Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Focus on the blueprints.
The schematics of the Opera House spread across the table, every marked location circled and annotated.
Dakota forced himself to focus on them—on sight lines and ventilation access and extraction routes—because focusing on the mission was easier than feeling the hollow space where his heart used to be.
She’d just walked. Away.
Three hours ago, outside the Opera House, she’d simply . . . ended it. No tears. No argument. No chance for him to understand what had changed.
And his gut feared the worst.
“Dakota.”
He looked up. Ham’s gaze met his from across the table, his mouth tight. West and Skeet flanked him—West with his arms crossed, Skeet leaning over the blueprints with a pen in hand.
“The assessment,” Ham prompted. “Walk us through it.”
Right. The mission. The reason he was here.
Dakota straightened, forcing Jayden into the compartment marked later. “West and I walked every marked location this morning. The Secret Service has been on-site for over a week, but they’re working from standard protocols. These marks”—he tapped the blueprint—“aren’t in their assessment.”
“And?” Ham leaned forward.
“They’re random corners, mostly. Some near ventilation systems, some near service corridors. I don’t know why they’re marked.”
“No viable sight lines,” West confirmed. “I checked every angle. None of these positions gives a clean shot to the main stage or the reception area. No extraction routes either—you’d be trapped the moment you fired.”
“So what are they for?” Skeet asked.
“That’s the question.” Dakota rubbed the back of his neck. “Could be reconnaissance markers—someone mapping the building for future reference. Could be misdirection, making us look in the wrong places while the real attack comes from somewhere else.”
“Or could be nothing,” Ham said quietly. “Random marks that mean nothing, leading us in circles.”
“Except we found this blueprint on a Russian server that Nimue hacked, and with the bag Dakota found, filled with rifle components—” Ham met Dakota’s eyes. “It just doesn’t sit right in my gut.”
Dakota’s either. “And that bag is still out there. The weapon is still unaccounted for. I got ahold of Bonnie, and she said it wasn’t in their lost luggage. So someone grabbed it.”
He wasn’t sure that someone didn’t have a name that started with J and rhymed with maiden.
The room went quiet. From the living room of their safe house, Sydney Harbour glittered through the windows—the Opera House sails bright in the afternoon sun, ferries crisscrossing the water, tourists already gathering along the quay.
“What about the woman?” West asked. “The one I met at the Opera House?”
Dakota’s chest tightened. “I don’t know. I saw her bag. It seemed like the contents of exactly who she said she was.”
Ham considered him. “You’re sure.”
“Yeah. I know what Coco found, but I think she’s wrong. Jayden Pierce is exactly who she said she is.”
And he hated himself a little for ever thinking otherwise.
He must have worn a strange expression, because Ham glanced at his teammates. “West, Skeet—give us a minute,” Ham said. He waited until the door closed. Then, “You okay?”
Dakota frowned. “Yeah.”
“Something happen between you two?”
“Nothing that affects the mission.”
“Dakota. I know we haven’t worked together long, but . . .” Ham raised an eyebrow. “Did this get personal?”
Dakota sighed, looked away, hung a hand around his neck. “I let my heart get away from me.” The admission scraped against his throat. “I spent my entire week wondering if she was an assassin. And now . . . Anyway, it was just a cover relationship.” He forced a smile. “It didn’t mean anything.”
He looked away.
“Listen. I believe there are no surprises, no coincidences. God knows you better than you know yourself, Dakota. He knows His plans for you—and they’re good.”
“So it was His plan that I met Jayden? To . . .”
“Fall in love with her? We have choices, Dakota. But I am certain God arranged for you two to meet. What you did with that is on you.”
Yeah. “Mine to mess up. Great.”
“Yours to trust God, if you want. Fact is, everything that happens to us, good or bad, is meant to draw us closer to God.”
Help me know what’s real.
Yes, being with Jayden had made him pray. For the first time in a decade, maybe.
“God longs to be in your moments, help you through the shadows of your life, Dakota. You lie to yourself if you think you have to be alone. But alone is an option too.”
He stared at Ham. The former SEAL was legendary even outside Navy circles. He’d led a team in Afghanistan, and when he started Jones, Inc., guys followed him.
Maybe this sort of wisdom, this faith, was why.
Silence, and finally Ham said, “The summit is tomorrow. You good?”
“Yep.”
