Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Someone’s left a half-eaten croissant on the radiator again—probably Cal, the heathen—and the smell of burnt toast confirms Bayo is already at his station, failing spectacularly at breakfast, as usual. The radiators are clanging their morning protest, and through the grimy windows, the Thames is a grey ribbon under an even greyer sky.
Home sweet home.
“Morning, love!” Tabby calls out from behind her desk, which is less a desk and more a fortified position made of teacups, biscuit tins, candles, and stacks of files that would give a health and safety inspector heart palpitations.
Tabitha French is our office manager, though that title doesn’t begin to cover what she actually does. She’s mid-seventies, with steel-grey curls and an ever-present yellow cardigan that could qualify for its own postcode, with round, ruddy cheeks and warm brown eyes, the kind of face that belongs on a tin of biscuits. She calls everyone ‘love’ and ‘dear’ and dispenses tissues and Hobnobs like a nan who wandered in from a different, gentler world.
Which is exactly what she wants you to think.
No one talks about it openly, but Tabby was MI6 from 1972 to 2003. She ran honey traps in East Berlin when the Wall still stood—probably invented half the techniques I use today (sans lethal kiss, of course). There’s a rumor that in the ’80s, she killed a KGB handler with a hairpin in Vienna. She neither confirms nor denies, just smiles and offers you another cuppa.
These days, she makes tea, remembers everyone’s birthday, and occasionally drops a piece of tradecraft so casually devastating, even Mank shuts up and takes note.
“Morning, Tabby,” I say, accepting the cup of oat milk Earl Grey she’s already poured. She always knows when I need it. “Any word from—”
“Nothing yet, love. But the kettle’s just boiled, and worrying won’t make emails arrive faster.” She pats my arm with a hand that’s surprisingly strong. “Roger said you did good work on that proposal. Whatever happens, happens.”
Easy for her to say. She’s not the one whose career is dangling by a thread.
“Well, well.” A voice cuts across the room. “Look who’s decided to grace us with her presence. The belle of the ball. Or should I say, gala?”
Cal is leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen alcove, mug in hand, dark curls falling artfully over his forehead in a way that suggests he spent longer styling them than he’d ever admit. Callum Reed—our second-best field operative, though he’d argue the ranking—has the sort of face that belongs on a BBC period drama, all cheekbones and brooding eyes and sharp jawline. He’s wearing a rumpled Oxford shirt rolled to the elbows, and there’s a fading scar on his forearm I try not to look at.
He got that scar pulling me out of a drop gone wrong in Tehran. One of the targets had gotten close with a knife before Cal put him down. He never mentions it, and I never got a chance to thank him properly.
There’s a lot Cal and I don’t mention to each other.
“Morning, Cal,” I say, keeping my voice light. “Still haven’t figured out how the toaster works, I see. You and Bayo should team up.”
“And he’d agree the toaster is a war criminal that should be tried at The Hague.” He takes a sip of his coffee, eyes never leaving mine over the rim. “So, tell me all about it. Rubbing elbows with superheroes and celebs, writing love letters to evil corporations that hastened the demise of the western world.”
“It was a proposal, not a love letter.”
“Same thing when you’re trying to seduce someone into letting you close.”
There’s an edge to his voice that I know has nothing to do with Vanguard.
Cal and I have history. A few years ago, after a particularly brutal op in Marrakech, he told me he loved me. Properly, painfully, the kind of confession that hangs in the air like a grenade with the pin pulled. We’d been drinking—him more than me, since alcohol barely affects me—and he’d looked at me with those dark eyes and said, I know you can’t—I know your condition. I don’t care. We could figure it out. I just want to be with you.
I’d turned him down as gently as I could, which wasn’t very gentle at all, because my god, sometimes, a man can’t take a hint.
The truth is, even if I could kiss him without killing him, I’m not sure I’d let myself. Intimacy requires trust, and trust requires vulnerability, and vulnerability gets people killed in our line of work. I’ve spent fifteen years building walls to keep everyone at arm’s length—literally, in my case—and the thought of letting someone past them terrifies me more than any FSB officer with a gun aimed at my head.
Cal took it well on the surface. We’re still friends, still partners when the mission calls for it, still capable of the easy banter that comes from trusting someone with your life. But sometimes, I catch him looking at me like he’s still waiting for me to change my mind.