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KC lay on her back and panted, trying to find her breath. The grit in the grotty hallway carpet pressed into her shoulders. Her thigh was screaming with a giant, throbbing bruise, and the ear-piercing bell of the fire alarm rattled her teeth.

They’d gotten away.

KC had been running after the man and woman she and Yardley disarmed and nearly subdued when Yardley caught her by the hips before she could stop their descent down the stairwell, knocking her backward.

Now, Yardley was breathing hard, on her knees but getting ready to stand up. The alarm cut out with one last sharp trill.

“Why the fuck did you stop me?” KC peeled herself up off the floor. She could hear shouting residents at the bottom of the staircase and the sound of a siren nearby.

“Because they were running away.” Yardley reached her hand down.

“I don’t chase anyone or anything unless it’s absolutely dire.

Which is almost never. What would we do if we caught them, torture them with snacks until they told us what we wanted to know?

The CIA is not law enforcement. Let the FBI chase people. They have to pass physicals.”

KC accepted Yardley’s outstretched hand and got to her feet. “Shouldn’t we jet before the fire crew comes? They’ll sweep the building.”

Yardley was already on her way back into the apartment. KC brushed herself off and followed in time to see her tap on the wardrobe. “Clear for now.”

Kris opened the wardrobe and stepped out.

A lot of chemicals had flooded KC’s system in the last three and a half minutes, the kind that would probably leave behind a few gray hairs as they broke down inside her body, but it hadn’t occurred to her to be angry until she saw Kris attempting to discreetly wipe the tears off her face.

“What the hell were you doing?” KC scanned the room, noticing a partially smashed bakery box on the floor. “Did you sneak out without leaving a note or way to find you just to buy pastries ?”

Yardley bolted the apartment door, then went to the kettle.

She pulled down a mug from the shelf. “Of course not. I left to get tech.” Her face was pink from exertion and as serious as KC had ever seen it.

“Listen, you can be as mad at me as you want to.” Yardley’s posture was debutante correct, her voice scratchy.

“But I’m going to get hot tea into our asset, and you need to reach into a hole in the left side of the box frame for the comm set so you can tell Gramercy to call off the firefighters and whoever else might be on their way.

We need the cover to stay put for about a half hour without anyone else on us or the local emergency squad making problems. Someone needs to check for a sniper on the roof of the bakery on the northeast corner of this block.

Gramercy should get transpo ready for Evenes Air Base.

Don’t tell him about the micro drive yet.

Give us a minute before we have to deal with Mom and Dad. ”

KC had already found the comm set ten minutes before Yardley crashed into the apartment. She froze as she sat down on the floor to take the components out of the case to activate it. “You don’t want me to tell him about the microdrive.”

Yesterday afternoon, interviewing Kris while Yardley closely watched them both, had taught KC the difference between concealing the whole truth to keep herself and people she cared about safe and muffling vital information into silence for reasons that didn’t sit right.

Back home, KC had become weary from the lies she told Yardley to protect Yardley, herself, and the agency, but she’d never felt like she had swallowed a razor.

She didn’t know how deep cover and black ops officers like Dr. Brown overrode their own intuition, the strong urge inside them to trust someone who could help, in favor of a much bigger picture.

KC didn’t like it. It wasn’t her thing. Not at all.

Yardley had crossed to the window to look through the blind.

Now, she turned around, and the light drew a golden glow around the outline of her body.

“It’s always a good idea to hang onto your pocket nuke.

If something comes up and you have to use it, you still have it to use.

Or you can trade it for something else you need.

As long as you’re in the field, it’s your mission. Your decision.”

KC took a moment, fiddling with the comm set, to absorb Yardley’s perspective.

She’d thought it would be a relief for the drive to be taken out of their hands. To give up control to the agency, come what may. The truth was, she was scared. The people she’d fought in the hallway scared her. KC hadn’t recognized them, and, thank Christ, she didn’t think they’d recognized her.

If KC was a mark, it likely meant Dr. Brown’s op wasn’t a secret anymore. It might mean Dr. Brown wasn’t safe, or even still alive.

When he had sworn her to secrecy, he’d told her that maintaining the covert nature of a black op was a matter of life or death. But what if this secret KC kept was what got Kris or Yardley killed?

