The Takedown

Chapter 5

5

In a training camp outside Williamsburg, Virginia, I learned how to tail a target from a distance. I learned how to maneuver an ATV in a high-speed chase, how to position your body in a parachute jump—and the steps to take if you’re cornered in a hostile crowd with nothing but the clothes on your back. I’m good at recruiting assets. I’m good at navigating maps, back alleyways, and tricky conversations. Theoretically speaking, I should have no problem maintaining a nearly weeklong fake flirtation that culminates in the transfer of vital intelligence.

Even if it’s with someone as repulsively criminal as Nick.

But I am worried, just slightly, about doing all of this as me . In my hometown, surrounded by my family. Despite what I’ve told Gail, I’m actually finding it kind of hard to be my previous self and my agent self at once—and it isn’t a one-and-done deal, like with Alexei. I can’t switch on the sex appeal and bail an hour later, disappearing on a Swedish night train.

The best I could do here is a very slow and slide-y Prius.

“Okay,” I tell myself, clapping my hands once in the attic. “Okay.” If seducing sidekick Nick is the best strategy we have, then I’m all in.

Less than an hour later, Johnny, Nick, Calla, and I are going out.

There aren’t many bars in town. In winter, the population of Cape Hathaway shrinks to just under seven hundred. The lobster boats pull in for the season, and the mom-and-pop ice cream stands shutter their windows. All that’s left is cold wind on the water, slapping the mossy, black rock—and a tiny inn by the sea, with dim lighting and a formidable whiskey list. This time of the year, Hathaway House is strictly for locals; it’s for anniversary trips and date nights, for couples snuggled into cozy booths. Oil paintings of ships and stormy seas line the walls, and the ambience is just slick enough for my purposes.

Our only other choice was the Moose Lodge.

With the taxidermied raccoons.

So this will really have to do.

“This place get a lot of traffic?” Nick asks, shrugging off his brown Barbour jacket and hanging it on the edge of his chair. His mask is slipping. He isn’t as calm or as lighthearted as he was in the kitchen; in fact, he’s mildly on edge, his brow knitted in an annoying little furrow. On the drive here, Johnny kept thwacking his shoulder and telling him, “Loosen up, Nicky boy, it’s Christmas. Marco’s off duty, and so are you.” But even now, as we’re perched at a rickety high-top near the bar, I can tell that Nick is fighting his protective mentality. His gaze keeps flicking over to Johnny, whose arm is wrapped loosely around Calla. Johnny’s laughing like he wants the whole bar to hear him; he’s shooting the shit with the bartender and ordering Calla a holiday-themed drink. It is called, dubiously, “Santa’s Surprise.”

Frankly, I trust that drink even less than I trust Nick. Which is really saying something.

“?‘Traffic’ and ‘Cape Hathaway’ don’t really go hand in hand,” I say, eyeing him. “If you asked, ‘Does this place get a lot of knitting circles,’ then it would be a different story.”

Nick massages the ridge between his eyebrows. Not for the first time, my gaze stops on that faded scar on his chin; how’d he get that? A fight? Bet you did. “How many people like to knit in a bar?”

“More than you think.”

He drags a hand down his face, then shakes his head like a dog. No, not like a dog. I respect dogs. “Sorry, I’m sorry. I’m usually a lot more fun than this, I promise. I just get worried about the job. Johnny’s just said that he doesn’t want a bodyguard at the holidays. Wants it just to be about family. We’re in a town that’s so small, no one would care about him here. He’s probably right, but...”

“Oh, he is right. Our closest thing to a celebrity is the guy who keeps freeing all the lobsters at the grocery store.”

Nick snorts, cracking a smile. “Even I’ve heard about him, the legend.”

“The man, the myth.” Unshouldering my own parka, I smooth out the sweater beneath it. I’ve picked the trendiest, most approachable turtleneck in my suitcase: a black one, with shiny gold buttons. Some might say I should’ve gone for a more obviously sexy outfit, but seduction—I think—isn’t always about showing the most skin. Sometimes it’s about making them wonder what’s underneath the wool.

