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Chan was already opening the call function and tapping numbers. He held his finger up so we’d know to keep silent.

He brought the phone to his ear and waited for several moments without saying anything. I barely dared to breathe for risk of jinxing things. This was it. We were finally able to call for backup, and I half expected the sun to fall from the sky or Holt to appear from behind a street vendor at any second before the call could be completed.

“Adam Chan,” he said into the receiver. It wasn’t on speaker, so I couldn’t hear what the response was. After that, Chan typed in a series of numbers.

This was why I could never be a spy. Memorizing long strings of numbers had never been my forte. I mean, sure, the danger and near-death experiences weren’t great either, so all in all, it was probably best for everyone involved if I stuck to fireworks. Chan said a few other things that sounded like code phrases, but he didn’t attempt to walk out of earshot. Maybe there were protocols about leaving endangered civilians alone that negated those CIA safeguards. Or maybe he didn’t care. Any concerns I had about Mila had faded once we got away from Holt’s bunker, so maybe Chan now saw her as an ally too.

“Mendez,” Chan said into the phone, relief evident in his voice. “We’re in Paris. We’re naked and need supplies. We also have a third individual traveling with us. What’s your ETA?”

Naked. Well, there was a term that had to mean something else.

Chan’s eyes darted to Mila so quickly I almost missed it while he listened to something Agent Mendez said on the other end.

“She helped us escape,” he said.

My heart hammered in my rib cage as I took in his serious demeanor. We might believe her, but she’d still have to prove herself to Agent Mendez.

“Understood.” Chan hung up the phone, then took in a deep breath and turned to face us as we continued to power walk along the cobblestone street. He inspected each car we passed, occasionally checking the handles to see if any of them were unlocked. I hurried to keep up.

“Well,” he said. “Mendez must be in Europe, because he said to give him four hours to put together a strike team. We’ll have to keep this phone, but we can’t keep it on in case Holt tracks the unsecured signal. I’ll turn it back on at the scheduled time.”

He handed it to me to turn off while he inspected another car. But instead I stared at the lock screen that had popped up on the front of the phone.

“How’d you unlock it?” I asked.

Chan led us down another side street with more cars. “I watched people until I found someone who used a passcode instead of Face ID, then I positioned myself so I could see him enter it.”

That sounded a whole lot simpler than the convoluted action plot I was imagining in my head, full of secret spy malware or practiced maneuvers like unlocking it with the nearness of the mark’s Apple Watch, then bumping into him so he wouldn’t feel his watch pulse.

“What are you going to do if he has Find My Device turned on?” Mila asked. Which, all things considered, was a better question. We didn’t want the French police busting down our door all because of a stolen phone. Well, when we were finally behind a door, that is.

Chan didn’t answer, because the phone started ringing in my hand. And it wasn’t an unknown number either; it was from a contact in the person’s phone. We all stared at it, but then Chan actually answered the phone, putting the call on speaker so he could continue his search down the street.

“Hey,” he said smoothly. “Bonjour. I don’t know who this is, but I found this phone. So if you know who you’re trying to reach, maybe you can help me get it back to them?”

“Oh, bonjour! Hey, Brandon, come back. Someone found my phone,” a voice on the other end said, sounding tinny through the speaker. A moment later it was speaking directly to us again. “Yes, thank you so much. Where are you at?”

“Well,” Chan said. “I’m getting on a bus now, about to head to the Eiffel Tower with my tour group. But I can leave your phone in the lobby of my hotel once we get back, and you can pick it up there in the morning?”

“Oh, right,” the guy said, sounding disappointed. “Yeah, I guess that will work. I don’t want to put you out. You’re already being helpful enough.”

Mila and I exchanged a glance. Chan sent us a warning look like we were about to blow his cover. Then he gave the man on the line the name of a hotel where he could pick up his phone and hung up.

Brilliant. Chan was simply brilliant. Now the guy wouldn’t track his phone, he wouldn’t send anyone after us, and we could hold on to the phone for the evening.

And Chan had done it all just by being nice. This time when he handed me the phone, I powered it down and stuck it in my back pocket.

Chan tried the handle of an older-looking foreign car I couldn’t name the model of. I wasn’t sure what made him try some cars and not others, but when the door to this one opened, he looked pleased.

“Get in.” Chan broke off the plastic panel behind the steering wheel that hid the electrical components. His fingers worked so quickly I couldn’t make sense of it. To an outsider, it probably looked like he’d dropped his keys on the dash where the display showed the gas gauge and speedometer. It only took him a second to connect two wires together like I’d seen done before in movies. The vehicle started up immediately.

But unlike the movies, Chan then grasped the wheel and yanked sideways hard. The wheel made a crunching sound so loud I thought it was broken. Chan’s grin split his face in two, and he slid into the driver’s seat, closing the door behind him.

“What was that for?” I asked from the passenger seat, fastening my seat belt.

Chan furrowed his brows, so I motioned to the steering wheel.

“You already started the car,” I said. “Were you trying to break it, too?”

