But the lobby doors downstairs clattered open.

She killed the comms. She knew her stepfather. He didn't chase. He cornered.

Emma’s mind raced. It was exactly the kind of double-blind she’d been trained for. But why would he tell her?

“Because, Emma,” he said, pressing the drive into her hand and closing her fingers around it, “I’ve been a liar, a thief, and a ghost for three decades. But I have never, not once, been late for your mother’s book club. That has to count for something.”

“No,” Mark agreed. “And she never will. That’s the only reason I’m not using the tranquilizer dart in my coat pocket. You walk away from this, Emma. You leave the drive, you tell Control you never found me here, and we go back to pretending I’m just the boring stepdad who over-grills the steaks.”

Emma’s finger hovered over the panic button sewn into her jacket seam. Inside the apartment, on a mahogany desk, sat an unassuming USB drive. Inside that drive were the schematics for a next-generation drone guidance system. Her mission: extract, exfiltrate, disappear. Standard fare for a field agent of her caliber.

“Gentlemen. Let’s talk about your retirement plans.”

He reached into his jacket. Emma tensed, but he withdrew not a weapon—but a second USB drive. Identical to the one in her boot.

“I said abort, Nightingale,” Control hissed.

He wasn’t just early. He was looking directly up at her window.

“Because you’re my stepdaughter,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “And because six years ago, when I married your mother, I wasn’t assigned to watch you. I was assigned to retire. You were the first person in twenty years who made me want to keep the fake name.”

Through the rain-streaked window, she saw him. Tall, still in the charcoal suit he’d worn to the “family dinner” three nights ago, his dark hair peppered with silver. Mark Hix. Her stepfather of six years. And, according to the file Control had flashed on her screen six months ago, a deep-cover asset for a rogue intelligence collective known as The Syndicate.

“Go,” he said softly. “I’ll tell them you went left. You go right. And Emma?”

He took another step. Now he was close enough that she could smell his cologne—the same one he wore to her college graduation.

“Target is in the lobby,” a clipped voice said. It was her handler, a man she’d only ever known as “Control.” “He’s early. Abort.”