Chapter 3
Brooklyn in spring was a contradiction in steel, slush, and bloom. Daffodils forced their way out of crusty tree beds while garbage trucks performed a daily opera of metal-on-metal violence. Cafés spilled caffeine-fueled humans onto sidewalks already overcrowded with dogs, strollers, and joggers.
Rayna walked half a block behind Major Payne, iced chai in one hand, sunglasses sliding down her nose. Behind her, Michael pretended to browse a rack of magazines on a sidewalk stand, and Daniel crouched beside a “psychic readings” sandwich board like he was considering a career change.
“You two look like actors auditioning for a spy thriller,” Rayna muttered for the comm bead in her ear. “Loosen up.”
“Copy that,” Daniel added. “And for the record, I’m interested in this sign. Madame Elza does past life regressions.”
Rayna sighed. “If I get reincarnated, it better be into a woman with better taste in coworkers.”
“But you love us,” Michael said.
She turned just enough so they could see her smirk.
They moved as a loose cluster, the way birds do when they’re trying not to look like they’re following breadcrumbs.
Payne kept a military pace. Steady, efficient, too fast to be leisurely but not quite aggressive.
His off-duty khakis were freshly pressed.
His sturdy brown leather coat looked expensive.
It was longer than a motorcycle jacket, shorter than a trench coat.
So far, he’d stopped at a store window, a bus stop, and, curiously, a children’s playground. He hadn’t spoken to anyone. Hadn’t used a phone. Hadn’t even paused to tie a shoe.
“He’s not doing anything,” Michael said. “Is it possible he’s just sightseeing?”
“No one sightsees in Bay Ridge,” Rayna said. “Unless they’re really into bagels and angry parking disputes.”
They turned another corner. Payne disappeared into a narrow alley beside a shuttered deli.
Rayna froze. “Crap.”
Michael was already moving. “You want us to—?”
“No,” she cut in. “We’re getting nowhere. He’s not talking. He’s not signaling. He’s just existing suspiciously. I say we go off-script.”
Daniel groaned. “You mean interact.”
“I mean talk,” Rayna said, already adjusting her sunglasses and striding forward. “Friendly, casual, non-threatening human talk. And by we, I mean me.”
Michael and Daniel exchanged a look.
“Want backup?” Michael asked.
“If I get murdered in broad daylight, avenge me dramatically,” Rayna said. “Otherwise, stay put. If he spooks, I don’t want him seeing your faces again.”
She turned into the alley.
It smelled like old grease and rotting pizza. A row of trash bins lined the left wall. Payne stood at the far end, hands in his pockets, frowning at the brick wall as if it had just insulted his mother.
Rayna cleared her throat. “Major Payne.”
He turned slowly, like he’d already heard her coming four steps ago.
“Ms. Blackstone,” he said. Not a question. Not surprised.
Rayna stopped five feet away, close enough for conversation but far enough to dodge a sudden roundhouse if things got dicey.
“You always spend your mornings lurking behind delis?” she asked.
“Only when the company’s good,” he replied.
Her smile was light. “How long have you known I was following you?”
“Since the Vintage clothing store window. I paused at the schoolyard, figuring if I looked like a creeper, you might confront me.”
Rayna laughed and flipped her long, fiery red hair over her shoulder. “I wasn’t planning on confronting you at all. But I got bored.”
“Aren’t you entertained enough by those two… What do you call them? Man-pets?”
“Yes. I find them very entertaining. But even if you have steak every day, sometimes a girl just wants a hamburger.”
His brows shot up. “Are you calling me a hamburger and my former subordinates steaks?”
She laughed out loud. “No. Sorry. That was just an unfortunate metaphor. Better than saying chicken, though.”
“How about Lobster thermidor?”
“Mmm… Now my mouth is watering.”
He looked at her as if his mouth were watering too, but not from the food discussion.
“Shall we take this to a restaurant?” he asked. “It’s long past lunch. Have you eaten?”
“I could eat.” She didn’t say what, or rather who, she’d like to eat. He was standing right in front of her. However, she let an unashamed smile lift her lips.