He backed out of the spot in one motion so quick I almost got whiplash. Then we were on the street, driving away from the scene of the crime in a beat-up blue sedan we’d stolen in under two minutes.

“I had to break the steering lock, or we wouldn’t have been able to turn the wheel,” Chan said, changing lanes.

Part of me wondered if he always drove like this, or if it was only when he was trying to get away from bad guys. Maybe it was a European thing, because a lot of the other drivers on the road seemed just as determined to fight over it. My fingers clutched the sides of my seat, and I did my best to breathe in and out without hyperventilating. I’d once gone to Lamaze class with a pregnant friend, but the breathing techniques I’d learned there weren’t helping any.

Chan drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Where to go,” he mused.

“I have an apartment just outside downtown Paris,” Mila offered from the back seat. “If they haven’t rented it to someone else by now. Or I have a few friends who might let us—”

But Chan was already shaking his head. “Holt will know to look there. Not only that, but you’ve been missing for four months. If you show up now, it’ll be all over the news and we need to lay low. We need a place that rents rooms by the hour and won’t ask questions when we come in looking like we’ve seen better days. Somewhere that doesn’t keep records and doesn’t have cameras.” He inclined his head knowingly. “We need the red-light district.”

This day just kept getting better and better.

Mila cleared her throat, her cheeks growing pink. “I don’t know where that is.”

Chan smirked. “Good thing I do. I know all the red-light districts in the top fifty worldwide markets.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?” I had a feeling this was something you were supposed to know about someone before you started dating them.

Chan sent me a grin that probably got him out of all kinds of trouble. “It’s required knowledge. All CIA officers who were in the field know it.” He sighed. “If I were on active duty, I’d know the current locations of the safe houses, which would be even better, but this will have to do until my team can extract us.”

If I succeeded at anything in life, I was going to make this man an active agent. He clearly had the skills for it. Even the CIA had thought so, before his hearing loss. The way I saw it, Chan’s hearing aids were a piece of equipment. The CIA used all kinds of equipment for everything else. So why did they let that stand in the way of utilizing an excellent operative?

“But you’ve already contacted them,” Mila said. “Couldn’t they give you an address?”

Chan shook his head, speeding through a light just as it turned red. “The phone we stole isn’t secure. The CIA can’t give us a safe house location, just like we can’t give them details about where we’re going or what we’ve discovered at Holt’s underground base. We can tell them to come to Paris and arrange a rendezvous by following protocols and using codes we hope Holt doesn’t know. But Holt has already proven to be resourceful. We’re mostly flying blind until we meet up with Mendez in person.”

I’d almost let myself feel safe. But Chan’s reminder brought everything crashing to the surface again. My father had found me back in Virginia, after all. He’d gotten to me before the CIA had. So who was to say he couldn’t tap this unsecured line to find me once again?

I reached out and grabbed Chan’s hand that was resting on the gearshift, needing to feel something steady and comforting. He squeezed my fingers, and my heartbeat slowed just a little in response. Of course, I released his hand a second later, because he was driving like a maniac and I wanted him to have both hands in order to respond to any threats. But it was nice to know he cared.

Paris was supposed to be romantic. But it was hard to focus on anything positive when you were waiting for the other shoe to drop. Whenever we passed a shadow, I looked to see if anyone was lurking in it. If a car followed us too closely, my chest tightened and I couldn’t breathe. People in Paris liked to use their car horns, and each time it was directed at us, I jumped in my skin and lost another five years of my life.

By the time we’d made it to the motel Chan had in mind, my nerves were about as frayed as a Chihuahua’s at the vet. Chan parked at the far end of the lot in what was definitely the seedy side of town, but I was surprised to see there were already a fair number of cars here, despite it being early in the day.

I guessed the saying was true: sex sells. Which begged a different question.

“How’re we going to pay for a room?” I asked.

Chan pulled a wallet from his jacket pocket. “Took this from a tourist who’d just sat down to watch that play that was starting up in the square. He won’t notice it’s missing for some time.” Chan opened it and pulled out a few different cards. “We can order food using the phone in the motel room.”

That poor tourist. He was about to have a horrible headache to unravel with his credit card company when he had to report his credit card had been stolen and used at a motel that rented rooms by the hour in Paris. But if it meant I didn’t have to worry about my unhinged father finding me tonight? It was a trade-off I was willing to take.

Chan saw me staring, and his face softened. He tilted my head up so I was looking at him.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll make sure the CIA gives his family something for their trouble. They’ll win an all-expenses-paid vacation to Hawaii through his employer or get a refund check from the hospital for a procedure that took place two years ago and just so happened to be billed incorrectly. We have all the information we need on this card to make sure he’s compensated. Just like we have the VIN on this car to make sure its owner won’t be put out because of us.”

Sometimes Chan really was nice. It amazed me how someone in his line of work wasn’t hardened and cynical, but here he was, living proof that a spy could be both good at his job and caring at the same time. I smiled. Then, because I couldn’t help it, I leaned over and kissed him.

From the back seat, Mila cleared her throat. “I don’t know about you, but I would kill for some greasy fries right about now.”

