Page 58 of Conrad

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Of all the places for Emberly to run back into Steinbeck Kingston, a cathedral in Catalonia seemed the most improbable.

Unless you factored in fate, and the fact that the man had a magnetic pull on her—even from the moment she’d met him (that had nearly been tragic)—and of course, their shared target.

Declan Stone.

Too-handsome, too-smart, too-arrogant, too-freakin’-charming Declan Stone, who didn’t remotely resemble an international or even a domestic terrorist in his khaki pants, black rain jacket, and baseball cap, wearing the pedestrian earphones and headset handed out by the group tour guide.Sheesh,he practically blended into the group of tourists wandering around the interior of Sagrada Família, his gaze heavenward at the windows that were currently turning the nave of the church a bright orange.

Honestly, if a girl slowed down and actually listened to the guy talking in her own headset, she might admit that Gaudí’s nature-forward cathedral mesmerized her, with its attention to gathering the shifting daylight to stream down lavender, teal, gold, and fuchsia into the corridors of the space. That and the pillars carved to resemble massive sequoias jutting to the ceiling of the church gave the place almost a fairyland spell.

Nimue would love it. If Emberly could drag her sister out of the darkness of the deep web. Although, right now, Nim might be sitting on the bow of her restored fishing boat, moored in a private harbor in Geiger Key, just outside Key West.

Yeah, clearly Emberly was the one who needed a vacation from her life.

Stone sat on one of the pews in the middle of the cathedral, staring at the crucifix hanging in front, listening to a boys’ choir sing some hallelujah-type chorus. Emberly pulled the headphones from her ears and merged into the crowd, standing in the shadow of one of the tall sequoias.

And just to confirm that her disguise worked, she glanced at Stein.

He stood away from Declan, but only a few feet, not even trying to hide his stun power, the dark, burnished hair that seemed unruly and long for a former SEAL, his stance less than casual, the way he stood, legs apart, arms folded. He wore a black jacket, black pants, and a black baseball cap—could anyone say private security?Hello.

But maybe that was the point. Akin to a giant Do Not Disturb sign across his chest.

No earphones for him. He’d wandered in seemingly almost uncaring at the grandeur of the place.

Which made it a little hard to complete her mission,thank you.

She dug out her earwig and pressed it into her ear. “There’s no way I can grab him.” Her voice, low, was answered with a sigh.

“We’ll need to get creative.” Her boss on the other end. Emberly could picture her, pacing in her apartment in Montelena, the one that overlooked a small alpine town with a castle embedded on a mountainside and one of the most secure crypto vaults in the world.

One that required the blood of the vault holder for access.

Whoops.Should have figured that out during her last go-round with Stone, back in Minnesota.

“You just need to get close enough to poke him.”

“I need more than that. I need three cc’s—that’s a teaspoon—which means I actually have to get him alone, secured, and still for a good sixty seconds.”

She had the entire kit in her sling bag. Just in case fate decided to, maybe, send an earthquake through Barcelona, separating Stein from his client and maybe rendering Stone unconscious. Yes, that would be überhelpful. And maybe God should listen, because she was one of thegoodguys.

Had sort of thought Stein was too. She still hadn’t sorted out how and when he’d switched sides. Or really, why it irked her.

“If you don’t get him today, then he goes back to the conference, and only three more days until he heads home, back to his fortress.”

“He might go to his retreat in Mariposa.”

“You think you’ll have a better chance of getting near him on hisprivate island?”

“He doesn’t own the entire thing?—”

“Okay. Listen. You’re creative—that’s why we tapped you for this. Get it done.” Her voice softened, and frankly, Emberly didn’t hate her new boss. She spoke with a slight British accent, had lived around the world, and had a sort of compassion about her. Code name: Mystique. “I checked into Stein, like you asked. He survived the bombing in Singapore, got shipped out to Tripler in Hawaii, spent a year in rehab, and tried to rejoin his team. Didn’t go well. Got out and sort of wandered around for the last three years. Fell off the radar. I’ll keep checking, but I don’t think he’s a threat.”

Yeah, well,Mystique hadn’t seen how said Not Threat had looked at her across the room Saturday night like he’d wanted to devour her. Shock, then a sort of fierceness, as if he might have been trying to place her, and the sense of it burrowed under her skin.

No way could he have recognized her, right? She’d worn a different wig, contacts, pants, a white shirt—completely different presentation than the woman she’d been on the dance floor a month ago.

Except, the way his gaze had changed to almost a hunger . . . She’d downed her vermouth, and when he turned away, fled.

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