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Tommy gripped the leather strap of his carry-on as he stepped through the Arrivals Gate at Heathrow. He scanned the area, then marched across the pale marble floor crisscrossed with darker veins, searching for Tessa.

The steady hum of announcements filtered through his thoughts, but his attention was honed in on the people milling about. Faces blurred together, none of them familiar. He hated this. Being alone in a crowd was nothing new to him, but the separation from Tessa was like being underwater and needing oxygen.

She’d booked separate flights. He should have expected it, considering she wanted them to travel as strangers, but it had still caught him off guard. At least he’d made it through with no issues, his new passport solid.

Once they’d arrived at Sibiu, she’d refused to explain the details of her mysterious call. Something was up, though, and he was mad as hell at her resolute, unwavering insistence on keeping it a secret. He tried texting her on their burner phones several times. He called her once. She ignored him.

Now, here he was, scanning the inside of the airport like a lost puppy while she was who knew where.

His connecting flight didn’t leave for two hours. Two hours, and he would be on his way back to America. He wondered if she would be there when he arrived. Maybe she’d gotten cold feet after that phone call. For all he knew, she wasn’t even in London.

A man approached, holding a placard with a single name scrawled in neat letters. Mathers. At first, Tommy forgot his alias, but then he realized the guy was beelining for him. He tensed. “You looking for me?”

“Yes, sir,”

the man said. His crisp accent was smooth, polished British, and it reminded Tommy of his days at The Farm, where his training had taught him how to pick apart authenticity. This guy was the real deal. “The Architect sent me.”

Tessa. Relief relaxed his shoulders. Maybe they would finally meet up again. After following the man through the crowded airport, he stepped outside into a foggy, rainy mist. He climbed into the sleek, black car waiting at the curb, the leather interior smelling faintly of bergamot.

They drove out of the city and onto winding country roads. Tommy pulled out his phone to text Tessa, feeling uneasy about it, but found she had already messaged him. I’m waiting.

A castle appeared on the horizon, modest by royal standards but still carrying the kind of old money charm that screamed exclusivity. Looming in muted gray stone, with ivy creeping up its sides and luxuriant gardens, it seemed to belong more to the landscape than the people who lived there.

Who did live there?

Tommy whistled under his breath. “What is this place? “

The man seemed confused by the question. “The Grand Fox. It belongs to Ms. Vulpe.”

Tessa, always surprising him. She’d claimed her mother had given up her rights to her family’s royal holdings, but this? This was out of a storybook, and if it belonged to Tessa, it meant there was more to that story.

Or that she’d lied.

He shook his head, hoping it wasn’t the latter.

The drive was a substantial U-shaped stone path, a three-tiered fountain in its center. The butler opened the double entry doors who seemed straight out of central casting, his black tails immaculate, and his hair slicked back without a single strand out of place. “Mr. Mathers, welcome,”

he said, motioning for Tommy to enter. “I’m Clarence.”

The interior was…a lot. Thick Persian rugs blanketed the floors, muffling his footsteps as he followed the butler down the hall. Chandeliers hung from overhead, casting light that glinted off polished wood and the gilded picture frames lining the walls. Those frames held portraits of severe men and women who stared down at him, their eyes dripping judgment. Even the air smelled expensive—like old books and lemon furniture polish.

Tommy couldn’t decide if he wanted to laugh at the pretension or run.

On one hand, he didn’t blame Tessa’s mother for giving this up. On the other, he had to question her sanity.

“Ms. Vulpe is expecting you,”

Clarence said, stopping at a set of tall, double doors.

When they opened, a maid was there who led him deeper into the mansion and into a room that felt stuffier than the rest of the house, which was saying something. It was all dark paneling, heavy drapes, and velvet furniture. A Victorian drama theater stage that had been left to collect dust.

But there she was.

Tessa stood by the window, her silhouette lit by the fading afternoon light. When she faced him, the usual spark in her gaze was tempered. “Thank you,”

she said to the maid, her voice carrying a clipped authority. The woman dipped her chin and disappeared, leaving them alone as she closed the doors behind her.

“Nice digs,”

Tommy said. His bag thumped to the floor as he released it. “Didn’t peg you for the aristocrat type, especially after what you told me about your mom leaving all this behind.”

