Chapter 12
TWELVE
“We’ve cleared Blake and Howard,” Ham said. “Riley too. They’re not involved.”
Dakota stood on the balcony, the lights of the city pressing into the darkness, the taste of Jayden’s kiss on his mouth.
Right. The mission.
And he just didn’t care. Not really.
What he wanted was to turn around and keep kissing Jayden, thank you very much.
Instead, he stood in the cold, the wind wrapping around him, and saw her climb back to her side of the bed, put her back to him.
“The Harts are clean too,” Ham continued. “Just tourists. Bad timing, joining the tour right before the attack, but there’s nothing in their background to suggest involvement.”
“Yeah, I already figured that out.” His voice came out rougher than intended. “So who does that leave?”
A pause on the line. The kind of pause that meant Ham was about to say something Dakota didn’t want to hear.
“There’s someone we need to discuss. This woman you’ve been traveling with.” Ham’s voice was careful now. Measured. “Jayden Pierce.”
Dakota’s chest tightened. “What about her?”
“Coco did some digging. She’s connected to multiple aliases. Different names in different countries—some dating back years. Intelligence services have her flagged as a person of interest.”
The balcony seemed to shake around him.
“What aliases?”
“We’re still compiling the full list, but the pattern is concerning—professional-grade identity work, the kind that takes resources and training. She’s not a hotel inspector. Whatever she’s really doing on this tour, it’s not what she’s told you.”
Dakota closed his eyes. Saw Jayden in the Hunter Valley, firelight playing across her face as she told him about Skylar. Saw her in Cairns, laughing as they danced by the pool. Saw her in Fiji, talking him through the nightmare with a voice that knew exactly what she was doing.
You get too close to me, and things could end badly.
She’d warned him. He just hadn’t understood what she was warning him about.
“Are you sure, Ham? Can you get me pictures?”
“Sure. But Coco is pretty sure it’s the woman you’re with. Has she done anything suspicious?”
Where to start. Nothing? Everything?
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll reach out to our contact. It’s a woman named London—she’s a Black Swan, been working this case with Logan Thorne with the Caleb Group for months. She’s the one tracking the assassin. If anyone has the full picture on your travel companion, it’s her.”
“London.” Dakota filed the name away. Another piece of the puzzle, another player in a game that kept getting more complicated. “How soon can you get the intel?”
“I’ll have something for you by morning. In the meantime—” Ham’s voice shifted. “Let’s talk about Sydney. You’re touring the Opera House tomorrow afternoon?”
“That’s the plan. Backstage access, the whole tour.”
“Good. I’m sending West to meet you there. The Secret Service has been on-site for over a week, vetting the venue, but your blueprints have specific areas marked. We need to nail those down before the summit.”
The blueprints. The ones he’d been carrying since the beginning, the ones that had gotten mixed up in the Fiji bag shuffle. The whole reason he was on this tour in the first place.
“I don’t want anything happening to President White,” Ham said. “Whatever’s going on with this woman—keep your eyes open. Don’t let it distract you from the mission.”
“It won’t.”
The lie tasted bitter. Everything about Jayden had been a distraction from the moment he’d first seen her in Fiji.
And now, her latest move had torn up his heart.
He closed his eyes and wanted to hit something.
“And the suitcase?” Dakota asked. “The rifle components? We still haven’t found who it belongs to.”
“That’s concerning, I won’t lie. But the summit is the priority. If the assassin is on your tour, they’ll make their move at the Opera House. That’s where we’ll stop them.”
“And if Jayden is the assassin?”
The question hung in air, eaten by the night sky.
“Then you do your job,” Ham said quietly. “Whatever that requires.”
The line went dead.
Dakota stood on the balcony, hearing his heartbeat in his ear.
Has she done anything suspicious?
Like what? Wheedle her way into his heart?
Sure, she’d been gone when he’d returned from searching the Harts’ room—vanished without explanation, the room empty.
Except then, just like that, she’d walked in from the balcony, a flush to her face. Looking . . . weirdly unnerved.
The open balcony door in the Harts’ room flickered through his mind. Sone had been sneaking through the hotel, climbing fire escapes, slipping through windows.
Had it been her?
Dakota drew in a breath and headed into the room.
She was asleep.
He eased the balcony door closed behind him, careful not to let it click. The room was dark except for the Melbourne skyline filtering through the curtains—city lights painting everything in soft grays and blues.
