Chapter 1
One year later
My breath roared in my ears from my hidden perch in the Orazio warehouse.
Workers shouted, machinery growled. All of it benefited me.
Even the hungry seagulls squawking for scraps in the port filtered in and masked my perfect entry.
High shelves and pallets stacked with crates concealed me.
The visible stock was legal, but it just meant the illegal items were stored in hidden spaces underneath.
I'd timed this mission for the middle of the day, when the guard who worked the morning shift always clocked off to vape a half an hour before his replacement arrived.
"How is our little slacker?" I whispered to Connall.
He had the simple job of hacking security and watching the cameras while I did the rest. My thighs ached from their tight clamp around a pole. I peeled off the plastic strip from the adhesive and angled the camera against the cold metal beam.
"He's screaming into his phone. I'd say he's on the outs with his girlfriend again. You've got plenty of time."
I turned on the camera and let out a sigh of relief as the tiny light blinked green.
"Connected?"
I'd hooked about five cameras up in the high-traffic areas, anywhere Ellington Vizor might pass through.
"Don't worry, our traitor won't be able to set foot in here without The Unseen being alerted. Hopefully, this will catch him. How long have you been undercover?"
"A year. I mean, I expected a former agent to be difficult to find, but he's a master of covering his tracks. The money he stole from Thornridge has either dried up or he's smart enough not to use it."
"Sucks to be you. Move the angle a little to the right. Oh wait, that's just your gigantic head." Connall laughed in my discreet earpiece, and I swallowed a scowl.
"Connall, I want you to know, not even when we were trainees did you ever coax a genuine laugh out of me." I grunted as I slid down the metal pole, grateful for the thick muscles in my legs.
Sunlight spilled in from outside the warehouse, but I kept to the shadows as I made my way to the exit. I was always watching from the darkness.
Who watches those in the shadows? I do.
Even if they were former agents who knew everything about how The Unseen worked. Able to disappear into Greenich Bay like he never existed.
"Wait, the bosses want one more. The lower floor, where they keep all the fun stuff." Connall's hushed voice was thick with amusement, but I wasn't in the mood for his lackadaisical manner.
I needed to get out of here in case the guard remembered to do his job.
"I didn't allow time for one more," I cursed under my breath. "Tell me where I need to put it, quick."
"Alright, alright, don't get your panties in a knot." Connall directed me toward the back of the warehouse.
I squeezed past a column of heavy boxes, testing my weight against them.
"There is nothing here." The damp scent of concrete and shadows clung to my nostrils.
The oppressive height of the surrounding boxes awoke a panic I struggled to lock up. I was already on edge from having to climb through a vent to get inside.
Don't lose it in the middle of a mission.
The last time one went bad, my mentor Beck and I ended up in bed together. He wasn't here to save me this time.
I shoved some boxes out of the way. The hidden door behind the mess needed thumbprint recognition to enter. Luckily, one of the first things I did when I came to Greenich Bay was lift Adelaide's.
"And to think, you laughed at me, Connall. Now who's the crazy one?" I gloated and used my transfer thumbprint to open the door.
It let out a beep, and I slipped inside, mindful of the expiring time.
Mistake.
The walls and the darkness of the tiny room swallowed me whole, and my stomach plummeted. I didn't dare turn on the light in case I set off any sensors. The concrete closed in on me, and my lungs refused air. The vise around my chest choked me into a frozen state. It stank of musty, cold concrete.
But the only thing in my nostrils was a memory. Blood. The tang of it was sharp on the back of my throat. Bile rose to mingle with it.
Connall hissed in my ear, oblivious. "We've got a problem. Another guy rolled up. Not the usual guard."
"D-describe him." I shivered as I pressed my fingers against the wall.
Like I might be able to make space if I tried.
My fingers trembled as they crawled over the door frame.
A rough edge made me pause, and I lodged the camera deep inside.
In the endless dark, I was eighteen years old again when darkness crawled up my nose and smothered my throat.
Trapped. The thought was a barrage. Not logical.
But there was nothing rational about this fear.
It squeezed its deep-seated roots into my brain and wiped away everything.
"Big guy, huge shoulders. I'm jealous. Short blond hair. Grumpy cat alert. He's cussing out the guard for leaving his post. You need to get out of there."
Jonah was here. Why was Jonah here?
He should be at my apartment, watching over Adelaide while she dealt with her heartbreak. My stomach was in knots, leaving her alone while I finished my mission, but it was the best time to do it. No one else should have been at the warehouse except the lazy security guard.
