Because he’d been playing her the entire time.
Because she’d let herself believe the act.
So, yeah, that was a relationship that had ended well.
Ian had used her, and she’d missed every sign because she’d wanted to believe him.
She would not make that mistake again.
Her phone buzzed in her hand. She grabbed it like a lifeline.
“Yes.” Her voice came out steadier than she felt.
“Status?” London’s crisp tone cut through the line—professional, focused, everything Jayden needed to be and wasn’t feeling.
“Still grounded in Cairns. Storm shut down all flights. I’m at a local hotel until it clears.”
“And the security consultant?”
Jayden’s throat tightened. “Next door.”
A pause. “Nimue did a deep dive into the data you sent.”
“And?”
“He’s not just a security consultant.”
The words landed in Jayden’s stomach like stones. “Explain.”
“He’s in possession of a security assessment we found on a Russian cloud server—something we think sets up an attack.”
Jayden stilled. “What?”
London paused. “We’ve seen this pattern before, Lynx. Operatives who look clean on the surface but serve other masters underneath.”
Jayden sank onto the edge of the bed. The mattress creaked beneath her weight. “You think he’s the threat?”
“I think we can’t rule it out.” London’s voice was careful. Measured. “We’ve received intel that Alan Martin is meeting someone in Sydney. Someone who was on your original flight from Hawaii.”
The room felt suddenly smaller. “Dakota was on that flight.”
“So were approximately two hundred other passengers. But how many of them had a reason to be there, the same tour group, the same hotel—next door to you?”
Jayden pressed her free hand against her thigh, willing herself to think clearly. “Our bags were switched.”
“Tell me.”
“Three identical bags got mixed up in the chaos. I grabbed Dakota’s by mistake. He grabbed another bag. Thought it was mine—it wasn’t.”
She paused, remembering the weight of the bag, the way it had felt wrong from the first moment. “Hold a second.”
She went to the bag and opened it up, rooted through it, past the cotton grandma underwear.
And then, “Oh no.”
“What?”
“I found carbon-fiber tubes.” She pulled them out. “They’re modular, designed to slot together.” She set them down. “And there’s a trigger assembly disguised as part of a hair dryer.” She opened the makeup case. “And there’s a scope in here.”