Nick’s shallow, I bet. He’ll take the bait.

“So how do you normally spend the holidays?” I ask, leaning forward over the table and wrapping my hand around a just-ordered glass of whiskey. Its oaky scent floats in the space between us, tickling my nose. Nick’s gone for an old-fashioned, and he’s swapped his christmas sweater for an actual sweater: an all-black number that hugs his shoulders in a try-hard way. His wavy dark hair is a touch damp with melting snow, and he smells of that woodsy-meets-sea soap that I should’ve clocked him with in the shower.

He’s put in some effort for tonight. Good.

“Depends,” Nick says, after peering over my shoulder to double-check on good-time Johnny, who’s indulging in a predrink sambuca shot, knocking it back with an ahhhhh . “What year is it?”

I pretend to consider this heavily, tilting my head back and forth. “Nineteen... ninety-nine.”

“Then I’m falling asleep every night wishing for a tricycle from Santa Claus,” Nick deadpans.

“Did he deliver?”

“Still waiting.”

“Damn.” I click my tongue. “Tough luck.”

“What about you?” he shoots back, still leaving his drink untouched. One of his eyebrows crooks in a flirtatious way, and I read the rest of his body language in a covert sweep. Open. Easy. Just what I want for the mission. “In fact, let me ask this: Why have I been instructed to”—he uses air quotes—“?‘make sure you don’t leave the state’ this Christmas?”

A flush of heat threatens to rise to my cheeks. I play it off. “Oh yeah? Who told you that?”

“Calla,” Nick admits, voice climbing a little as “A Holly Jolly Christmas” bursts into the speakers in the background. “Then your Grandma Ruby. I’m supposed to keep an eye on you. I think they’re afraid you’re going to disappear before the wedding, pull a Runaway Maid of Honor.”

“Great movie,” I say, light and airy. The thought of my family agonizing over me sends a fizzled pang into my stomach, but “running away” isn’t exactly what I did. I lock those emotions up tight, resting my chin in my palm and drumming my fingers on the side of my cheek. “How are you going to keep an eye on me, then?”

I look up, meeting Nick’s gaze with the tiniest hint of mischief. It catches him off guard. I can tell, because Nick has tells. I’m learning them rapidly. When he’s surprised, one corner of his mouth ticks up. His pupils widen ever so slightly. His head rears almost imperceptibly back.

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re kind of intense?” he asks, squinting, after a moment’s pause. He’s matched my angle, leaning forward. A slow, borderline sexy smile works its way up his lips. Does that actually work on other girls, Nicholas?

“I may have been told that,” I admit, slowing my voice to a purposeful beat.

Nick’s eyes slide to Johnny, then back to me, his foot jiggling under the table. “It’s weird, I keep forgetting that I don’t already know you. Calla’s been telling us Sydney stories for months.”

She has? Whiskey swirls in my glass as I sip and swallow. The vintage is so strong, if I cough, fire might spurt out. “Like what?”

“Like the Maine State Debate Championship.”

It’s so unexpected that I bark out a laugh—and hate myself for it. “No. Oh god.”

Nick’s brown eyes glimmer. Can’t stand the glimmering. “I have questions .”

“If Calla told you the story,” I respond, still hanging on to my smile, “then you know the story. You don’t have questions.”

“I do ,” he insists. “The more I think about it, the more questions I have. So you get up there, onstage, in front of all those people...”

The metaphorical microphone lands in my lap. The case officer part of me wants to shunt it far into the next room. This is the exact opposite of a sexy story. This is not what I’m going for. But Nick is giving me these ridiculous puppy dog eyes, like Please, Sydney, please tell the story , and—goddamn it, Nick. Fine! Okay. I should give him what he wants, for the mission.

My nose scrunches. “I get up there, and I’m calm,” I say, aiming to fly through this disaster tale and return to business. “I’ve won the championship three years in a row, and I know everything there is to know about the legalization of internet gambling. That was the topic, by the way. Gambling. My team was assigned pro, and Jimmy ‘the Encyclopedia’ Buchanan’s team was up first. Jimmy struts up there with his side swoop, looks down at his coach, and winks. Then, all of a sudden, the moderator is asking him about the ethics of cloning.”

