Page 124 of Only the Wicked

“Double operation? I told you I’m not sure I can trust Sydney.”

“Right.” She lowers her sunglasses back onto the bridge of her nose and waits. “I’m backing you up.”

“And Sydney could be working for KOAN and Russia.” Repeating it back to her sounds as repulsive as when she said it.

“Lots of possibilities,” she says as casually as if we’re standing in front of the deli counter in San Francisco.

“I’ll admit that I don’t trust this group she’s working for. But Sydney’s not working for Russia. Not knowingly at least. She’s hunting for someone who would leak a list of assets. She thinks someone within our company might have done it.”

I take off my backpack and the flow of air over my drenched shirt immediately cools my skin.

“Word of advice,” Daisy quips, nose crinkled.

“Yes?” I unzip my bag, searching for my phone.

“Shower before you try anything with the missus.”

I shoot her a glare that should warn her to back off this. Besides, it’s not like she’s my missus if I can’t trust her.

“She played you.”

She didn’t play me is right there, on the tip of my tongue, aching to come out, but I bite it back because the denial would be a lie.

“Now you need to play her.”

I crush the plastic bottle in my grip.

“We need to figure out what angle KOAN is working.”

I let out a frustrated groan, my only acknowledgement that Daisy is right.

Out of a stream of messages, there’s one from an unknown number that stops me cold.

* * *

Unknown Number

Icarus

* * *

My heart rate spikes. No one knows about my private comparison to Icarus except…

What the hell? Would Syd tell someone? Was someone listening?

“Oh, and I thought you should look at this.” Daisy pulls out her phone and flips it to show satellite imagery of the Russian embassy—imagery available in ARGUS’s classified feeds.

I scan the time stamp and see it’s yesterday. The resolution is sharp enough to identify faces, though I don’t recognize the pedestrians. “What am I supposed to see here?”

“Wait for it,” she says, a hint of anticipation in her voice.

A black Mercedes pulls up outside the embassy. My security team’s car. I check the time again. Five p.m. That would’ve been after my meeting, when I was back at the hotel with Sydney.

The door opens, and a figure emerges—unmistakably my partner, Miles. He walks directly into the embassy without being checked at the gate.

“What the hell?” The words barely escape my throat.

Miles and I don’t always see eye to eye, but we’ve founded two companies together. With ARGUS, we see eye to eye on everything, except nonprofit status. Lately though, it’s been two against one. More and more he’s been siding with Alex… Hell, I’m on vacation partly because the executive team meetings have become unbearable—Alex presenting spreadsheet after spreadsheet showing what we’re “leaving on the table” by staying private, and Miles nodding along like a bobblehead. He wants to keep Alex on, because ultimately, he agrees with Alex about the need to go public. Meanwhile, his going behind my back to Russia would only undermine his IPO argument and solidify my point—an entity as powerful as ARGUS cannot ethically be driven by profit.