“I was told she had, but a few years ago, an attorney for the estate reached out to me. This place belonged to my grandparents. They’ve passed on, and with my mother gone as well, the place became mine. I plan to sell it, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

Her fingers traveled over the edges of the furniture and fireplace. “It’s useful when I need somewhere no one would think to look for me. Also”—her gaze pinned him again—“when I need to interrogate someone.”

He stiffened. “Are you going to explain what that means, or should I start guessing?”

She gracefully lifted a snifter of dark liquid as she scanned him from head to toe. He felt like he was under a microscope. “I know about your plan. How you’ve set me up. Set up the swans.”

The air left his lungs. “What are you talking about?”

She used the glass to point at a chair. “Destabilizing global power structures and framing them for it. All the while, you’ve acted as if you’re on the trail of the Russian investors and their conspirators. You convinced me that you want to stop the EMP attacks when, in reality, you’re working with the Russians to execute them.”

He blinked. “Are you drunk?”

“Don’t tell me you’re not involved.”

She swished the liquor around in the glass. “It’s clever, I’ll give you that. And Jessie? Making us all believe she’s dead while she’s orchestrating it behind the scenes. Wow. You really had me going on that one. Meg, too.”

“Wait, what? Making you believe she’s dead? She is dead, Tessa. And I’m not working with the Russians. For God’s sake, where the hell is this coming from? Meg?”

Her laugh was bitter. “Whose idea was it? Yours or Jessie’s?”

“Have you lost your freaking mind?”

“I can’t believe I fell for it. For…”

She gestured at him. “You and your act.”

“I’m not acting.”

He crossed the room to stand in front of her. “What happened on the train? Who called you?”

“Spence. He told me all about a mole framing the swans for the attacks. I knew you wanted revenge for Jessie’s death, and I might have understood your actions if that were the only part of it, but the two of you betrayed all of us? How could you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Yeah, I wanted vengeance on Mosai Hagar, and yes, I want those Russian bastards to pay for what they’re about to do, but… You think I’m working with them? That Jessie’s alive and we’re conspiring against the CIA? Seriously, what have you been smoking, woman?”

“Just tell me the truth.”

“I am telling the truth!”

Disbelief tightened his throat. “I would never betray you, and yes, I have issues with the swans, but… How can you think I’d do such a thing? Not just to them, but with the EMP attacks to the soldiers at the bases? To the innocent people who’d be affected by them? Jesus.”

He jammed his hand through his hair and paced away from her. He turned back. “You know me better than that, Tessa.”

“Do I?”

For a long moment, she studied him with that unreadable expression of hers.

He let her see it on his face. No subterfuge. No lies.

Seeming to come to some decision, she blew out a long sigh. “This is why I can’t be a spy. I can’t constantly wonder if someone is betraying me.”

“I’m not.”

Another long look. “I analyze people to figure out their intentions, but I also have an internal radar that never steers me wrong. You’ve upset that radar. It feels…off.”

What was he supposed to say? “Sorry…?”

“I don’t want to have feelings for you. That’s the problem.”

Again, was he supposed to apologize? Screw that. “I’m not a traitor. I’m not working with one. I swear to you, I will never hurt you or betray your trust.”

For the third time, all she did was size him up. As if it took everything she had, she finally gave a nod and motioned him to follow her. “I want to show you something.”

He joined her at the desk, where a laptop was open. She hit a couple of keys, and the screen displayed a grainy video feed. He squinted at it, recognizing the setting. “The train station?”

“You, Spence, and Del are gifted at this technology, but I’m not without resources. This is from the station’s CCTV. Watch.”

She clicked the play button, and he leaned closer. On screen, people moved along one of the hallways. He scanned them before she stopped the feed, rewound it, and played it again. “What am I looking for?”

“I think you know.”

She rewound the feed a second time and hit play.

His stomach bottomed out. What she’d said about Jessie…

Sure enough, this time, when he scanned the crowd, he saw a hooded figure that made his breath catch. The woman did her best to stay behind a group of taller individuals, but several times, as she made her way down the hall, at least part of her face was visible.

“It can’t be,”

he whispered.

“I can’t confirm it’s her without running this through facial recognition,”

Tessa said. Her voice sounded distant, overly detached. “But if this is Jessie, she’s been alive this whole time.”

