Chapter Five
MIA
By the time the Mercedes turned onto the narrow road leading toward the estate, I had repeated Mia Morgan’s employment history enough times that I was beginning to resent a woman who did not technically exist.
I sat in the back with the transmitter clipped inside the right hip of the bottoms exactly where Wolf had put it.
I had stopped feeling the cold metal against my skin before we left the compound, but I had not stopped remembering the two fingers that had put it there.
That was frustrating enough, but having the man responsible sitting across from me made it worse.
Wolf had added his plate carrier before we left, the black tactical fabric making his shoulders look wider while magazines, medical gear and enough equipment to solve several different kinds of problems sat tight against his chest. His heavier field mask covered everything below his eyes.
I looked out the window.
Raven sat beside Wolf with a field kit open across his knees, watching audio levels and the position feeds from the team already spread around the estate.
Hawk had been on the north ridge for almost an hour.
Viper was working the south approach from a rotating vehicle and Jackal had the east service road and enough traffic around him to disappear without sitting still.
Bear waited farther out with the Transporter and the extraction equipment Wolf had approved after rejecting half of what Bear originally packed.
Wolf looked at Raven. “Comms.”
“All sectors clean.” Raven tapped the tablet, then glanced at me. “Say something.”
“Something.”
The audio bar jumped.
“Beautiful.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me all day.”
Wolf’s attention snapped back to me.
I smiled. “Present company included.”
Wolf did not take the bait. “Review your boundaries.”
I exhaled through my nose and repeated. “Public areas. No upper floor, no private interior rooms. I stay above the lower hedge line unless Raven has clean audio and Hawk still has enough visual to track me. If comms degrade, I move back into open space.”
“Good.”
“You really enjoy that word.”
“I enjoy people following instructions before I have to come get them.”
There was enough contempt in his voice to make me snap.
“You haven’t had to come get me from anything.”
Wolf leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees. “You argued for this job. Do it correctly.”
“I remember the briefing.”
“Then stop acting like every instruction is a personal attack.”
“You make them sound personal.”
“That’s because you need simple language.”
What an absolute asshole.
I folded my arms. “You know, if the goal was confidence before I walk into a suspected Cerberus event in a bikini, you’re doing a fantastic job.”
“I don’t care whether you’re confident. I care whether you’re competent.”
“Charming.”
“I’m not the one you’re supposed to charm.”
Raven cleared his throat. “Drop is forty seconds.”
Wolf sat back.
The Mercedes slowed, and whatever remained of the argument shut down with it as everyone shifted into the operation.
Raven gave me one last look at the estate map on his screen.
“Gate here. Main terrace wraps around the west side. Bellandi’s invitation group is registered through the host’s finance contacts, so you have a reason to drift toward him if you need it, but don’t make a straight line across the party the second you arrive. ”
“I know.”
“And if he does not remember Milan?”
Jackal’s advice from two days earlier came back immediately.
I smiled. “I’m offended. Touch his arm. Men lose half their processing power.”
Wolf’s eyes narrowed. “Do not use Jackal as an operational doctrine.”
“He said it was peer reviewed.”
Before I could say I was kidding, the vehicle stopped. Wolf reached across when I moved for the handle and caught my wrist. His glove closed with enough controlled pressure to stop me without hurting me too much. I looked down at his hand, then back at him.
“Mercer.”
“What?”
“If I tell you to leave, you leave. If Raven tells you the signal is failing, you fix it. If I hear you arguing over comms because you think another second is worth more than the extraction plan, I will pull you myself.”
My irritation flared. “You already made the point.”
“I don’t think I did.”
“Why? Because I disagree with you sometimes?”
“Because you confuse stubbornness with judgment.”
I yanked my wrist free.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“After the operation, you can be as offended as you want. Right now, go do your job.”
His words should have done nothing but piss me off. Unfortunately, being insulted by a masked asshole in tactical gear was doing something deeply unhelpful to me. I opened the door and quickly got out, cold air immediately sliding beneath the cover-up and over my bare legs.
Raven’s voice followed through the earpiece. “Audio good.”
Wolf said nothing as I closed the door and became Mia Morgan.
