Chapter 13 Mia #2
Yet, I can’t pull it away.
I don’t want to.
When was the last time someone held my bloody hand?
The Metropolitan Museum of Art rises before us like a temple to wealth and power, its grand facade lit up against the night sky. Red carpet spills down the steps like blood, flanked by photographers and security and the kind of velvet ropes that separate the important from the invisible.
My stomach clenches as Danny brings the Meridian down, settling it gently at the curb. Through the tinted windows, I can see the gauntlet we’ll have to run—cameras flashing, reporters shouting, a hundred eyes waiting to catalog our every move.
“Ready?” Vanguard asks.
“Hell no,” I breathe, my pulse quickening. Bayo must be picking up on this and wondering what’s happening.
“Good. Neither am I.” He squeezes my hand once, then releases it. “Stay close, darlin’.”
Darlin’. If I wasn’t so nervous, I’d be swooning at his past-cowboy self coming through.
Danny opens the door, and Vanguard steps out first, unfolding from the car to his full height.
The crowd noise swells—cheers, screams, his name being called from every direction.
He turns back and offers me his hand, and I take it, letting him help me from the car with a grace I definitely don’t feel, keeping my knees together as much as possible so I don’t indecently expose myself.
The cold air hits my bare skin immediately—cold and sharp, raising goosebumps along my arms and back. It jolts me away just as the cameras explode, and suddenly, I can’t feel anything except the blinding assault of flash after flash after flash.
“Vanguard! Over here!”
“Who’s the woman?”
“Is this your girlfriend?”
“Is that the journalist?”
“Give us a smile!”
Vanguard’s hand finds the small of my back—warm palm against bare skin, strong fingers splayed possessively across my spine—and the contact anchors me. Heat radiates from his touch, chasing away the chill, making me hyperaware of every inch of his skin.
“Just keep walking,” he murmurs, his lips close to my ear. “Don’t look at them. Look at me.”
I look up beside me.
Those cornflower blue eyes, steady and calm, are fixed on my face like I’m the only person in the world, like the screaming crowd and the flashing cameras and the chaos around us simply doesn’t exist.
“There you go,” he says softly. “Just like that. Watch your step.”
We move up the red carpet together, his hand never leaving my back.
I can feel the heat of him through my thin dress, can smell his cologne—cedar, sandalwood and something more masculine—every time I breathe.
The silk whispers against my thighs with each step, and I’m acutely aware of the picture we must make.
America’s golden boy and the girl in red.
If only they knew what I really am, that Mia Baxter doesn’t really exist, that this is all the grandest of lies.
Inside, the gala is a fever dream of wealth and power.
Crystal chandeliers drip from ceilings that soar three stories high, scattering light across marble floors and gilded columns.
Waiters in white gloves circulate with champagne flutes and canapés arranged to resemble art pieces.
A string quartet plays something classical in one corner, the music almost drowned out by the hum of conversation and laughter—the sound of the elite congratulating themselves on surviving the societal collapse they helped create.
I grab a champagne flute from a passing tray and take a long sip, letting the bubbles fizz on my tongue. The liquid is cold and crisp, and while this dress wasn’t cheap, I’d wager a bottle is probably worth more than my entire outfit.
“Pace yourself,” Vanguard murmurs. “Long night ahead.”
“I can handle my champagne.” You have no idea.
“I don’t doubt it.” His hand is still on my back, thumb brushing back and forth over my skin, making it very hard to concentrate. When was the last time someone touched me like this when it wasn’t a honeytrap?
And then I’m reminded, like a slap of cold water to the face, that this is, in fact, a honeytrap. Just a different one.
“I just want you coherent for the dancing,” Vanguard adds.
My heart flutters despite myself. “Am I dancing with you?”
“Me and only me.”
The confidence in his voice should annoy me, let alone his possession. Instead, it sends a shiver down my spine that I do my best to suppress.
I scan the room, cataloging faces and positions even as my body hums with awareness of the man beside me.
President Elena Vasquez is holding court near the main entrance—mid-fifties, elegant in navy blue, her smile warm and practiced as she works through an endless receiving line.
She’d been the face of resistance during the Dark Decade, the prosecutor who brought cases against the regime’s worst offenders.
Now, she’s shaking hands with the same corporate donors who funded the nightmare.
