Chapter 13 #2
The Grounds of the City was exactly the kind of place Black Swans loved for meetings—industrial-chic, crowded, loud enough that no one could overhear a conversation.
Exposed-brick walls climbed toward a timber-planked ceiling.
Copper pendant lamps hung over wooden tables packed with Sydney’s brunch crowd.
Dried flowers and trailing plants cascaded from metal shelving units, and the espresso machines hissed steam beneath hand-lettered menu boards advertising the flavor of the day.
Jayden had positioned herself in a corner booth with sight lines to both entrances. Her untouched flat white had sat cooling in front of her while she watched the door.
And then Dakota had walked in.
The noise of the café—conversation, laughter, the clatter of cups—faded to static.
Their eyes locked.
And in that split second, the world stopped.
He was her contact? The security consultant she’d spent a week falling for? Lying to?
No, no . . .
And yes, okay, she’d hated leaving him at the Opera House, her stupid words too light, too easy. But it was fun!
She just wanted to cringe.
Of all the coffee shops in all of Sydney . . .
He walked toward her booth and she stood up.
She’d never seen such a dark look—okay, maybe after her scuba gear had been sabotaged. Or after Howard was injured. But . . .
She swallowed. “I can explain.”
“No need.” He slid into the booth across from her. The table between them felt like a battlefield.
She sank into her side of the booth. Oh, it wasn’t supposed to end this way!
“So.” His voice was low, controlled. The voice of a man keeping his anger on a very short leash. “Black Swan.”
“Jones, Inc.”
“What do they call you?”
She drew a breath. “Lynx.”
He nodded. “I should have seen it.” He shook his head, a bitter edge to the movement. “I’m an idiot. The way you noticed everything.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I told myself you were just observant. Just a hotel inspector who paid attention.”
“Dakota—”
“Was any of it true?” His eyes met hers, and she saw the hurt beneath the anger. “Or were you just trying to figure out if I was going to kill you?”
The question hit her like a blow. She opened her mouth to defend herself, to explain, and hated—hated—that her voice came out sounding hurt.
“Don’t be dramatic. No—” She stopped. Forced herself to be honest. “But yes. And no.” She exhaled. “It got complicated.”
“When?” He leaned forward. “When did it get complicated? When you kissed me the first time? Or the second?”
“You kissed me first.”
“You kissed me like you meant it!”
His voice had risen. A woman at the next booth—yoga pants, green smoothie, laptop open—glanced over.
Dakota seemed to catch himself, jaw tightening, and lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. “You kissed me like you meant it,” he repeated. “In Melbourne. Like it was real.” He leaned back, shook his head. “Yeah, you’re really good.”
Jayden met his eyes, heat banked inside her, and threw it back at him. “You kissed me back. Didn’t you mean it?”
He swallowed. She watched his throat work, watched the conflict play across his face. Because he had. She could see it. He’d meant every moment of it, just like she had.
“I didn’t have all the facts,” he said finally.
“Well.” She sat back. “Now you do.”
Silence stretched between them—or as much silence as the Grounds allowed. Around them, the café hummed with life: the grinder whirring, a barista calling out orders. Outside, Sydney sparkled in the afternoon sun—oblivious to the wreckage happening at this corner table.
“Let me tell you what it looked like from my side,” Jayden said quietly.
“I was in Fiji, tracking a threat to the summit. Chaos at the airport. Our bags lost, and this nice guy, who held my hand as our plane nearly crashed, became a friend.” Her throat tightened.
“More than a friend. And then we got to Cairns and I grabbed his bag by accident.”
Dakota’s expression shifted—still guarded, but listening.
“When I opened it, I found Opera House blueprints. Security assessments. The kind of materials someone would need to plan an attack.” She held his gaze. “And the bag belonged to the man who kept showing up everywhere I went.”
His mouth tightened.
“And when he tracked me down and we changed bags, I got a bag with a sniper rifle in it.”
He flinched a little. “You saw it.”
“Of course I saw it. And I needed to know who it belonged to as much as you did. So yeah, I played the game.” Her voice fell. And here went nothing—“Until it wasn’t a game.”
“You thought I was an assassin.” His voice was flat.
“For a while.” She paused. “Not really. Not until you ditched me at the Opera House.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Guilt, maybe.
“And you thought the same thing about me.”
He drew in a breath. “When I opened your bag, I found the sniper-rifle components and female clothing. So yes . . . I wondered.”
“I’m not an assassin.”
“Neither am I.”
