“Interesting theory.”
“It’s not a theory!” Alan’s voice cracked. “I’ve watched you, Crowley. I’ve seen how you look when his name comes up. This whole operation—the conspiracy, the Bratva connections, all of it—it’s just scaffolding for your personal vendetta.”
Crowley was silent a beat longer than usual. Down the slope, the car burned, the only sound the tick and pop of cooling, buckling metal.
“And what were you using me for?” Crowley’s voice was soft now. Almost gentle. “When you agreed to help me, when you took the assignment, was it patriotism? Duty?” A cold smile. “Or was it revenge against the people who killed your wife?”
Alan’s mouth opened. Closed.
“We’re the same, you and I.” Crowley stepped closer, close enough that Alan could smell his cologne over the gasoline. “Men who’ve lost everything. Men who’ve been hollowed out by grief until there’s nothing left but the hunger for someone to pay.” His pale eyes held Alan’s. “The only difference is that I’m honest about it.”
Alan wanted to argue. Wanted to find the words that would make Crowley wrong.
He couldn’t.
“You were watching.” Alan’s voice dropped. “Parked back there in the dark the whole time, waiting to see if I’d go through with it. That’s how much you trusted me.”
“I trust outcomes,” Crowley said. “Not men.”
“Here’s what happens next.” Crowley’s voice hardened. “You disappear. Go somewhere warm—I don’t care where. Heal. Wait.” He reached into his coat, produced a burner phone. “When this rings, you answer. And when I tell you where to be, you show up. No arguments. No second thoughts.”
“And if I don’t?”
Crowley’s smile was a knife. “Budapest is lovely this time of year. I understand that Timea’s mother still reads Dickens to the family on Christmas Eve.”
The threat landed like a blow. Alan’s legs nearly buckled.
“Take the phone.” Crowley pressed it into his bloody hand. “Wait for the call.”
Then he turned, walked back to his sedan, and drove away. The taillights shrank into the gathering dark, leaving Alan alone on the side of a highway with the dead in a ravine below and the last of his humanity bleeding out onto the asphalt.
“Sir? Excuse me—sir?”
Alan blinked. A woman in diamonds was staring at him, gesturing at his tray. The champagne flutes had stopped trembling. His hands were steady again.
“Of course, ma’am.” He offered the tray with a practiced smile. “My apologies.”
She took a glass, already looking past him. He was invisible again. Just another waiter.
He glanced back toward the east entrance. York was gone—swallowed by the crowd, or he’d moved to another room. It didn’t matter. Alan’s mission tonight had nothing to do with York Newgate.
The phone had rung three weeks ago. Not Crowley, a Russian voice. Italy, the man had said. There’s a team there—Ham Jones’s people. One of them has information we need.
Ham Jones, who turned out to be the husband of an operative gone rogue. Now Signe Jones, thought dead. Signe Jones, who possessed the NOC list the Bratva wanted.
So yeah, Alan had gone. Had taken hostages in an Italian grandmother’s apartment.
Had held a gun to an old woman’s head while her family watched.
And when the extraction had gone sideways, when Ham’s reinforcements had arrived, Alan had slipped out the back and disappeared into the Italian night.
Another mission. Another piece of himself carved away.
Two days ago, the phone had rung again. Again, a different voice, not Crowley’s. The inaugural ball. Eyes on Jackson. Deliver the key card to the contact in the kitchen at 10:15.
Alan checked his watch. 10:08.
He deposited his tray and moved toward the elevators.
