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When she arrived inside their apartment, Peter was waiting. He sat on the corner of the couch, one knee crossed casually over the other. His suit pants were taut against his leg muscles. His black tie was loosened. In his hand, he dangled a glass of single malt whiskey.

“Get dressed,” he said as if his throat was constricted, without glancing in her direction. “The reservation was at eight forty-five.”

Ronja stared at the horse resting in her palm. “I did it. It’s over.”

The small figurine commanded their attention. “Is that from him?” Peter rose to his feet and went to her. He touched the jewels on the horse. “It’s magnificent,” he breathed. She closed her fingers around it, opened her knapsack, and placed it inside. “It belongs in Livrustkammaren,” she whispered. “We’ll never have to con another day in our lives.”

Peter tipped her chin up to meet his eyes. Could he see she’d been crying? Ronja mentally tightened her costume, the one she’d put on the day she’d returned from her first rendezvous with Fredrik five months ago. When Ronja had told Peter everything, he’d chuckled in admiration. “Conning the royal family? You dream big, Ronja.” His face had split into a wide smile, one that faltered when Ronja said she was done sleeping with him, but he agreed. They’d done it before, abstained from one another during a long heist, fusing into their characters. That didn’t stop him from threading his fingers through her hair and kissing her languorously. “What’s the end game?” he’d asked.

“When he gives me his heart. Or something more valuable.”

“You’re cruel.” Peter had searched her eyes back then, just as he was now.

And Ronja held her ground back then, just as she was now.

Because if she looked away, he’d know that she’d broken the first rule of con artistry.

She’d fallen in love.

Peter was tense, fidgeting, and his eyes were a tempest as they hurried to the dinner party. His touch chilled her more than the post-rain air as they walked on the cobblestone street, past blocks of stuccoed homes toward the restaurant in Gamla Stan. The waters surrounding the city crested from winds that thrashed through the narrow streets. Ronja hugged the fur stole around her shoulders and gripped her clutch. It was an act of balance and skill in her black stilettos, relieved once entering Den Gyldene Freden.

Tonight would be the last night she’d ever see Peter again. She thought back to all those years ago, when he’d whisked her from her perch aboard the Finnlines vessel on her way from Germany, in her quest to find her family. “I mistook you for an angel,” he said. She rolled her eyes, but it was impossible not to be smitten with his golden skin and hair, his square jaw, and blue-green eyes. She would have easily lost interest in his outer appearance, but there was more to him—intelligent conversations, dreams to travel the world, and riches to make. This dinner party was no doubt a seed of his latest inception.

Inside the restaurant, she was enveloped by warmth. Golden tones rippled across the ceiling, and well-loved oak flooring was underfoot. The ambiance was accompanied by the muted gaiety of conversations and clinking dinnerware, white tablecloths and flickering candles. They were led into one of the intimate rooms, a gathering of men and women in dressy attire. From the corner, a string quartet serenaded them.

“You haven’t told me what this evening is for,” she said, surprised. Typically, he gave her at least an hour, if not a day, to memorize her new persona.

He glanced at her with sincere eyes. “Because it’s not for fun this time.”

For fun. Peter’s code for finding their next target. The last time she’d attended an event for fun had been a Christmas gala at Moderna Museet, the night she began plotting how to leave Peter, right before she surrendered to Fredrik’s pursuit of her. Peter always found his way into these high-society soirées. A forged invitation here. A smooth lie there. But that morning before the gala, Ronja had read in the newspaper about a business tycoon found dead in his home. The article didn’t say it, but she suspected he’d killed himself.

Because he’d lost his trust fund to a couple of scam artists.

She imagined the man’s family spending Christmas without him. Peter had dragged her heavy limbs to and from each guest at the art museum, his irritation increasing with her lack of enthusiasm. Afterward, at home, she could barely undress, the guilt was an albatross. He removed his suit coat, took off his cufflinks, and unbuttoned his shirt.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she’d said, unmoving. “Don’t we have enough money now—to lead honest lives?”

Peter frowned. “Not one person we took money from lives an honest life.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and regarded her pensively. His jaw ticked. “What are you going to do? Leave?”

“You don’t need me,” she whispered.

He crossed to her at once, took her face into his hands, and drilled his eyes into hers before claiming her mouth. Peter always found a way to dissolve her doubts and hesitation. Either with his touch, his words, or his restraint. She feared he knew her better than she did herself.

After they made love, Ronja had watched him fall asleep, and she touched his face, kissed his closed eyes that quivered from a dream. And she knew. The only way she could ever leave Peter was to escape from him.

Now inside the restaurant, Peter pressed a hand on Ronja’s back and prodded her toward two couples at one of the tables. He said in her ear, “I want you to enjoy yourself. No games tonight. We’re Peter and Ronja.”

She shot him a subtle, suspicious glance, before turning to greet the couples. Based upon the thinning hairlines of the men and cropped bouffants of the women, they were older than Ronja and Peter by several decades. The men sprang from their chairs, greeting Ronja first and then introducing their wives. Ronja played her part with dainty handshakes, a tilt of her chin, and a pat of her long bouncy hair.

Peter removed her stole, swept her hair aside, and kissed the spot below her ear, the sensitive one that always weakened her. He handed the stole to the host who also offered to take Ronja’s clutch, but she kept it tight against her body. It held her travel documents and the American passport she’d stolen from a tourist months ago, doctored with her own photograph, and painstakingly altered with the name and birthdate:

Sarah Ann Thomason, April 4th, 1928.

But most importantly, her clutch held the Dalahäst from Fredrik. Tonight, when Peter was asleep, she plotted to slip out at dawn, withdraw from the bank the money she’d been skimming from him, and flee to the airport.

But Fredrik’s words kept pushing her heart, marching away her plans: We’ll start new. Ronja touched her stomach. The three of us. How could she do this to him?

She eyed the men and listened to the women’s chatter, her mind twisting. For once, Peter wasn’t telling lies. Not exactly. Were they interviewing him for a job? His eyes peered at her over the lip of the tumbler holding his Scottish whiskey. This isn’t for fun. But she was always his dazzling prop. He was the grifter. No one would ever believe a face as beautiful as yours capable of a lie, he always said.