They looked at each other across the booth. It might have been funny in a rom-com. In real life, it shredded her. The what-ifs, the moments that she’d hoped might be forever.
But women like her didn’t get forever.
She cleared her throat. “Okay, so here we are, and it is what it is. The bag is missing—I went back to get it after our, um, breakup.”
“Is that what it was? Felt like someone just walked away.” He folded his arms.
She blew out a breath. “I had a job to do. And I couldn’t be Jayden Pierce to do it.” Her jaw tightened. “The real threat is still out there.”
Dakota was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded slowly. “So, we got intel from a breach in a Russian Bratva server. We think there’s going to be an attack at the Opera House. We just don’t know what form it’ll take.”
“I might be able to help with that.” Jayden touched the silver cross on a chain around her neck. “The intel from my organization. It’s location-locked to Sydney.”
“You haven’t opened it yet?”
“I got my bag back about five minutes before I walked away from you.” She held his gaze. “I haven’t exactly had time.”
“Hard to, when you’re sprinting.”
She rolled her eyes, but something flickered in his expression—probably the memory of her walking away. Okay, yes, running away. Five stars. Would recommend. Wow, she still couldn’t believe she said that.
“Then we need to open it,” he said. “Somewhere secure.”
“Take me to your leader.”
He looked at her—really looked, for the first time since he’d walked through the door. Not with anger or betrayal, but with something she couldn’t place.
Respect?
“Fine.”
“Good.”
The safe house didn’t look like a safe house. That was the point.
From the outside, it was just another Sydney brick bungalow—terra-cotta tile roof, white door, narrow concrete walkway flanked by bird-of-paradise plants and tropical ferns. On the kind of unassuming residential street where neighbors waved but didn’t ask questions.
Inside was a different story.
The interior had been gutted and rebuilt into an open-plan operations center disguised as a high-end rental.
Warm timber floors gleamed under recessed lighting.
A sleek walnut kitchen island doubled as a briefing station, its surface currently covered in surveillance photos and building schematics.
A gray linen sofa faced windows, and coastal artwork—watercolors of waves and sailing boats—hung on the wall paneling that probably hid reinforced glass and signal jammers.
Twenty minutes after leaving the Grounds, Jayden stood in this deceptively comfortable space, trying to focus on the mission briefing instead of on Dakota standing three feet away.
If possible, he looked even more handsome with his fierce stance, folded arms, grim look.
What was wrong with her?
Ham—a solid, blond-haired man with the bearing of someone who’d seen too much and stopped being surprised by any of it—stood at the kitchen island, maps spread before him. West, the man she’d met at the Opera House, leaned against the counter near the espresso machine, arms crossed.
She recognized the third operative, introduced as Skeet, from their brief meeting in Bangkok. Recognition played on his face for a moment when she walked in, and she nodded. His mouth tightened.
He probably remembered her tackling him as he chased one Leonid Volkov through the dock clutter somewhere around the Chao Phraya River.
Unfortunately, the briefcase—her goal—had gone into the river with Leonid. Too bad because the Swans had needed that intel about a bioweapon Martin’s contact had developed.
Skeet might also try to remember that she’d saved his life when Volkov had a gun on his girlfriend.
As it turned out, the Swans and Jones, Inc., were sharing buddies, and they had grabbed the bioweapon intel from another source. Still, she wasn’t going to apologize for doing her job. Then . . . or now.
“So.” Ham’s eyes moved between Dakota and Jayden. “Black Swan. Jones, Inc. And an assassin neither of you managed to identify even after a week of surveillance.”
Jayden’s jaw tightened. “We were watching each other. The real threat slipped past while we were—”
“Distracted,” Ham finished. “I read Dakota’s report. The bag with the rifle components—someone took it from the tour bus. Which means the sniper has their weapon.”
“But the sniper might not be the primary threat.” Jayden reached up and unfastened the chain at her neck, letting the silver cross pendant fall into her palm. Small. Unremarkable. The kind of tech that didn’t officially exist.
“What’s that?” West asked.
“Encrypted intel from the Black Swans. Location-locked—it would only unlock once I reached Sydney.” She turned the pendant over in her hands. “I haven’t opened it yet. I got my bag back right before . . .” She glanced at Dakota. “Right before everything fell apart.”
Ham nodded toward the pendant. “Then let’s see what your people know that we don’t.”
Jayden plugged it into her laptop and entered her codes. The device hummed, processing her biometrics, confirming her location. A green light pulsed.
The screen came to life.