The place they landed was called The Fourth on Fifth, a narrow, no-frills joint with exposed brick walls, laminated menus, and waitstaff who looked like they’d seen some things.
A chalkboard near the door advertised “Lunch Specials All Day” in cheerful handwriting, but the only thing cheerful about the place was the waitress with lavender glasses and an impressive neck tattoo of a phoenix rising from her bra-strap.
They were seated in a booth toward the back, beneath a ceiling fan and a crooked photo of the Brooklyn Bridge. The hum of conversation, clatter of dishes, and hiss of the espresso machine formed a comfortable wall of ambient noise, enough to muffle their voices without forcing them to whisper.
Rayna watched Payne across the table over the rim of her mug. He hadn’t taken off his coat. His posture was too upright for someone “off duty,” but he had ordered a sandwich, so she gave him half a point for pretending.
“So,” she said, “should we keep pretending this is a casual lunch? Or are you going to ask me if I’m a threat to national security?”
He didn’t smile, but his eyes crinkled slightly. “That depends. Are you?”
Rayna leaned back and sipped. “I try not to be. But people keep making assumptions.”
“I don’t make assumptions,” Payne said. “I gather data.”
“You say that like you’re not already writing a file on me in your head.”
He didn’t deny it. Instead, he unfolded his napkin with military precision and placed it on his lap.
“And what about you?” she asked.
“What about me?”
“Are you a threat to national security?”
He laughed. “Well, not unless I’m ordered to be. Listen… You gave yourself away,” he said. “Back at the bookstore. There was a flicker of something when you rose from the table. Subtle. But detectable.”
“Residual ward magic,” Rayna said easily. “I’d just been in a protective circle. You can’t be too careful with disappointed fans if you run out of books. You’re lucky I didn’t glow.”
“You nearly did,” he said. “It didn’t match anything in my training, but it wasn’t nothing. And then there was the man across the street.”
Rayna’s smile faded. “You saw him.”
“Tall. Gray coat. Didn’t move a muscle, right?”
“He wasn’t ours.”
Payne finally looked uneasy. Just for a second. “I didn’t think so.”
The waitress arrived with plates. A Reuben sandwich for him, avocado BLT for her. A side of fries landed between them like neutral territory. Rayna nodded her thanks, then leaned forward slightly.
“If you’re worried about him,” she said, “you should be. But I’m not your enemy, Major. I’m trying to stay out of the kind of messes that require men like you to come sniffing around.”
“And yet here I am.”
“Here you are,” she agreed. “Sniffing. Like my perfume? It’s expensive.”
He studied her face for a beat. “What exactly are you, Ms. Blackstone?”
Rayna popped a fry into her mouth and grinned. “Hungry. You gonna eat that pickle?”
Payne nudged the plate toward her, silently ceding the pickle. Rayna bit into it and chewed slowly. Who knew eating a pickle could be sensual?
“Are you always this charming during intelligence briefings?” he asked, half a smile ghosting his face.
“Only when the agent in question has the bone structure of a Greek statue and the emotional availability of a broken vending machine,” she said, licking pickle juice off her thumb.
“Sounds like your type.”
“It’s alarmingly consistent.”
He chuckled, soft and short, like laughter was a language he wasn’t fluent in but understood when spoken slowly.
They ate in near silence for a few minutes. The noise of the restaurant rose and fell around them: the rhythmic clink of forks, the hiss of soda fountains, a toddler somewhere screaming about ice cream like it was a betrayal of biblical proportions. The atmosphere was normal. Comforting, even.
Rayna found herself watching him again, not with suspicion, but with the kind of curiosity she usually reserved for cursed objects and prospective boyfriends.
“You served overseas,” she said.
“Multiple times,” he replied without elaborating.
“Ever bring back a souvenir you couldn’t explain?”
He met her gaze. “That's a loaded question.”
“Maybe. Depends on your answer.”
Payne took a long sip of water. “There was an incident. Afghanistan. A cave system outside Kunduz. We were tracking a weapons cache. Found symbols burned into the rock. One of my team went in. He disappeared for a while. Came out wrong.”
