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Leo checked the screen one last time. The cloning software Brock had installed pulsed silently, a single icon blinking like a countdown beneath the bland interface. He slipped the phone into the inner pocket of his tuxedo and adjusted the tiny earpiece.

They were flying dark tonight—just him, Kat, and Brock. More bodies on the ground meant better odds, but also more exposure and more chances to blow Kat’s cover.

The fewer people who knew Kat was alive, the longer she stayed breathing. Operational security over sentiment—always.

This was his risk. His choice.

“Comms check.”

“Reading you five by five, pretty boy,” Brock drawled, sounding far too cheerful. “The Field Marshal and I have eyes on all eighteen security feeds across The Platinum. Hell of a setup.”

Leo suppressed a sigh. “Tell me you’re not sitting there with one of your porcelain generals.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Brock huffed. “He’s in dress uniform tonight. Big night and all. And before you ask—yes, I gave him a proper briefing. Wellington’s very attentive during mission prep.”

Kat glanced over, one perfect eyebrow arched. “Good to know,” she mouthed.

“Status report,” he said.

“All systems green. I’ve got full control of their security grid. If things get hairy?—”

“—you kill the lights, trigger the fire alarms, or jam the doors,” Leo finished.

“Copy that. Place is crawling with ex-military muscle. Korolov’s not messing around.”

“Cloning app?”

“State-of-the art. Get within two feet of his phone for three minutes and it’s ours.”

“Good.”

Brock’s voice dropped, all the humor gone. “Bychkov—watch yourself. These aren’t your garden variety oligarchs playing for pocket change. These bastards play for keeps.”

Leo’s eyes met Kat’s in the reflection of the car window. “So do we.”

Outside, The Platinum Club gleamed like a jewel against the London skyline. Spotlights bathed its Art deco facade in glittering silver.

Inside those walls was their target. One wrong step wouldn’t just blow the op—it could get them both killed.

And beside him? He released a controlled breath. A complication wrapped in midnight-blue silk, lethal in every way that mattered.

“Tonight there are no replays. Only consequences.” His voice came out more strained than he intended. “If anything goes wrong, you get out. No discussion. I tell you to leave—you leave.”

The soft creak of leather marked her shift toward him. Her dark hair framed her face in sharp lines, shadowing her eyes. The vulnerability of her exposed neck, gleaming in the car’s amber light tugged at his heart.

“I know how to do my job, Leonid.”

“I need to hear you say it.”

Her chest rose and fell. A slow breath. “If you tell me to leave, I leave.”

“Good.” He didn’t give her time to reply. He opened the door, and the cold struck sharp against his face. Buttoning his jacket, he rounded the car, acutely aware of the security cameras tracking their arrival. The weight of the phone pressed against his ribs.

He opened Kat’s door.

Gone was the field agent, the fugitive. This woman could have walked off a yacht in Monaco. Her hand slipped into the crook of his arm, fingers resting lightly on his sleeve, as if she’d done it a thousand times.

As if she belonged to him.

My wife.

A cover, nothing more.

But the words wrenched under his ribs.

They ascended the steps. Inside the lobby was a study in elegance. Marble underfoot, crystal light above, the weighted hush of old money. A man in an impeccable suit approached, tablet in hand.

“Good evening, sir, madam.”

“Ivchenko,” Leo handed over the engraved invitation. “Niko and Alisa Ivchenko.”

The man scanned the names, eyes flicking from screen to face. Leo held his gaze, neutral and bored, the practiced detachment of a man used to being obeyed.

“Ah, yes. Mr. Ivchenko—and your wife.” The host inclined his head. “Mrs. Ivchenko. Welcome. We’ve been expecting you.”

He gestured toward the gilded double doors. “The private salon is just through there, to your left.”

Kat’s fingers slid into his without hesitation, the gold band warm from her skin.

Just another lie in the costume drawer. But the contact struck like a live wire—a hairline crack spidering through his control. The lie was starting to blur, and he wasn’t sure where it ended anymore.

He guided her into the salon, and the atmosphere shifted immediately.

Dark walnut framed the room and oil paintings gleaming under crystal chandeliers that spilled light across green baize tables. Diamonds caught fire as champagne flutes clinked. The air carried the unmistakable scent of wealth—old money and casual cruelty.

He scrutinized the room. Six security professionals.

Two by the entrance, two at the service door, two mingling with guests.

Hard eyes, rigid posture, weapons bulging beneath dinner jackets.

Way beyond casino-grade. He catalogued exit routes—service door, main entrance, emergency stairs behind the bar.

Brock’s voice crackled in his ear, bone-dry. “Big grins, lovebirds. You’re on their highlight reel.”

Leo glanced up, noting the security cameras high on the wall, and then his gaze moved on.

Kat’s lips barely moved. “New hair, new dress. Let’s hope it’s enough.”

“Champagne, madam?” A server appeared with a tray.

Kat smiled, easy and disarming. “Thank you.”

Leo declined.

He led her toward a table with his back to the entrance, a position that let him use the gilded mirror opposite to monitor the room without turning.

Across the felt, four players sat behind neatly stacked chips.

A portly man with jeweled fingers, Middle Eastern, Leo guessed.

Beside him, two men leaned close in conversation.

One silver-haired, the other all sharp bones and angles.

Old European money, probably. Effortless wealth.

And the last, probably American, early thirties.

He wore a hoodie under his tailored jacket and couldn’t stop tapping the edge of his cards.

Tech money. Restless hands. Easy to provoke.

None of them looked at Leo twice.

All of them looked at Kat.

Parted lips. Straightened spines. The appreciative silence that always followed beauty into a room.

Leo’s jaw hardened as their gazes lingered on her and his hand drifted to the small of her back—a gesture too proprietary for an operative who knew better.

The ring on her finger caught the light, glinting gold against her skin, and his pulse steadied.

He found himself tracking the band’s small movements, taking irrational comfort in its presence.

She deserves more than borrowed gold and lies.

The thought ambushed him, slipping past his defenses before he could intercept it.

He exhaled as he pulled out her chair. Shoved the thought down.

Back where it belonged.

With the others. The ones that stayed buried—until they didn’t.

“Shall we begin our evening, darling?” Kat’s voice curled like smoke.

Leo let the mask slide back into place. “Of course, sweetheart.”

They played.

Two hands in, he stayed conservative—folded often, watched always. But Kat surprised him.

Her tells were almost non-existent, her bets calculated with an ease that wasn’t luck. She played like she understood leverage, probability, psychology. The type of player who didn’t just know the odds—she rewrote them.

Midway through the third round, she bluffed the American clean out of a fat pot and raked in the chips without even a glance down.

Leo leaned in, close enough that her perfume invaded his senses—that intoxicating blend of rose and vanilla. “You never mentioned you played poker.”

She didn’t look at him. Just stacked her chips. “You never asked.”

Right—

She smiled at him then—glorious and wicked, like sunlight slicing across glass. Beautiful, and dangerous if you stared too long.

Impossible to ignore.

He smiled back, fighting to keep his expression steady.

They played on and forty-five minutes passed with no sign of Korolov.

A slow tension simmered low in his gut, but he kept his expression blank. Patience was part of the job. Years in the field had taught him to live in the spaces between days of inaction, seconds of violence. That was the rhythm. He could wait.

Still, he sensed it before he saw it—the ripple in the room’s pulse.

Hands stilled. Conversations dipped. The energy of the space contracted, taut as wire. Heads turned toward the entrance.

Adrik Korolov had arrived.

And just like that, the game stopped being theoretical.