Page 1 of Dagger’s Shield

1

DAGGER

My timing was the bloody worst imaginable when I stepped out of Magnolia’s room at the same time Givre exited hers. Even more abysmal was that, when she glanced at me, I was running my fingers through my still-wet hair.

Her reaction—raised brow, smirk, and head shake—was no different than what I’d anticipated.

“What are…oh,” said Magnolia, bumping into me as I stood outside her door. “Good morning, Givre,” she added as she skirted around me and the two women met at the top of the villa’s staircase. “Time for coffee, or should we head out?”

“I have things to review before the briefing, so now would be best,” Givre responded without giving me a second look.

We didn’t typically carpool to the Minerva Protocol headquarters even when there was an all-team meeting, like there was this morning, given our hours, ops, and missions were varied.

I stayed a few paces behind them as we descended to the main floor of the estate in Lausanne that had served as our operational base for the last two weeks, and studied the woman I was half-mad for. Her coat was over one arm, and her computer bag was slung on her opposite shoulder. Her hair was loose and curly, and she wore jeans, a sweater, and boots. She could’ve come down in a bin bag, and I’d still have forgotten whatever I was about to say.

Maëlle Valais, code name Givre, who I’d wanted to fuck since the day she walked into Minerva, kept me firmly planted in the colleagues zone for exactly what happened this morning.

I was a scoundrel. A dog. A player. I didn’t do relationships. I never had. My line of work was the excuse I used, but the truth was, beyond a shag, a laugh, or occasionally grabbing a pint, I had neither time nor interest in romantic entanglements.

She and Magnolia were out the front door, and I was about to follow when I heard my name.

“Dagger? A moment, if you could,” said Lyra Hyde-Carrington, aka Mercury, director of the elite private intelligence firm whose headquarters I was on my way to. She, her sister, and brother had founded it years ago after the murder of another of their siblings and the assassination of their father, Horatio Hyde, code name Minerva.

The man was almost mythical in spy circles. That’s how good he’d been.

The protocol’s initial mandate had been to find the person or organization responsible for the deaths of their family members. In the time between its inception and now, they’d taken on investigations into some of the world’s worst criminals.

“Of course,” I said, following Mercury and her husband, Henry, into her study.

He closed the door behind us and motioned for me to take a seat.

“Have you heard any chatter about Vasiliev’s whereabouts?”

“None. He hasn’t surfaced in the two weeks since the warehouse raid.” The one in which her sister, Eleanor, was killed, not that she needed that reminder from me.

“Which likely means he’s gone underground to plan his next move,” she muttered.

I agreed. We all did. “Was there anything else?”

“No. Thank you, Dagger.” She glanced at her mobile. “We’ll see you at headquarters shortly. Let everyone know we’re ten minutes behind you, if you would, please.”

“Of course,” I said as I left the room.

The weather was decent, so I took the Triton. The café racer was a sixties build with a Norton frame and Triumph engine that I’d spent breaks between missions restoring.

Throughout the entirety of my fifteen-minute commute, I couldn’t shake the weight of what I’d done. It wasn’t that I regretted sleeping with Magnolia. It was that Givre witnessing me coming out of her room drove another nail in the coffin of whatever small chance I’d been holding out for with her. For months, she’d made it clear she’d never take me seriously.

I’d rounded the final curve above the lake and the Minerva headquarters came into view when a blast from ahead made my bike jolt. I nearly went down as two more explosions went off. The west side of the building blew out with the first. The east wing shifted with the second, then the third brought it down. Dust and smoke poured out of what was left.

I came to a hard stop and got a foot down on the ground as the rest of the building folded and the floors pancaked.

Givre was in there.

Magnolia. Blackjack. Beacon. The council. Our people.

I dropped the Triton and ran.

Two others who hadn’t been in the building—Reaper and Amaryllis—were ahead of me, already racing inside. The entrance was half blocked, and debris was still falling—plaster, stone, pieces of ceiling coming down in the gap where the west corner had blown out. Magnolia came out right as we went in. She was dazed and bleeding but upright. When she staggered, I put my hand on her arm to steady her.