Rayna’s brows lifted. “Possession?”
“No, I don’t think so. He was given something. Speed, strength, a sixth sense for danger. But it cost him. Nightmares. Hallucinations. Eventually, paranoia. Shot his best friend during a routine exercise.”
Rayna didn’t speak. She knew that kind of magic. Black. Bargain-based. Nonrefundable.
“What happened to him?” she asked.
“He’s in a secure psych facility in Virginia. Not much of him is left.”
She looked down at her half-eaten sandwich. “You kept that quiet. I never saw it in any reports.”
“It wasn’t in any reports,” he said. “That’s why I started looking into other explanations.”
“Like magic.”
“Like you.”
“Me?” She reared back in her seat. “I wouldn’t do that to somebody.”
For a heartbeat, there was something raw between them. Recognition. Two people who’d seen the same shit but didn’t want to admit it.
Rayna reached for her chai and froze.
Across the restaurant, by the door, a man stood watching them. He was staring. His eyes never left their table. He wore a nondescript hoodie and had a newsboy cap pulled low, like an actor trying too hard not to get recognized.
“What is it?” Payne asked.
“Don’t turn your head,” Rayna murmured. “We’re being watched.”
“Gray coat?”
“No. New guy. Human, probably. But the way he’s positioned... He’s blocking the door.”
Payne set down his water. “Weapon?”
“Don’t see one. Doesn’t mean he’s not carrying.”
“I can get us out.”
Rayna shook her head. “Not yet. Let’s see if he makes a move.”
The man by the door shifted slightly, glancing toward the counter, then back at them. Still not obvious. But definitely there for them.
Rayna slid out of the booth. “Bathroom’s this way, right?”
“Don’t engage—”
“I’m not,” she said. “I’m just going to see what happens when one of us disappears.”
She walked calmly past the man, brushing close enough to catch a whiff of his cologne. Cheap, pine-scented, and trying too hard to be masculine. He didn’t move.
But his eyes tracked her reflection in the mirror behind the bar.
She ducked into the hallway toward the restrooms, pulled out her phone, and whispered into her comm bead.
“Michael, Daniel. Eyes on The Fourth on Fifth. We’ve got a tail.”
Outside the restaurant, Michael leaned against a mailbox, arms crossed, watching a pigeon peck suspiciously at a fallen meatball. Daniel lounged on a bench beneath a tree that had produced exactly one leaf, holding a dog-eared self-help paperback, nose scrunched like it stunk in more ways than one.
“She’s been in there a while,” Daniel said, flipping a page.
“Maybe Payne eats slow,” Michael replied.
“Or talks a lot.”
“He doesn’t seem like a talker.”
Daniel squinted toward the door. “But she is. That’s what worries me.”
Their comms crackled to life.
“Michael, Daniel. Eyes on The Fourth on Fifth. We’ve got a tail.”
Michael straightened, alert. “Where?”
“Inside,” Rayna’s voice said, in her usual calm but direct manner.
“Male. Hoodie. Newsboy cap. Blocking the door but not ordering food. I walked past him, and he eyed me through the mirror. Then I decided to have some fun. Next time he checked the table, my conjured doppelganger was sitting there. He did a double-take. Thought he saw two of me.”
Daniel looked up. “Sounds like he did see two of you.”
“Exactly. My glamoured self is still inside, sipping chai and batting her lashes. He hasn’t moved. He’s too busy trying to figure out if he’s hallucinating.”
Michael was already moving. “Want backup? We can be in there in two seconds.”
“No. I’m coming out. Meet me at the alley with the horrifying Einstein mural.”
Daniel groaned. “Oh, that thing.”
They headed down the block, slipping into the alley flanked by dumpsters and one disturbingly still rodent.
When she saw them, she said, “Watch what he does when I leave. Will he follow me or the major?”
“Can we place bets?” Daniel asked.
“Sure. Whatever floats your boat.”
They watched Rayna re-enter the front of the restaurant with a new kind of swagger, as if she owned the place.