His mind raced, memories of his sister’s death replaying like a broken film reel. Mosai Hagar. The swing of the machete. The blood.

But he’d found circumstantial evidence that suggested Jessie might’ve been tied to Hager and the Russian investors. Evidence he couldn’t allow himself to believe.

And hadn’t shared with anyone. Not even Tessa.

He closed his eyes and bowed his head. “There’s no way. We saw her die.”

His voice broke on the last word.

“We saw someone die,”

Tessa corrected. He heard the snap of the laptop closing. “It smells like an elaborate cover-up.”

He couldn’t stay still, opening his eyes and turning away from her. Jessie was alive. She’d faked her death. Why? “I have been seeing her.”

“Looks that way.”

She leaned a hip on the desk, her face still remote. “You said she knew about the superconductors and went to MediSune to speak to the developer. Maybe it wasn’t because she was trying to stop the EMP attacks but because she was a co-conspirator in them. The question is, if she’s betrayed her country and has been working with Hagar and the Russians, why has she been following you? My best guess is that she fears you’re about to reveal her deception and expose the truth. I think she shot at us to scare us off.”

He rubbed his hands over his face, trying to piece together a puzzle that refused to make sense. Tessa watched him as if she still wasn’t sure she trusted him. It made him feel like an alien in his own skin.

“She’s working with the Russians,”

Tessa said, as if driving the point home to keep him from further argument with himself. “That’s the only explanation.”

“No.”

His denial was automatic. He shook his head adamantly, even though he’d been worried about this exact thing. “She’s no traitor. There has to be another explanation.”

But even as the words hung in the air, doubt crept in, cold and unwelcome.

Tessa blew out a long, slow breath, her detachment melting away. A bleak sadness filled her eyes. “I want to believe that, too.”

Hands on hips, he continued to pace the elegant room, feeling completely out of place. “The first thing we have to do is confirm it’s her.”

“Any idea how?”

He went to the desk, gesturing for her to move so he could sit at the laptop. “She was hunting that Viktor fellow. Hagar was a lead, just like MediSune.”

She shifted to stare over his shoulder as he began logging into his personal, encrypted files in the cloud. “If she wasn’t a traitor, do you think Hagar knew she was on his trail?”

Flipping between theories—was Jessie a traitor working with Hagar and the Russians, or was she trying to expose them—made his head spin. “Yes, and if he was part of the larger coup to set up the swans for the attacks, that’s why he singled her and Meg out that night. He wanted to expose the swans to the world.”

When she saw him open a software program and drop a snapshot of Jessie’s face from the station into it, she made a sound of appreciation. “You have your own version of facial recognition?”

“I borrowed some of the basic programming from our friends at the Agency, tweaked it, and created a bare bones version that I can run without them, or any other law enforcement service, knowing.”

“I’m impressed.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “I still can’t believe you thought I was behind all this.”

“I’m jaded. You know that.”

Not an apology. His chest, already caving in, tweaked. She was right—he did know it. He shouldn’t be surprised.

“Why has she been following you?”

Tessa paced the rug. “She’s too sloppy to let herself be seen, and yet, you detected her three times. And how did she follow us to the train station?”

He didn’t have answers to those questions. Again, her analysis was correct—if Jessie didn’t want to be seen, she wouldn’t be. It was sloppy for her to have gotten close enough that he could make her out in a crowd. Had she been counting on him not to believe his own eyes?

“If she is alive….”

His voice choked again, the ramifications ramming into him like a tidal wave. “I just can’t…”

“I know.”

She placed a hand on his shoulder. It was warm and heavy, reassuring. “We’ll figure it out.”

He glanced at the clock in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. “Our plane…”

“The plan has changed. We won’t be going to Arizona. Not yet, anyway.”

She grabbed her cell phone off the desk. “I’m going to make a few calls. You’re going to check your clothes and bag to make sure there’s no tracking device hidden in them.”

Before either of them could say another word, the software program pinged.

There, on the screen, the shot from the train station up on the left, and a clearer photo taken from a CIA personnel file came on the right. Red dots highlighted the matching features in each image—there were only three, and only on the right side of her face.

But it was enough.

Tessa clenched her phone as Tommy swore under his breath.

Confirmation.

Jessie Mendoza was alive.