"How long?"
I left the suffocating space and ducked into an even smaller one, the vent I entered the warehouse in.
Before I descended into a full-blown panic attack, I wriggled through the chute.
I'd been prepared for the crushing walls of the vent on entry, enough to handle my fear.
But this tipped me over. Every breath I took was too short and burned like steam.
"Thirty seconds, you good?"
I grunted, replaced the grate, and made sure everything was as it was supposed to be. My heartbeat thundered as I wriggled down and crouched behind an industrial trash bin.
"They're heading in. Just breathe. I had their cameras on a loop, so nobody saw a thing. Are you okay? You sound like you're losing it," Connall drawled.
Sweat trickled down the channel of my spine. I stumbled toward the back of the alley, wondering how I was going to get out of here.
"Just carrying this mission on my back." I paused and sipped salt-tinged oxygen to calm the heaves of my chest.
"I'll let you know if I see any sign of Ellington, and I'll send you the login details as well."
"Thanks. I know it was a mess around, but there is no one else I could trust to help."
"Just say you needed an excuse to talk to me." He sucked in a sharp breath. "Don't tell Beck I said that. Platonic conversation only."
I smothered a breathless laugh. "Am I good?"
"Cameras are on a five-minute loop. Better make your move."
"Thanks." I sprinted around the back of the building, taking a long gulp of fresh sea air.
The warehouse was right on the port, and a cloud of seagulls hovered in the air. Opportunists. One of them swooped close, checking to see if I had anything useful. Panic fizzed in my ears, and I stumbled as the tight grip of fear clenched with unrelenting strength.
"You alright?" My earbud was still in, and Connall could not have sounded more bored.
Just claustrophobic and having a meltdown.
"Perfect."
"Oh good. I was worried I might have to get out of my chair."
"Hilarious. Keep prodding, and you might get a dubious package in the mail."
"I love dubious packages. The bigger, the better. Platonic packages, if they're from you."
The bent metal fence I'd slipped through earlier was right there. But my muscles refused to cooperate, and I slid down the wall to wait until the tremors in my body stopped.
"I'm out." I ended the call without waiting for a reply.
Protocol demanded I debrief Beck, so he knew how the mission went, but I was avoiding talking to him. He wouldn't like that I reached out to Connall for help and not him.
I hadn't had a panic attack like this for over a year. The out-of-control feeling was not one I had ever gotten used to.
Jonah's sharp voice interrupted my recuperation. "If I catch you away from your post again, you're fired. Understand? You need to make calls, do it on your own time. Now get the hell out of here before I change my mind."
"This was a one-off, and damn, Jonah, it was five minutes," the guard whined.
They were only a few meters away, and my stomach sank as the guard stalked off and Jonah scanned the surroundings. Of course he would. Unlike the guard walking away, he was observant.
"Lara?" Jonah's voice carried on the breeze.
Was it too much to ask for something to go off without a hitch? I lifted my head, offering Jonah a wobbly smile.
"Lara? What are you doing here?" Jonah strode down the alleyway, hurrying as he noticed the shimmer in my eyes.
How was my luck?
I completed my mission, only to be caught lurking because of a panic attack. Thanks, Mom, for helping me even from beyond the grave.
"I-uh-I was just coming to get something for Adelaide. A shipment of promotional gear. Prototypes."
Jonah crouched down next to me, his gaze crinkled with soft concern. My drained cheeks and fear-bright eyes were doing the heavy lifting. So a damsel in distress was all it took to blunt Jonah's razor-sharp instincts.
"You're crying."
Okay, calm down. I wasn't that far gone.
"Oh, did you mean why am I sitting on the ground? Funny story, I sometimes get panic attacks. It's nothing serious. I just need a minute."
Jonah made a low noise, and his hand curled in the air. He gave me a questioning look, as if asking me for permission.
"You can't stay out here in the sun. Let me take you inside."
I protested, but Jonah had already slipped his arms under my legs and cradled me to his chest. Warmth spread where Jonah pressed his bulk against me. One calloused thumb rubbed over the crease of my elbow.
"How long have you had them?" Jonah dug his fingers into my thighs as he carried me into the warehouse and set me on top of a stack of low boxes.
My heart rate spiked again, back in the very place I'd just broken into and escaped. Maybe I should have just used the front door.
"They're rare now."