Chapter 1
I got this.” Gabby Greene slipped on her bike shoes and strode into the Elite Operatives Division gym like she owned it, but with the awkward gait of someone who had put on their clip-on shoes too far away from the bike.
Those things were not made for walking. In a stiff-legged, might-as-well-be-wearing-ski-boots gait, she made it to the exercise bike for some cardio.
It was Gabby’s second month of being a field agent for the EOD, making her a Top Gun of the spy world.
“Highway to the Danger Zone” might as well be her theme song, which also betrayed her age.
Did the younger operatives know that movie?
Agent Greene had to be able to handle any muscled-up Navy SEAL who came at her.
She had kids waiting for her at home, so failure was not an option.
It’s not like Lucas was going to brush his teeth if she didn’t remind him, and if Gabby died, Kyle would never put her phone down.
She had to be as badass of a mom as she was a spy.
She glanced in the mirror and squared her shoulders. Also, she adjusted her yoga pants.
Gabby, with or without camel toe, was going to have it all, damn it.
If she could take down a money laundering ring of the Russian Mafia, she could handle anything.
Well, most anything. Things got a little cloudy when it came to Markus, but more like cloudy with a chance of sausage.
Dear god, she’d read too many children’s books.
Gabby went dreamy for a moment—the man looked like Regé-Jean Page, the spy version. He’d gone from being her handler to her trainer. Unlike Regé-Jean, Markus showed up for work and for her. Not that Gabby had a chip on her shoulder about Regé-Jean Page quitting Bridgerton or anything.
Gabby set her Stanley on the bike seat and put as much of her hair into a ponytail as would fit. While she was trying to get a few more hairs into the rubber band, the cup crashed to the ground, and the clatter echoed against the concrete walls of the training basement.
“Damn.” She grabbed a newspaper someone had left on the bike’s console and ineffectively dabbed at the spill.
“Who Killed Amanda Duvall?”—a headline with a picture of a beautiful young woman caught her attention.
Gabby stopped mopping and climbed onto the bike holding the damp newspaper.
With her “rolling hills” program selected, she read:
Amanda Duvall, thirty-four, was found dead in her Columbia Heights townhome last Saturday. Ms. Duvall was a political journalist who recently quit the Washington Post to focus on her Substack magazine, ThinkPiece. The cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head. Suicide has not been ruled out.
No one who knows Amanda believes she would have taken her own life. Hours before her death, she registered for a candle-making class the next day. If it was murder, the motive just might be a cover-up. This reporter can’t help but wonder: What was Amanda Duvall investigating?
The program on Gabby’s exercise bike shifted to uphill mode. She stopped reading as she struggled to make it up the pretend hill. The ink was too smeared from her drink to read the rest anyway.
As she “climbed,” Gabby’s thoughts shifted back to Markus, her sexy spy trainer.
Her pedaling slowed to almost zero at the thought of introducing him to her kids.
She could pedal up a twenty percent incline but not when she was dragging all her worries.
With her momentum gone, she couldn’t get the pedals moving again.
Kyle was usually a petulant teenage girl, but, for the first time in a long time, there had been a tenuous peace, and one she didn’t want to lose by telling her kids about Markus.
The bike’s screen flashed a notice, “Keep moving. You can do it.”
Of course she could. Prior planning, compartmentalization, communication, contingency plans. She had the skills to balance romance, bad guys, and her kids. No big deal.
Just as she gave another push, a noise near the stairwell drew her attention.
“Carl?” She called the EOD janitor’s name.
But the footsteps sounded more deliberate than Carl’s, and they were coming toward her. “Carl? Is that you?”
A form stepped into the hallway under the glow of the red exit sign, and Gabby’s senses went on high alert.
This was not Carl.
The man took another step forward, and then another, still without any greeting.
Markus had told her to be on alert for a double agent in the building while he was training her a couple of weeks ago.
He’d explained the danger while she was eating lunch, an Athenian pizza with extra olives and feta.
She remembered the pizza being a little dry. The exact danger—she couldn’t recall.