I broke off the kiss and turned to her with a laugh. “I thought you were supposed to be the one with a refined palate?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Every chef can appreciate good french fries. We are in France, are we not?” She laughed at her joke. “And I haven’t had anything deep-fried in four months, so I’d say I definitely deserve it.”

Chan undid his seat belt. “I doubt the lobby will have any cameras, but we’ll still have to act like we’re coming to the motel for all the normal reasons they’re used to seeing people come in.”

I froze in my seat, remembering my abysmal performance with the bachelor party bros. As much as I hated the idea of Chan flirting with Mila, I also knew I wasn’t great at acting under pressure.

“Maybe it’d be better if you and Mila go in,” I said, gesturing to my sweater and messed-up hair. “I don’t exactly look like I’m tempting men off the streets, and two women with one man—”

But Chan didn’t let me finish. He took my face in his hands.

“You don’t see yourself clearly.” He placed a light kiss on my lips. “And if you think I’m leaving you alone for even one second, you’re out of your mind.” He reached over and undid my seat belt. “Besides,” he added, “you’re thinking too much like yourself. They’re not judging, and they won’t bat an eye at seeing us all come in together. Trust me.”

I…hadn’t considered that.

But I was so momentarily bedazzled by how nonchalantly he’d kissed me that I didn’t have a response. Like we were an actual couple. Who kissed whenever we felt like it. We’d kissed twice in the last five minutes, and it was like the bones in my body had been replaced with helium.

If he said he wanted me by his side, then that was where I was going to be. If he said I was beautiful, then I believed him.

“Okay,” I said, hiding a small smile.

Of course he was right, and we didn’t have any problems getting a room. Chan was always right. The guy at the desk barely even looked up when we came in through the doors. Two minutes later and we were safely ensconced in our room, which Chan had ensured was closest to the fire escape, with the door locked, curtains closed, and food ordered.

“Get some sleep,” Chan said. “You’ve been on your feet for too long. I’ll wake you up when the food gets here.”

“What about you?” I kicked off my shoes, but very carefully did not step on the carpet. Once upon a time it had been beige, but that was probably fifteen years ago. I sat on the bed instead. After I removed the top bedspread, of course.

“I’ll sleep in a bit.” Chan pulled out one of the chairs that was nestled under the small table, and propped the curtains open one inch so he could look outside.

Mila didn’t need to be told twice. She grabbed one of the pillows and stretched out on the bed, not even bothering to take off her shoes.

It was probably a good thing we were sharing the motel room with Mila. Because it didn’t matter that I’d been awake for almost twenty-four hours by this point. Or that I looked like chewed-up cat food. I was still hyperaware of the fact that there was a perfectly good bed, and this was the first time I’d truly been safe since Chan and I had met. All I wanted to do was pull him close and kiss him senseless.

Although, I also realized I hadn’t put deodorant on for at least a solid twenty-four hours, and I’d done a lot of running in that time. Running equaled sweating. I was a walking deodorant commercial by this point.

“When will the food get here?” I asked.

“About twenty minutes.” Chan sat down and motioned for me to hand him the phone. I did so, then put my shoes back on to walk to the bathroom.

“I think we’d all sleep better after I take a shower,” I said. “That way Holt can’t follow my stench.”

I took a peek in the bathroom and was pleasantly surprised to see they supplied complimentary shampoo bottles in travel sizes. Even the red-light district had to get clean, I supposed.

Especially the red-light district.

I shuddered and tried not to think of what else was happening in this motel at this very moment. Or had happened in this shower.

I didn’t even remember falling asleep after showering and eating the takeout pizza, but when I woke up, it was to the sound of voices. It took me a moment to realize Chan was talking on the phone, with the caller on speaker. Mila was still asleep, sprawled out on the bed next to me. I lifted myself up on my elbows, rubbing sleep from my eyes. My gaze locked with Chan’s, and he smiled.

Mendez , Chan finger spelled, letting me know who he was speaking with.

I didn’t think I’d ever get over how casual Chan was with referring to his senior agent simply by his last name. But if he could get us out of here, he could call him Batman for all I cared.

How long have I been asleep? I signed.

About ten hours , he answered. Don’t worry, I slept too .

Ten hours. And Holt still hadn’t found us. I allowed myself to hope, just a little, that this might actually work. That we might make it home.

“Bad news,” Agent Mendez said. His voice crackled on the line because the connection was so poor. No wonder Chan had the volume up high. “Holt wasn’t tracking you. He’s been tracking us. He must have had eyes on every airport, because I made sure we weren’t on any records. Despite all our precautions, the second we landed in France, we’ve had a tail and we haven’t been able to shake them. I suspect that’s the only reason he didn’t kill us on sight. If we come to you, Holt will know where Andee’s hiding.”

And just like that, the light was gone. It was like a vicious beast settled on my chest, digging its claws into my lungs so I couldn’t breathe.

Help was so close, but we still couldn’t get to it.

All that work. The false trails, the drive that had me clinging to the seat like I was in free-fall, the clothes and credit cards we’d grabbed from unsuspecting tourists, the stolen car.

All of it had been for nothing.