Chapter Three
Charlie
The brunette wig was wrong.
I held it up to my face in the bathroom mirror, checking the color against my skin tone in the early light.
Too warm. I'd read as Mediterranean, and tonight's cover was old-money WASP.
I needed cooler tones. The auburn was sharper, but a blunt-cut redhead stood out in a crowd — the opposite of what I wanted.
Back to the brunette. Maybe with different makeup I could cool it down.
Behind me, reflected in the mirror, Dominic Knight was still asleep on my couch.
He'd kicked off the blanket sometime during the night. His T-shirt had ridden up, exposing a strip of tanned stomach and abs that made a girl forget she had principles. One arm was thrown over his head, dark hair rumpled, that permanent five o'clock shadow even darker in the early light.
I'd been up since six. Given up on sleep at six-fifteen. Spent the time pulling disguise options and telling myself I wasn't glancing through the open bathroom door every thirty seconds.
I was absolutely glancing through the open bathroom door every thirty seconds.
Sleep-rumpled Dominic was somehow worse than alert, intimidating Dominic. Alert Dominic, I could fight. This version made me want to do things that would definitely violate his precious safety protocols.
I yanked open the coffee cabinet harder than necessary. The bang echoed through the apartment.
His eyes opened. Not gradually — just open, instantly awake, scanning the room before landing on me. Two mornings in a row now. I still wasn't used to how fast he went from unconscious to operational.
"You always wake up like a light switch?" I asked, pouring coffee. "It's unsettling."
"You always announce morning by assaulting your kitchen cabinets?"
"Only when I have roommates I didn't ask for."
He sat up, rolled his shoulders — muscles doing things under that T-shirt that I refused to notice — and reached for the coffee I'd grudgingly left within his reach. "Day three. You haven't fired me yet."
"Can't fire someone I didn't hire. I'm just... tolerating you."
"High praise." He took a sip. Black, no sugar, same as yesterday. "What's the plan tonight?"
"Winter Rose Gala at the Conservatory. Black tie, champagne, Cupid City's elite pretending they donate to charity because they care and not because they need the tax write-off.
" I leaned against the counter. "Senator Harlan Tully will be there with his wife.
And his mistress. I need photos of both. "
"Of course you do."
"It's a living."
I headed for the closet — my wall of disguises on full display. Wigs sorted by color and length on the top shelf. Fake credentials in a lockbox. Dresses ranging from cocktail to full gala. Server uniforms, catering outfits, a FedEx jacket I'd liberated for a particularly creative job last spring.
Dominic followed, leaning against the doorframe with his coffee. Close enough that I was aware of him taking up space. He did that — filled rooms just by standing in them.
"Tonight I'm Alexandra Winters," I said, setting the brunette wig on its stand. "Socialite donor. Old money, new Botox, more opinions than sense. Remember to call me Alexandra if you have to use a name in public."
"Got it. Scarlett Sinclair for the byline, Alexandra Winters for the gala." He took a sip of coffee. "Should I be keeping a spreadsheet, or do you hand out name tags?"
"Keep up, Knight. There'll be a quiz."
"You're forgetting the 'in shining armor' part if you're going to call me that." He leaned against the doorframe. "How about Prince Charming?"
"Prince Charming didn't carry a Glock."
"His loss."
I grabbed the red dress next. Silk, fitted, cut just low enough to blend with the crowd without screaming for attention. A dress that whispered I belong here to people who needed reassurance about that sort of thing. I held it against my body, checking the length.
When I glanced up, Dominic was watching me in the mirror.
Not checking exits. Not scanning for threats.
Watching me — my hands moving through the wigs, how I held the dress against myself, how I was already shifting into someone else.
His expression was focused, intent, like he was filing away a puzzle he hadn't expected.
"Take a picture," I said. "It lasts longer."
"That's your job, not mine." But he didn't look away. "Most people can't do what you do."
"Trespass and commit light fraud? You'd be surprised."
"Transform." He said it simply. No inflection. Just fact. "You walked out of this apartment yesterday as a completely different person. Same face, different everything — posture, voice, the way you moved. I've worked with undercover operatives who couldn't pull off what you do in a hotel hallway."
I didn't know what to do with that. Morty called me his best shooter. My family called me an embarrassment. Nobody had ever called what I did a skill before — not the sneaking or the photos, but the becoming. The disappearing into someone else.