I can tell that Nick is listening intently, fingers pressed to his stupidly full lips. “I love this part.”

“The ethics of cloning! Which is something that Jimmy, apparently, knows all about. He’s got statistics. He’s got anecdotal evidence. He’s memorized quotes from obscure philosophers that play right into his point: In the future, clones will be a necessary addition to society. And I’m sitting there, knowing that my team had been sabotaged. Maybe Jimmy’s coach paid off the moderator, I don’t know, but I’m seventeen years old, I’ve been reading about internet gambling for the last six months, and for what? To stand up at the podium and embarrass myself in front of two hundred people?”

“Hell no!” Nick says, getting into it. His fist pretend-bangs the table, like he might punch an innocent civilian.

Shoulder to shoulder, Calla and Johnny turn to assess us, probably wondering what the commotion is all about, but I keep right on going. “Hell no!” I repeat with equal, calculated gusto. “So when it’s my turn, I walk carefully up to that podium and say the first thing that comes to my mind. Which is to tell a story about what would happen if I cloned myself, eighteen thousand times.”

“Why eighteen thousand?” Nick seems genuinely curious. He runs a thumb over his faded chin scar as he thinks. “Where did that number come from?”

“Population of Augusta,” I explain. “Maine’s state capital. That’s where the debate was held. I figured it would add weight to my argument. Keep in mind that I was also heavily involved in marching band at the time. There is nothing more dramatic than marching band. So yeah, I did go into excruciating detail about some of the clones’... choices.”

“Choices,” Nick echoes. “Those were some bold choices.”

“You have good clones, you have bad clones.” I tuck my hair behind my ears. “Would one of those clones have a personal vendetta against Jimmy? Maybe .” I decide to offer up another piece of my past. Just a small thing. Something that will make it look like I’m sharing, without giving away much at all. “Funny thing is, we actually dated after that.”

“Yeah?” Nick asks, chuckling. It doesn’t feel like he’s forcing it. Good . This is working.

I nod seriously. “Very end of high school. He tapped me on the shoulder when I was out Christmas shopping, told me we should put the ‘debate stuff’ behind us, then said, ‘Do you celebrate Boxing Day? Because you’re the whole package.’?”

“He did not.”

“He did. In fairness, I like a good line.”

“Hit me with your best worst one,” Nick says, lighthearted.

“You sure?”

“I’m ready.”

I take a second to think before dropping my voice to a husk. “If you were a president, you’d be Babe -braham Lincoln.”

Nick nearly spits out the first sip of his old-fashioned. “See, that one’s not bad at all. That would work on me.”

“What’s yours?”

“The actual worst one?” Nick sets down his glass, twirls it slowly on the table. He clears his throat. “On a scale of one to America, how free are you tonight?”

“Four,” I deadpan.

“See, you’re not actually supposed to give a number.”

“Huh,” I say, refusing to drop his gaze, just as he’s refusing to drop mine. Two can play this game. And I’ll play it better. “Maybe that’s where I’m going wrong... Do you get to use that line a lot? Out in... Boston? Is that where you’re from?”

“Boston via Ottawa,” he confirms. “And never. Besides the fact that it’s a terrible line in almost every conceivable way, I barely leave my apartment unless I’m going out with Johnny. Right now, I do my job, I listen to audiobooks, I get a full eight hours of glorious sleep.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” I say, a little too candid. “I can’t even remember the last time I got eight hours of sleep.” Before Nick jumps on this, I shift back to: “What’s the last good book you listened to? I mean, really good book.”

He considers this by dragging a thumb over his mouth. “This sounds super pretentious, but probably The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. It made me rethink the speed of economic development in the West.”

I do my best not to blink. That... contradicts the dumb-muscle image I had of him, throws me off an inch. “So you’re a nonfiction person.”

“Wouldn’t say that. I like a bit of everything.” He pauses, clearly enjoying the back-and-forth. I’m glad. One step closer to eating out of the palm of my hand. “What about you? Not necessarily books, but... what do you like?”

