said, wagging one of her lacy Ferragamo stilettos.
He lifted an eyebrow. “How did you even get up here?” he asked.
She ignored his question. “It’s pouring buckets outside, and my hotel’s on the other side of town. Just thought I’d stop here for a bit. Aren’t you happy to see me?”