Same corruption, different packaging. If it wasn’t so typical, it would be disappointing.
Conrad Marsh is nearby, a slicked-back weasel in a suit, laughing too loudly at something a silver-haired senator said. Beside him, in a wheelchair pushed by a silent nurse, sits Elron Masters.
The founder of Global Dynamix looks like death warmed over—ninety-something years of malice crammed into a withered frame, oxygen tube in his nose, liver-spotted hands gripping the arms of his chair.
He built an empire on surveillance tech, AI robots, and military contracts.
He funded the politicians who dismantled democracy.
And now, here he is, being wheeled around like a beloved grandfather instead of the monster he actually is.
My champagne suddenly tastes sour.
“You’re doing that thing,” Vanguard says.
I raise my brows at him. “I have a thing? What thing?”
“Where you look at someone like you’re calculating exactly how to destroy them.”
I force my expression to soften. “I must be the first real journalist you’ve met then. That’s how we look at everyone.”
“Mmm.” He doesn’t sound convinced. “Come on. There are people I need to say hello to, which means there are people you need to pretend to like. You can do that, right? Pretend?”
I stare at him for a moment, wondering what—if anything—he means by that, but he’s already plastering the superhero smile on his face.
He guides me through the crowd, his hand a constant pressure on my back. People turn to stare as we pass—women in designer gowns, men in tuxedos, all of them tracking our progress with barely disguised curiosity.
Who is she?
Where did he find her?
What’s she wearing?
Is that dress vintage Valentino? No, wait, it’s chain store.
I can practically hear the gossip forming, the social media posts being composed. By tomorrow, my face will be everywhere. Vanguard’s new woman. The journalist who somehow caught America’s Hero. From milkshakes to presidential galas.
My cover identity is about to get a lot more scrutiny than I anticipated.
“Relax,” Vanguard murmurs. “You look like you’re facing a firing squad.”
“Maybe I am.”
“If anyone fires at you, I’ll catch the bullet.” His thumb traces another circle against my spine. “That’s kind of my thing.”
Despite everything, I laugh, and something in his expression softens at the sound. His smile in return is genuine, a sense of being in this together, even though he does this every week, even though none of this fazes him even in the slightest.
Does anything phase him?
His past, I think. A place to keep pushing.
We make the rounds together, shaking hands and making small talk with senators and donors and tech executives whose names I file away for later analysis.
Vanguard is charming and warm, playing his role perfectly, but I notice the way his smile never quite reaches his eyes, the way his hand never leaves my back, like he’s afraid I might disappear if he stops touching me.
I feel like his touch—this rare, wonderful touch—is the only thing keeping me upright, even as it weakens my knees.
I’m introduced as “Mia Baxter, journalist with Vantage” so many times, the words start to lose meaning.
Everyone wants to know how we met, how long we’ve been seeing each other, whether this is serious.
No one seems satisfied with the true cover, that I am just a journalist and he is just the subject, but still, I deflect with practiced ease while my spy brain catalogs everything—who talks to whom, which conversations go quiet when we approach, the subtle undercurrents of power and allegiance flowing beneath the glittering surface.
Across the room, I spot a woman with a camera moving through the crowd. Highlighted hair, Slavic features, a press badge that would identify her as Elena Varga.
Kat.
Our eyes meet for a fraction of a second. She gives me the barest nod—I see you, I’m working—before melting back into the crowd.
Then, I notice the man she’s been photographing.
He’s big, bald, mid-fifties, and built like a brick wall, with scars on his knuckles and a face that looks like it’s been carved from granite but the sculptor made a few oopsies along the way.
He’s talking to Conrad Marsh, leaning in close, and there’s something about him that makes my instincts scream.
He doesn’t fit here—too rough, too watchful, too much inner disdain for everyone here and worse at hiding it than I am.
I need to find out who he is.
“I need to use the loo,” I tell Vanguard. “Give me five minutes?”
He looks like he wants to argue—or follow me—but he just nods. “Don’t be long. The vultures are circling.”
He isn’t wrong. I can feel eyes on me from every direction, society types trying to figure out who I am and how I got here.
I slip away from his side and make my way through the crowd, feeling suddenly cold without the warmth of his hand on my back.
The bathroom is a sanctuary of marble and gold, blissfully empty. I lock myself in a stall, rest my forehead against the door, and let out a long, shaking breath.