KC wasn’t sure how much Yardley suspected at this point, but she owed it to the three of them to make smart decisions.

She wanted to honor Kris and the terrifying risks she had taken to get here.

Kris knew KC had built the device—she’d made that clear when she told KC it looked like a “ghost” built it.

It was what they used to say when one of them had made something secret, often something risky. I’m going in as a ghost.

KC cleared her throat. “You’re in charge,” she said. “I’m just making sure I’ve got my orders clear.”

Yardley squatted down in front of her, bringing her face closer to KC’s level. “Here’s another field lesson,” she said gently. “Don’t let them tell you when the mission’s over, and as much as you want to go home or save innocents, don’t let it end too soon.”

KC could feel her heartbeat in her ears. Maybe if they’d had more time apart, she would be able to tell the difference between her feelings for Yardley and what was best for this mission.

But they hadn’t.

She couldn’t.

All of it—Yardley, the pain of losing her, the futile scraps of hope that something of their relationship could be salvaged, alongside the fragile and explosive mission that was Project Maple Leaf—had stripped away any but the most immediate decision-making capabilities from KC.

“Good advice,” she said. Yardley raised her eyebrows, maybe surprised KC hadn’t argued with her. “Along with don’t chase anyone,” she added.

“Not unless they’re really hot.”

A morning sunbeam caught motes of dust in the air, lighting up a halo around Yardley’s smooth, dark hair. There was a rip at the knee of the black trousers she wore—clothes she must have pulled out of the wardrobe in the dark, so stealthy that KC hadn’t heard her.

Before, KC might have said the Yardley she knew was incapable of waking up before dawn to carry out a secret mission and return with breakfast. That the Yardley she loved was a soft, intimate creature who liked to snuggle deep under piles of blankets, exclaim over baby pig videos on her phone, and take hot showers until the bathroom mirror dripped with steam.

She was different in the field, but she wasn’t a stranger.

KC knew this woman. She was the Yardley from that backyard picnic, the woman KC saw and fell in love with in what felt like the same breath.

KC knew how this woman kissed, how she begged, the way her hands felt sliding up the bare skin of KC’s back.

She knew how to make her laugh and how to make her moan and how to make her burst into angry tears.

She also knew how to hold herself back from this woman until she withdrew, gave up, walked away. KC had done it and done it. She’d made excuses. She’d made herself wretched.

But she’d never really trusted Yardley—not with the stories that made her vulnerable. The fears that made her sick.

She wondered what would happen if she did.

And so she smiled at Yardley’s joke, and watched as Yardley was surprised by the congenial olive branch. KC put in the earpiece and only reported what Yardley had told her to, ignoring the rest of the rapid-fire questions Gramercy put to her. Then she disconnected and set the comm on the mattress.

Yardley had put a hot mug of tea in front of Kris and deposited the crushed box of pastries on the table. She carried over a short stack of plates to serve them on.

“Even if you don’t want to eat these”—Yardley plucked a plastic Hello Kitty case from the floor by its shoulder strap—“I do have something you like.”

She set the case on the table and opened it to reveal an extremely sophisticated bit of machinery that KC had, in fact, more than once yearned to get her hands on if the agency would ever let a tech have anything like it.

They wouldn’t, lest a tech take over the agency.

“I got this from a Ukrainian gentleman who I played cribbage with on a train.” She stacked a signal booster and comm set on the table.

“I thought if we were going to hit Mirabel’s place, you might need a higher caliber of toys to play with.

I’m certain, given this morning’s events, there’s plenty of chatter among people like you two who know where to find it.

It would be helpful if we had schematics of Mirabel’s properties and holdings, and if we could get intel on whether he’ll stay here now that Flynn’s given him the slip. ”

Yardley pushed the pastry box in Kris’s direction. “Don’t skip meals. We’ll have long days before there’s even a minute to rest. The bakery these are from is unreal. It’s run by a Nigerian couple who trained in Paris, and their semla buns are made with a sweet-potato dough.”

Her voice had dropped into the hospitable and soothing cadence of her mother’s. If KC hadn’t seen it for herself, she would have no way of knowing that moments ago Yardley had dropped an agent and stepped on her back.