“Good. Because I need you to make contact with our counterpart.” Ham turned from the window, his expression professional again.
“The Black Swan operative who’s been working this case.
According to London, Lynx has intel we need.
Apparently, they’ve gotten their hands on some schematics for a bomb they want us to take a look at. ”
“Black Swan?” Dakota frowned. He’d heard the name in briefings, but the details were vague.
“It’s a private, all-female intelligence unit.
Specialists in deep-cover work, usually in hostile territories.
They’ve been tracking this assassination threat from the European side—Bratva connections, the toxin, the whole network.
” Ham pulled a slip of paper from his pocket.
“Their operative is here, waiting to meet. Coffee shop on Circular Quay.” Ham handed him the paper—an address, nothing more.
“She’ll be waiting. Coordinate your intel, figure out who the real threat is. We’re running out of time.”
Dakota took the paper. Time to put Jayden out of his head. He had work to do.
The walk to Circular Quay should have cleared his head. It didn’t.
Sydney sparkled around him—ferries cutting across the harbor, tourists snapping photos of the Opera House, buskers playing for crowds of delighted visitors. The ocean air smelled of salt tinged with the scent of coffee and the particular sweetness of a city enjoying perfect weather.
Dakota moved through it like a ghost. Present but not present. Seeing everything, feeling nothing.
Except that wasn’t true. He was feeling everything—it was just buried under layers of professional control, packed down so tight that nothing could escape.
I just . . . I hoped . . .
For the happy ending? Yeah, me too, Bugsy.
He found the coffee shop—a modern place with floor-to-ceiling windows, crowded with the morning rush, espresso machines hissing steam into the morning air. He paused outside, gathering himself.
He pushed through the door.
The noise hit him first—conversation, laughter, the clatter of cups. He scanned the room automatically, the way he’d been trained. Exits. Threats. Anyone who didn’t fit.
His gaze landed on the corner booth.
Dark hair pulled back. Coffee in front of her that she wasn’t drinking. Clear sight lines to both entrances, back to the wall, positioned exactly the way an operative would position herself in an unfamiliar space.
Jayden.
She was watching the door, and he spotted when her gaze landed on him. The widening of her eyes, the parting of her mouth.
Wait.
Wait one doggone second.
He swallowed, and she leaned back, folded her arms, and shook her head.
He heard her voice again.
Listen, you know how vacation romances are. No one is ever who they say they are.
Their eyes locked across the room.
And everything Dakota had been holding together—the numbness, the professionalism, the carefully compartmentalized pain—shattered.
She’d lied to him, and big.
And then, the questions. Did she know who he was?
She had to have known, right? The Black Swans would have intel on Jones, Inc.
, operatives, would have briefed her on who she might encounter.
She’d known, and she’d played the hotel inspector anyway.
Played the grieving sister. Played the woman falling for him just as hard as he was falling for her.
Hunter Valley. The firelight on her face as she told him about Skylar. The way her hand had felt in his when she’d talked about faith. The kisses that had, in the end, nearly unmoored him.
All of it. Every moment. Every vulnerability he’d shown her.
Oh, he was a fool.
Jayden’s expression shifted as she read his face. Something flickered in her eyes—guilt, maybe.
Dakota didn’t move. Couldn’t move. He stood in the doorway of a Sydney coffee shop, tourists streaming past him, the harbor glittering in the afternoon sun, and his entire body lit on fire, heat and fury igniting every cell.
She’d lied to him.
She’d used him.
And worse, in his gut, he’d known she had a secret.
And then—wait . . . Oh, it all made sense now. Why she’d stuck with him on the tour. She’d seen his bag. Seen the file. She’d thought he was the killer.
And he’d probably confirmed it at the Opera House with his conversation with West.
Nice. No wonder she’d picked up her bag and run. He should probably be thankful she hadn’t shot him.
And yet, here she was, sitting in a coffee shop like nothing had happened, waiting to coordinate with him on a mission she’d been running parallel to his the entire time.
Dakota’s jaw tightened. His hands curled into fists at his sides.
He walked toward her.
And Jayden stood up, swallowed, and said, “I can explain.”
Oh no. Jayden had been prepared for a lot of things when she sat down in that corner booth. A military contractor. A government liaison.
For sure, someone she’d never met.
What she hadn’t prepared for—what she could never have prepared for—was Dakota Rivers walking through the door.
And he looked ragged, angry, and . . . betrayed.