Jayden was curled on her side of the bed, dark hair spread across the pillow, one hand tucked under her cheek.
Her breathing, slow and steady, the deep rhythm of genuine sleep.
She’d changed into something soft—a T-shirt, sleep shorts—and she looked peaceful.
Innocent. Nothing like someone who’d just been doing something she needed to hide.
Dakota paused by the closed door, watching her breathe.
Multiple aliases. Intelligence services have her flagged. Professional-grade identity work.
Ham’s words played on a loop in his head. The profile fit. The circumstantial evidence was there. Any objective analyst would have her at the top of their suspect list.
But objectivity had abandoned him somewhere between Fiji and the Hunter Valley. Somewhere between the nightmare she’d talked him through and the kiss she’d let him steal. Somewhere between “build the wall” and “I believe you.”
He should sleep on the floor. Should keep distance, maintain boundaries, treat her as the potential threat she might be.
Instead, he toed off his shoes and moved to the bed.
The mattress dipped slightly as he lay down beside her. She stirred—a small sound, a shift of her body—then settled again, her breathing evening out. She didn’t wake.
Or she was very good at pretending.
Dakota lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, listening to her breathe.
It occurred to him that he hadn’t had a nightmare since Fiji.
Not since that first night, when the storm had howled outside and she’d pulled him back from the darkness with nothing but her voice.
Every night since—Cairns, the Hunter Valley, Melbourne—he’d slept either in the same room, or nearby, and the dreams had stayed away.
She’d given him that. Peace. The first real rest he’d had in years.
If she was the enemy, even that moment had been a lie. A manipulation. A tool to lower his defenses.
But if she wasn’t—
He turned his head slightly, looking at her profile in the darkness. The curve of her nose. The softness of her lips.
If she was an assassin, she could have killed him at any time. That was the thing. They’d been traveling together for days. Sharing rooms. Sharing beds, even—with the Great Wall of Fiji. She’d had a hundred opportunities to hurt him if that was her goal.
She hadn’t taken any of them.
But then, why would she if her target was the president, not him? She didn’t know what his mission was.
Except, she’d had his suitcase . . . hello.
If she saw his blueprints, then she knew his mission.
An easy way to be one step ahead of him.
The thoughts spiraled, and he forced them to stop. Forced himself to breathe. In. Out. The rhythm matching hers, unconsciously synchronizing until they breathed together in the darkness.
Faith means trusting what you don’t know.
She’d said that in the Hunter Valley when they’d talked about faith.
And then he’d promised to find her Bible. Promised to have faith that things would work out.
He put his hand to his chest. Looked at the ceiling. The hotel room was quiet, the city a distant hum beyond the glass.
Lord, what am I missing?
It sounded like a prayer. A tiptoe into faith, maybe. The desperate reaching of a man.
No answer came. Just the quiet darkness and Jayden’s breathing and the weight of tomorrow pressing down.
Sydney. The Opera House. The summit. His buddy West coming as backup. The Secret Service on high alert. And somewhere in all of it, an assassin with a rifle—maybe the woman beside him, maybe someone else entirely.
He blew out a breath, Ham’s words thundering.
You do your job. Whatever that requires.
But lying here, listening to Jayden breathe, feeling the peace she somehow gave him even now—Dakota wasn’t sure he could do what the mission required. Not if it meant hurting her. Not if it meant being wrong.
So, heaven help him, he shot up another prayer, his gaze out the window, into the darkening sky. Help me see the truth, God. Help me know what’s real.
And maybe it wouldn’t get answered, but asking it felt like something. A choice. A step toward the faith he’d been running from for years.
For now, all he could do was lie in the dark and hope, and try to believe that the woman beside him was exactly who she seemed to be.
Jayden needed to stop thinking like a tourist.
Still, Sydney was the most beautiful city she’d ever seen—the harbor glittering under the afternoon sun, the Opera House gleaming white against impossibly blue sky, its iconic sails catching light like something from a dream.
She’d never been here before, and every cell in her body wanted to stop and stare and soak it in like, well, a tourist instead of an operative on the verge of mission failure.
She wasn’t on vacation. She was on a mission. A mission that was about to explode in her face.
And she was absolutely not going to cry.
The tour group gathered at the Circular Quay ferry terminal, Bonnie clutching her tablet, the wind in her hair. Behind them, ferries crisscrossed the harbor. Ahead, the Opera House rose from the water like a ship in full sail.