It’s such an open-ended question that, for a whole half second, the only thing that pops into my mind is tacos . And petting Sweetie Pie. My existence outside of work is extremely limited; I can’t even remember the last time I binge-watched any TV.

For the last three years, my life—almost exclusively—has been about protecting people from dangerous men. I look at guys and sometimes all I can think is, How many ways can you hurt someone?

How many ways can you hurt someone, Nick?

“Hey-yo!” Johnny shouts, suddenly behind us. He’s clutching two glasses of foamy green beer in his hands, his spicy cologne settling over my neck. I avoid tensing my shoulders like a cat that’s just been scruffed. “Nick’s telling the truth, by the way. Guy’s like a priest.”

Nope , I think, giving Nick a quick once-over—from his leather boots to his dark, playful eyes.

No, he most definitely is not. Show me a priest who has a jaw like that.

“Cheers!” Calla says, waddling up to the high-top with her own frothy, gingerbread-scented drink. Oh, so the two beers were both for Johnny. “Isn’t this place amazing? Sydney and I have been coming here since we were kids. Not to the bar, obviously, but there’s a restaurant upstairs. They do a really nice Sunday dinner. Turkey, mashed potatoes, the whole works.”

“ Love mashed potatoes,” Johnny adds helpfully, taking a messy glug from the first beer. “Dining hall at our old college had the best ones. You could get, like, twelve pounds of mashed potatoes for a meal. I’d roll out of there.”

“Sydney ate nothing but cereal for a year,” Calla says, bringing me back into the fold.

I’d forgotten I’d told her that. “Freshman year,” I add with a nod. “At one point, I think I was about sixty percent Honey Nut Cheerios.”

Johnny tips his glass against mine, rims clinking, beer spilling a little. “I was a Froot Loops guy, so I hear you.”

Johnny is... almost smooth. A bit self-effacing. On the one hand, he makes you seem heard. On the other, he has this ridiculously big energy; he’ll expand to fill any room he enters, leaving you little space for air. And it hits me all over again. Right there, as the music changes to “Winter Wonderland.” Marriage . Calla is going to marry this deceptively friendly frat boy look-alike with the clean, expensive shirt. He’s going to drag her so far into his world that she’ll wake up one morning and think: How did I get here? And why is there a two-million-dollar pallet of cash in my basement? I’ll keep working on sidekick Nick. But right now...

“So,” I say, pasting on a smile and casting a line out to Johnny. I imagine one of those overly bright lamps shining into his pupils. “How’d you two meet?”

Calla places a delicate hand over her mouth, answering after she swallows. “Do you want to tell the story?” she asks, turning to Johnny.

“You tell it better,” he says in an infuriating aw shucks way, nudging her shoulder with his. “I’ll fill in if you miss anything. Nick will, too. He’s heard it enough times.” Reaching over with a quick jerk of his hand, Johnny musses Nick’s hair, like an annoying big brother.

“I think all of South Boston’s heard it,” Nick jokes, batting him away. “ Vinny was telling it the other day.”

“Was he?” Johnny laughs in an explosive way. Mirth never reaches his eyes. “To who?”

“His butcher. We were picking up some meat for sandwiches.”

Johnny faux-pushes Nick. “Why is this the first time I’m hearing about these sandwiches? Anyway, Calla. Sorry. The story.”

Calla’s teardrop earrings swing as she faces me, while I’m still stuck on butcher . That spark of light is in her eyes. “Okay, remember how I said I was going to take a pottery class? I was feeling so stressed at work, after flu season and all my kids getting sick—half of the support staff was out, too, and we couldn’t get any substitute teachers—and I just needed something to refill the well. Something creative, just for me. There’s an art studio around the corner from my apartment, Funky Pete’s—”

“Pete’s not all that funky,” Johnny adds at near-full volume. One of his curls falls over his eyes, like a tiny dashboard angel. “He’s eighty-seven. Calls himself Peter. Nice guy, real Protestant.”