"Get out," I said, because I didn't have a better response. "You're distracting me."
He pushed off the doorframe. "From what? You're holding a wig."
"From planning. Go be large and complimentary somewhere else."
His mouth twitched. But he went.
BY THE TIME THE SUN dropped and we were in his SUV heading toward the Conservatory of Glass & Roses, I was in trouble.
Dominic in a tux was doing things to my ability to think in complete sentences.
Black suit, perfectly tailored, sitting across shoulders that didn't need tailoring to look good.
White shirt open at the collar — he hadn't put on the tie yet.
Dark hair still slightly damp from his shower.
The stubble was gone, jaw clean-shaven, and somehow that was worse because now I could see the sharp line of it, how it clenched when he was thinking.
He looked like he should be on a movie poster for a film involving car chases and a woman who makes terrible decisions. I was apparently auditioning for the role of that woman.
"You clean up nice, Knight."
He glanced over. His gaze dropped — just for a second, a fast sweep from neckline to hem — before snapping back to the road. "So do you."
"You should see me in a catering vest and a wig that smells like a carpet store."
"True." The smallest hint of a curve at the corner of his mouth. "But tonight you look like someone who belongs at a charity gala instead of someone about to commit crimes at one."
"The night is young."
My phone buzzed. Unknown number.
I froze.
The screen lit up with a text. No words at first — just an image loading, the progress bar crawling across the screen.
My stomach dropped before I even saw it.
It was me. Asleep in my bed. The angle was from above — someone standing over me, looking down.
My face slack, hair spread across the pillow, completely defenseless.
Completely unaware. The tapestry I'd hung over the graffiti had been yanked aside — they'd wanted me to see it.
I SEE YOU in red across the brick, framing my sleeping face.
A second text followed: I see everything you do. You can't hide from me.
The air left my lungs like someone had punched it out.
"Charlie." Dominic's voice was sharp. He'd heard me go quiet — which for me was louder than screaming. "What is it?"
I handed him the phone. Couldn't speak.
His expression went flat. Not angry — ice. The temperature in the SUV dropped ten degrees.
"Pull over," I said.
He was already pulling over. Side street, SUV in park, dome light on. He studied the phone, fingers moving across the screen. I watched his jaw work while he checked the screen.
"Metadata," he said after a moment. His voice was level — so level it meant he was keeping fury on a very short leash. "Photo was taken approximately two weeks ago. Before I started this detail. Before you changed your locks."
Two weeks ago. Someone had been in my apartment. Standing over my bed while I slept. Close enough to touch me. Close enough to do anything. And I'd never known.
"They had access before Heartline," Dominic continued. "They took this before the break-in — same period when they had access to your place. They've been sitting on it. Holding it like a card they could play when they wanted to shake you."
"Why send it now?"
"Psychological warfare. They want you rattled. Want you to know that even with a bodyguard, they had you first. That they still have pieces of you — photos, files, access to your life." He set the phone down and looked at me. "This is designed to make you feel unsafe. To break your confidence."
"It's working." My voice came out smaller than I wanted.
"It's designed to work. But look at what it actually tells us." He held up the phone. "This photo is two weeks old. They haven't been able to get to you since you changed the locks. Since Heartline's been involved. They're playing old cards because they don't have new ones."
"How do you know they don't have new ones?"
"Because if they had current access, they wouldn't need psychological warfare." He said it steady, matter-of-fact. Like he was laying out evidence, not trying to comfort me. "They'd act. The fact that they're sending old photos means you've cut off their access and they're scrambling."
I stared at the photo on the screen. My own sleeping face staring back at me. Vulnerable in a way I never let anyone see when I was awake.
"Hey." His hand covered mine on the center console. Warm, solid, his fingers wrapping around mine with a firmness that felt like an anchor. "You're not alone in this anymore. Whoever sent this wants you to remember what it felt like before. Don't give them that."
I took a breath. Then another. Shoved the fear into the same lockbox where I kept every other feeling I couldn't afford.
"I have a gala to crash."
He squeezed my hand once before letting go, pulling back into traffic. "Yeah, you do."
The Conservatory of Glass & Roses was the kind of beautiful that made you forget February existed.