The estate appeared around the bend after a short walk, pale stone walls curving with the road until they opened at a set of black iron gates.
Two men in fitted navy suits checked names against tablets while valets took keys from guests arriving in convertibles, black sedans and enough German luxury vehicles to make the parking area look like a dealership had developed a cocaine problem.
Music carried faintly from behind the house.
I adjusted the strap of my small bag and joined the line. When my turn came, the security man found Mia Morgan without hesitation.
“Guest of the Bellandi group?”
“That’s right.”
He handed me a narrow wristband. “Enjoy the afternoon.”
I walked through before he could decide the American family-office employee looked too pleased with herself.
“You’re in,” Raven murmured.
“I noticed.”
“Don’t search for cameras.”
“Wasn’t going to.”
Wolf’s voice entered immediately. “You looked left.”
I kept walking toward the house. “There was landscaping left.”
“Eyes forward.”
I smiled at a passing couple so they would not wonder why the brunette talking to herself looked homicidal.
“You are exhausting.”
“Radio discipline.”
Radio discipline was his preferred way of telling me to shut the fuck up while making it sound like a NATO procedure.
The rear terrace opened around the side of the house, and for a moment, even I forgot to be irritated.
The pool stretched through the center of the property in a long blue rectangle bordered by stone, low seating, large cream umbrellas and broad shallow steps disappearing into the water.
Beyond it, the grounds dropped into a lower garden where the cabanas sat behind manicured hedges and narrow walking paths.
Servers moved through the crowd with champagne while guests drifted between the water, bar area, shaded tables and open glass doors leading into the main house.
Everyone looked rich enough to have an opinion about linen. Nobody looked like an open human trafficking investigation, which was exactly why places like this worked.
I took a champagne flute from a server and continued on.
Raven murmured, “North camera has you. Hawk also confirms visual.”
“Good.”
Wolf said, “Stop fucking talking unless there’s something useful to say.”
I tightened my fingers around the stem. Extremely mean apparently remained mission compatible.
I stood near the edge of a shaded bar while two women complained about hotel redevelopment in Lake Como, then let a man from Frankfurt pull me into a conversation after mistaking me for someone who worked in private debt.
Five minutes later, I had managed to correct him without actually correcting him and learned that the host had recently invested in a logistics platform.
By then, I had also confirmed that rich people were apparently capable of discussing interest rates while shirtless, drinking champagne before noon and acting as though any of this was normal.
I was reaching for sparkling water when a man beside me said, “You have the face of someone disappointed by the champagne.”
I turned.
Luca Bellandi looked less polished than he did in the photographs, which somehow made him more attractive.
His dark hair had fallen slightly over his forehead in the heat, his white linen shirt was open at the throat and his sunglasses hung from one hand.
He had the kind of easy confidence that came from spending most of his adult life in rooms where people were already interested when he started speaking.
I glanced at my glass. “I’m disappointed by the conversation. The champagne is innocent.”
His mouth curved.
“That’s worse.”
“For the conversation? Absolutely.”
He laughed and leaned one shoulder against the bar. “Luca.”
“Mia.”
“I know.”
I studied him more closely.
He nodded toward my wristband. “Bellandi group. I assume that’s either me or a very committed coincidence.”
“I’m offended.”
The answer came exactly as Jackal had told me to use it. I let my fingers close lightly around Luca’s forearm for one second, smiling as though we already shared a joke.
His attention dropped to my hand.
Jackal, irritatingly, might have been onto something.
Luca looked back at me. “Should I remember you?”
“Milan. Private-capital conference. Hotel bar. You spent ten minutes explaining why your fee structure was not obscene.”
He stared at me for half a beat, searching memory that Raven had designed to remain fuzzy.
Then he laughed. “Now I am offended. I would remember winning that argument.”
“You didn’t.”
“Then perhaps I intentionally forgot it.”
“That’s very convenient.”
“For me, yes.”
He studied my face again, more deliberately this time. “Mia...”
“Morgan.”
“Morgan. American?”
“Connecticut originally. New York professionally. Europe whenever somebody convinces my employer there is money worth chasing.”
“And is there?”
“I’m still here.”
“That sounds like yes.”
“It sounds like free champagne.”
He smiled wider.
This was easier than I expected.