“Catholic,” Nick mumbles.

“Then why doesn’t he come to our church, then?” Johnny says, half joking, but his mask is slipping a little, just like Nick’s did. There’s something a bit rotten underneath the loudness of Johnny’s charm. “I tell the guy he can sit in our pew, what does he do? Never shows up.”

“So, I go in,” Calla continues with the story, “and sign up for a six-week pottery course. First day, guess who’s there?” She jerks her thumb at Johnny, who gives her an almost imperceptible dip of his chin. “Honestly, I’m thinking, ‘This guy just wants to hit on a bunch of single women,’ but then we start throwing pots and he’s got such concentration —”

“You need to concentrate,” Johnny says with his big, white smile, the mask firmly in place again. “Those wheels will rip your thumbs off.”

Internally, I wince. There’s something stomach-churning about “rip your thumbs off” in a how’d-you-meet story, when one of the people involved may or may not have actually ripped off someone’s thumbs. Oddly, out of the corner of my eye, I see Nick cross his arms and tuck his thumbs into his armpits.

“But it was more than that,” Calla says, still enthused. “I’ve never seen a man like him so... so...” Her hand hooks at her chest, like she’s trying to snatch the words from her soul. “So invested in making a mug. You know he cried when his pottery broke in the kiln?”

He did what, now? I’m all for men expressing their emotions (really, I am; I think it’s a vital part of a well-functioning society), but does this add up with Johnny, the thumb ripper?

“No,” Johnny says, sitting up a little straighter. His chest puffs almost comedically, buttons straining. “It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t sobbing or anything. Eyes just got misty, that’s all.”

As I observe him, it continues to click—why Calla fell for Johnny. He has all the trappings of softness, the outward signs. He’s in touch with his emotions. He throws clay when he’s not volunteering at soup kitchens, or running his family’s coffee empire, which (I’ve looked it up) focuses on ecologically sustainable practices. If he finds a baby to hold somewhere in the next twenty-four hours, it’ll make the perfect picture. He is not—to give a completely off-the-wall, totally random example—the type of guy who’d hire masked thugs to rob an art gallery, shooting an elderly security guard in the foot.

Calla’s hand navigates to his shoulder again. “Well, your passion was beautiful. We got margaritas that night after class, at this little hole-in-the-wall Mexican place on the south side, and we talked for hours about his family—”

My spine tingles at his family . Keep talking about his family!

“Your nana,” Calla continues, “and how she had to be so tough after your Pop-Pop died, and naturally I started talking about Grandma Ruby—”

“?‘She dances like her feet are on fire,’?” Johnny chimes in, waving a hand across the air, like he’s tracing his name in lights. “That’s what you said to me. I think I fell in love right there.”

Calla blushes under the heat of his gaze. “After that, we were pretty much joined at the hip.”

Some margaritas and a grandma anecdote. That’s all it took?

Must’ve been some seriously strong tequila.

My sister eyes me expectantly across the table, silently urging me to say something, Sydney. I know this is the part where I’m supposed to offer my well-wishes—my confirmation that Yes, you’re so cute together, what a perfect origin story. But the lie lodges in my throat. It’s hard to keep up the act when this isn’t acting, when I’m me, when I’m home, when it’s her .

The silence lasts a beat too long. Nick jumps to the rescue.

“We should do a toast.” He lifts up his glass, bicep flexing under the cotton of his sweater, and this is the first and only time I’ll be grateful to him. To him, and his irritatingly toned biceps.

“What should we cheers to?” I add, summoning my voice again. It comes out neutral, with an imperceptible undertone of panic.

“Our health,” Nick deadpans. “In the hope that those green-colored drinks don’t kill anyone.”

Johnny laughs ( because ha-ha, murder! ), and I performatively clink his glass, whiskey rippling. “To ‘Santa’s Surprise.’ Here goes—”

“Ahhh,” Nick says, running a hand across his chin, “know what? We should do this for real.” He clears his throat, like he can’t decide whether to be serious or not. He chooses serious, starting out slowly. “Cheers to... to having people around for Christmas. Good people. And cheers to you, Sydney, for taking us out to this bar, and making us feel at home.”

