His first thought was clean and immediate:Fallon better not be here tonight.
She’d been tracking Zodiac’s schedule somehow—he still hadn’t figured out how—and staying clear of events his team worked. But Endicott’s last-minute change meant this event wasn’t on anyone’s schedule until two hours ago. If Fallon had planned to work this room, she wouldn’t have known Zodiac was coming.
He pulled out the burner phone and typed fast.
If you’re anywhere near the Austin Heritage Center tonight, leave. Now. Don’t ask questions.
He stared at the screen. No reply. No read receipt. She could be across town. She could be in this building. He had no way to know. They’d been texting for the past three days but sometimes responses from either of them wasn’t immediate.
He pocketed the phone and got to his position. Guests were already in the room and more were entering with the practiced ease of people who attended these things for a living. Isaac managed the floor. Checked sight lines. Ran comms.
“Zone Two, service corridor clear. Catering rotation on schedule.”
“Copy.”
Thirty minutes into the event, he was stationed near the east wall with a clean sight line across the room. The crowd had settled into its rhythm. Endicott was at a table near the stage, deep in conversation with two donors, Laura beside him. Everything quiet.
The burner phone was in his jacket pocket. He pulled it during a lull and checked the screen. Nothing new since the message he’d sent about keeping away from here.
Ryder’s voice came through the earpiece on a private channel. Low, casual. “Hey, Baxter. Quick question.”
“Go.”
“Whatever you’ve got going on with that burner phone which generally causes you to smile when you look at it—are you going to let me in at some point, or do I just keep pretending I don’t notice?”
Isaac’s hand stilled on his lapel. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The phone checks. The lost focus during briefings. The punch you took during sparring because something buzzed on your bag. Whatever this is, it’s been going on the entire time I’ve been here.”
“There’s nothing going on.”
“Okay. Then there’s nothing going on, and I’ll keep pretending I don’t notice nothing going on. Just wanted you to know the door’s open if that changes.”
Isaac exhaled. He wasn’t wrong. The phone checks, the drift, the distraction—all of it had been accumulating for days, and Ryder was too sharp to miss it. The fact that he’d waited this long to say anything, and framed it as an offer rather than a confrontation, was exactly why Isaac trusted him.
“I appreciate that,” Isaac said.
“Any time.” Ryder switched back to the main channel. “Zone Two, south corridor still clear. Resuming regular check-ins.”
Isaac adjusted his earpiece and swept the room again. His gaze reached the northwest corner, near the bar, and stopped.
Fallon.Fuck.
His whole body went cold. Every nerve lit up at once, his vision narrowing to the one point in the room that mattered.She was standing at the edge of a group near the cocktail tables, champagne glass in hand, her hair pinned differently again, her dress a deep emerald that made her pale eyes catch the light from ten yards away.
She was here. At an event where the security team was hunting for someone exactly like her. And he had no doubt that her being a woman wouldn’t stop the violence they were craving if they caught her. If anything, a female would encourage it.
He pulled the burner phone out of his pocket again. His earlier warning was still sitting there, unread. He typed again.
You’re here. I can see you. Get out NOW.
She didn’t reach for a phone. Didn’t check a pocket or a clutch. Her attention was on the group beside her, her body relaxed, peripheral, positioned near a mark.
She was about to work. And she had no idea that the guards were actively looking for someone doing that. Part of the reason she was always so successful was because rich people didn’t suspect other rich people of petty theft, and honestly most of the security at these places didn’t either.
But not tonight. Tonight these assholes were just waiting for a reason to beat the shit out of someone.
Isaac looked past her. One of the venue security guys—Red Face from the briefing—was posted up twenty feet from Fallon’s position. He wasn’t watching the perimeter. He was scanning the crowd. Slowly, methodically, his eyes moving from guest to guest with the specific alertness of a man looking for exactly what Fallon was about to do.