But this looked like trouble. No one with good intentions wore a ski mask, and he was still heading in her direction. With no one else in the gym, there was no calling for help. And her gun was across the mats. There was no shooting her way out of this, unless she played it cool.
As casually as she could, she got off the bike.
She tripped a little and laughed at her perceived ineptitude (one of her biggest strengths as an agent).
After walking like she was wearing a storm trooper uniform for a few steps, she pulled off her shoes.
“It’s impossible to walk in these things,” she said.
Halfway to her gun, the man caught her eye. She gave him a friendly wave.
He grunted a noncommittal reply.
Her heart was hammering in her ears.
Ten feet from her gun, he said, “Stop where you are, Agent Greene.”
“Really? Are we doing this? I have to get home to the kids. I was already pushing it, trying to get in a workout. I’ll just pretend like I didn’t see you, and we can all go about our business.” She was running at the mouth.
The man reasserted himself. “Don’t take one more step.”
“Are you going to shoot me?” she asked, subtly getting into a fight stance.
After a pause for reflection, he said, “I’d rather a fair fight. No weapons, just you and me on the mat.”
“And I really thought I wouldn’t have to fight anyone for gym space at this time of day.”
He didn’t laugh.
There was no such thing as a fair fight.
He was a lot bigger than her, but she had a few advantages.
1) Markus was always telling her she had better leverage.
Use your body weight to take down your opponent.
If nothing else, she could just hang on to this opponent’s leg toddler-style.
From experience, she knew that was very annoying.
2) A lower center of gravity made her harder to knock down.
Just like why skid steer loaders carry their buckets low to the ground.
Gabby’s life had been nothing but diggers for a while: Luca’s picture books, YouTube videos of digging, and visiting a nearby construction project in her neighborhood until it got weird when one of the workmen thought she was there for him.
At any rate, she had some junk in the trunk, and for once, it was to her advantage. Well, that workman had seemed to like it too.
The masked man barreled toward her, head down. Instead of sidestepping, she braced herself and prepared a defense. He had so much momentum already. All she had to do was change his trajectory and throw him over her shoulder.
Surprise flashed in his eyes when he realized what she was going to attempt. “Nice try, Agent Greene,” he said, respect in his voice.
But that’s all it had been, a try. Before she could come up with her next move, he swept a leg out, taking her feet right out from under her and sending Gabby flying ass over teakettle.
She hit the ground with a thud, and the breath left her lungs in a rush. Before she could roll away, the man was on top of her, using his weight to pin her to the ground. She bucked her hips and tried to sit up to take a swing, but he didn’t budge.
“I thought you were going to make this harder?” he said.
How dare he? She was a force to be reckoned with. There had to be something she could do. She wasn’t strong enough to punch him from the angle she was at, but… if she stretched, she could almost reach her shoe.
It was just out of reach, and he knew it. He laughed. She never should have signed up for this job. People were counting on her. She couldn’t die on a Wednesday at the office.
A bead of sweat dripped down her face as she stretched as far as she could. If only she were an inch taller—or more serious about yoga.
When he laughed at her pathetic effort, he relaxed just enough to let her stretch out a little farther.
She snatched her bike shoe with the metal clips and swung it toward him with all the force she could muster.
He blocked the attack. Running out of options, she wrapped her thighs around his upper body and squeezed.
If he would just hold still for a few seconds.
At this point, the masked man was smashed into her crotch. “Why do you look so surprised?” Gabby said through gritted teeth.
She squeezed harder, smashing his face even closer into her crotch.
It was a good move, but the voices started getting louder in her head.
Who did she think she was? Could she really kill a man with her thighs?
It was the end of the day, and she was already tired from a twenty-minute hill workout on a bike.
“What’s the holdup? Are you going to strangle me or what?”
She wanted to say something quippy before killing him, but all she could think was: She probably smelled like a barn.
Before she could answer, he said, “Squeeze! C’mon, kill me! Any man should be so lucky to die between a woman’s thighs.”
She was done playing along.
“Markus, I can’t. Get your face out of my crotch, please.”
“Gabby, come on.”
“Markus, I’m serious. This role-playing isn’t working. I have to get home.”
She couldn’t pretend it wasn’t Markus anymore.