His words stop me cold.

Or, rather, stop me warm. What the hell was that? It was so achingly sincere that I want to squirm. Nick is glancing at me now, full lips pressed in the middle, looking so innocent —like he’s never stepped a toe out of line in his life. And I think about it again: How I’d take him down. Precisely. Elbow to the jugular.

I mouth “Thank you” at him, happy that the Nick plan, at least, is working.

Each of us takes a sip of our drinks, and talk naturally transitions to the wedding. I listen closely, noting which members of the Jones family might attend in addition to Johnny’s parents. Cousin Andre, cousin Thomas, and another relative that I’m familiar with, named Vinny...

Vinny texts at least three times during the conversation, and so does Andre. I get the sense of them as a unit, unable to function without one another—and shiver to think what they’re all like in the same room. Hope I’ll never have to find out.

Just before 11 p.m., there’s an unexpected swell of people: a gaggle of carolers stamping toward the bar, fresh snowflakes on their velvet costume capes. When a rowdier group of late-night drinkers follows them, a muscle feathers in Nick’s jaw. He recommends that we might want to take the party elsewhere. Or better yet, pack up and go home. I’m okay with this. More than okay, actually. It’s now thirty-three hours and counting since I’ve had a single wink of shut-eye.

But Crime Lord Johnny doesn’t want to go home.

His energy level is too damn high. He’s made friends with the bartender—it seems like he can sweet-talk anyone—and the bartender is dredging up the karaoke machine from the summer storeroom. To which I say, Shoot me! Shoot me right in the spleen. If anything can make this holiday more uncomfortable, it’s Christmas karaoke.

“Babe,” Johnny presses Calla, resting his chin dramatically on her shoulder. “Babe.”

Calla shakes her head adamantly, eyes closed. Her brown curls wriggle and jump. “Nuh-uh. You know I hate karaoke. If you want a duet so bad, do it with Nick.”

“Or Sydney,” Nick suggests, tilting his head suggestively toward me.

“Or Nick ,” I say, flicking my gaze pointedly back at him. An almost seductive smile plays in the corner of his mouth. In my mind, I have him pinned against the wall; he tries to flip me, but I press my knee into his thigh, holding him there.

It’s a standoff until Johnny taps in Nick—literally tapping him in, fist to his shoulder, like they’re swapping in a boxing match. Begrudgingly, I’m amused when the two of them take “the stage,” which is—essentially—a bare patch of carpet near the end of the bar, where servers wheel out the lobster roll station in summer. Leaning back in my chair, legs crossed, I watch Johnny swipe through song choices (so many classics, like “Santa Baby” and “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”), and I swear, if he’s up there singing the hippo one, that’s how I’ll know this is truly an out-of-body experience. I’m dreaming. None of this is real.

For his part, Nick decides to go with the flow. He shimmies his shoulders, like he’s warming up for a road race. To make Johnny laugh, Nick even stretches his hamstrings, hooking his ankles to his butt. Ugh. How is he so flexible in such tight jeans?

They’re really doing this. Microphones are in hand. The song is almost selected. And Johnny’s left his coat, draped over the high-top chairs alongside Nick’s, the slight bulge of two cell phones in their pockets. It’ll be difficult tapping the phones in front of them, but they look distracted enough—and as long as I look distracted enough, too, they won’t suspect a thing.

“What do you want to do for your bachelorette party?” I hard-whisper over the table to Calla, slipping my hand into Nick’s coat first. Hidden in my palm is a USB plug-in, no bigger than my thumbnail; click it into place, and it’ll upload an untraceable virus onto any phone—encrypted or not. From there, Gail can monitor all incoming and outgoing calls, track any searches, dig into calendars...

Calla dismisses the bachelorette party with a polite wave of her engagement-ringed hand. “Oh, you don’t have to throw me one.”

“?’Course I do.” Inside the Barbour jacket, which smells oppressively of Nick’s cologne, I feel out the edges of his phone. Click in the USB. Wait. “Maids of honor throw the bachelorette party. That’s how it works.”

