“Ready?” Dakota’s voice was low, meant only for her.
Jayden looked at the door. Behind it: answers, maybe. Evidence. Proof of who Riley Stewart really was—innocent tourist or Spectre in disguise.
Or another dead end in a mission that was running out of time.
She slid the key card into the lock.
The light turned green.
She pushed open the door.
WASHINGTON, DC – INAUGURATION NIGHT
The tuxedoed elite of Washington, DC, never looked at the waiters.
That was the first thing Alan Martin had learned in this business—not tradecraft, not weapons, not the dozen ways to kill a man with household objects. Just this: Wear the right uniform, and you become invisible.
Tonight, the uniform was a white jacket and a silver tray. The occasion was the inaugural ball for President-elect Isaac White and his new vice president, Reba Jackson. The mission was simple: surveillance. Positioning. A key card delivered to a contact who would give hotel access to a Chechen warlord named Tsarnaev, who waited with information that could reshape the balance of power.
The kind of work that didn’t require Alan to feel anything.
The scar above his eyebrow itched. It always did when he was about to do something he’d regret.
Damien’s parting gift. A reminder, carved into his flesh, that he didn’t get to care about anyone. That everything he touched turned to ash.
He adjusted his grip on the serving tray and moved through the crowd.
The grand ballroom of the Patriot Hotel dripped with American iconography—crystal chandeliers the size of small cars, gold-leaf molding, massive flags flanking a stage where the new president had given his victory speech an hour ago. Now the string orchestra played Cole Porter while senators danced with lobbyists and cabinet nominees air-kissed donors.
The smell of expensive perfume and champagne couldn’t quite mask the metallic undercurrent of power. Everyone in this room wanted something from everyone else. Alan just didn’t pretend otherwise.
He deposited an empty tray at a service station, picked up a fresh one loaded with champagne flutes, and scanned the room. Secret Service agents in tuxedos, earpieces barely visible. Plainclothes FBI—he could spot them by the way they held their champagne glasses without drinking. VP-elect Jackson herself, radiant in burgundy, laughing at something the Secretary of Defense had said.
And there, near the east entrance, a face that made his stomach drop.
York Newgate.
Alive. Whole. Standing beside a blonde woman who was laughing at something he’d said.
Signe Kincaid. His mark in Italy who’d gotten away. And of course he knew her from before, too. A captive in the camp of a Georgian warlord.
Alan’s hands tightened on the tray. The champagne flutes trembled, crystal singing against crystal.
York had survived.
Of course he had. York Newgate had survived the Bratva killing his first wife and child. Had survived years of hunting ghosts through Moscow’s shadows. Had survived Alan shoving a knife into his side as their car went over a cliff.
The memory hit him like a fist?—
The Okanogan highway, dusk bleeding out behind the mountains. The SUV’s tires humming over patched asphalt. Igor up front beside him, Volkov in the back with the prisoner, because you didn’t drive York Newgate anywhere without a man at his shoulder.
York sat in the middle seat, cuffed, running his mouth the way he always did, like a man who hadn’t worked out yet that he was being driven to the end of his life. Taking the shortcut back to DC? As if Alan would dignify it. As if Alan hadn’t lain awake the night before, turning the assignment over and over, looking for the seam in it that would let him say no.
There hadn’t been one. There never was, with Crowley.
The kid had come out of nowhere. A college kid in a football jersey, ambling off a trailhead, asking for help like the world was still a place where strangers helped each other. Igor had him on the hood before Alan could think. And then the kid fought back—of course he did, he was young and stupid and brave—and Igor put him down with one blow, and there was blood on the gravel, and a body they couldn’t leave behind.
That was the moment, Alan thought now. That was where it turned. Not the gun, not the cuffs, not the plan to put York over the edge—he’d made his peace with York a long time ago. But the kid. The innocent. The one Crowley’s math had never accounted for and never would.
