Chapter 13 · Lens in the Hedge

The glint was back in the hedge.

I caught it the second my hip hit the library chair. A cold, sharp blink between two clipped boxwoods. Gone. Then there again.

Somebody out in the black dirt had a lens aimed dead at my chest.

I kept my hands loose. Pen between two fingers. Ledger open. Outside the double doors, Dominic’s guard shifted his weight, his holster creaking against stiff leather. An hour he’d been standing there, and he hadn't looked in once.

Nobody was watching me. Except everyone.

The real paper was folded down to matchbook size, jammed flat under my bra wire against my ribcage. My father’s handwriting, tight and venomous, and the date that blew Dominic’s offshore wire wide open. The paper pulled heat straight off my skin. Every breath dug the sharp corners into my ribs.

On top of the mahogany desk, right where anyone could grab it, sat the decoy.

Three pages of frantic scribbles, half of it crossed out in red ink. I’d bumped one wire date by seventy-two hours.