“Yeah...” Calla hedges, tugging at her sweater sleeves. “But it’s really last minute, and I don’t know who can come other than Grandma Ruby, so it’ll just be—”

“Family,” I finish matter-of-factly. “Family works.”

She hesitates, her lips twisting to the side, then says in a clear-cut voice: “In that case, no penises. No penis balloons. No penis pasta. No glow-in-the-dark penis necklaces.”

I cringe, covering for my hands, which are extracting the USB—and sneaking into Johnny’s coat now. “What about me says I’d willingly purchase penis pasta?”

“Honestly, nothing. I just know that’s what people do.”

“What people?”

“You know, people! The people —out there.” She gestures in front of her, ironically toward Johnny, who doesn’t seem like the penis pasta type, either. “Sorry, I just thought I’d have more time to think about all of this, but I’m getting used to the spontaneous thing. Especially when I genuinely believed I’d marry—”

“Robin Hood,” I supply.

Calla cracks up. “Is this where we start finishing each other’s—?”

“Burritos,” I say, finding my rhythm with her again. She’s smiling. I’m smiling. And it kills me a little: that while all this is going on, I’m phishing for intel. A few more seconds and the virus will be fully uploaded, but inside I’m thinking, Liar. Liar. Sydney, you’re a dirty little liar.

Honestly? The longer I’m in the CIA, the more convinced I am that my job isn’t the best way to do good in the world. How can you do “good” when you’re actively doing bad ? I know it’s not that simple, but there isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about quitting. No one quits, though. That’s the impression they give us. You die before you leave the CIA.

“I promise,” I tell her, “I’ll think of something good.”

“Text Nick if you need help coming up with ideas,” Calla says, crossing her legs, hands on her knees. “He doesn’t know Cape Hathaway at all, but he really wants to pitch in. Best-man-type stuff. I gave him your number. Hope that’s okay?”

“Yeah,” I say, unplugging the USB, thankful for her in more ways than one. She’s just made my job a little easier. While also, you know, giving me an outrageously difficult job in the first place. “Yeah, that’s—”

At that second, one of the microphones squeals, and everyone in the bar (around twenty people, by this point) groans and snaps to cover their ears.

“Attention!” Johnny taps the microphone once, twice, sound pounding like a heartbeat. Then he erupts with the gusto of a TV evangelist, pointing at Calla from across the room. “You see that BEAUTIFUL WOMAN over there? Well, I am out of my mind happy to say we’re having a CHRISTMAS WEDDING! She’s going to be my WIFE!”

Big claps of joy explode throughout the room, and Calla looks so blissfully joyous that I almost wish I had a tranquilizer dart. Right now, I could headbutt through a concrete wall.

“This song,” Johnny says in a mock low voice, like an Elvis impersonator, “is dedicated to her.”

When Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” bursts from the speakers, a croaking, borderline hysterical laugh builds in my throat. Zero percent of this image jibes. One of the most dangerous men in America is clutching the microphone with both hands, pouring his vocal soul into a diva’s Christmas anthem, as his former bodyguard harmonizes in the background. There are actual mmmmm s of harmonization. Unfortunately, Johnny’s singing ability best resembles one of those shrieking YouTube goats; the word tune does not seem to be part of his vocabulary. But Nick...

Dammit if Nick doesn’t sing like an angel.

Over Johnny’s goat screams, his voice charges into the room. Pure baritone and straight from the solar plexus, the kind of talent you might pause by a church door for, just to hear it a little longer. Jesus. How does Nick sound this good?

All around the bar, people are joining in the song. This might be a caroler’s dream come true. The highlight of the season. A well-dressed man and his tall, muscled friend are providing quite the show, and everyone is eating it up.

“Do you like Johnny?” Calla leans over and asks me, as the song winds to a close with an emphatic and YOU , and YOU . “He’s just so fun , and you know I didn’t have this huge social life before. He’s really brought me in, introduced me to all these new people, and—please tell me you like him.”

“He’s...” The word drags up my throat. “Great! He’s great.”