Sonata (North Security 3)

“You’re determined to ruin my fun.”

A slight smile. “It gets worse. I want to show you the emergency exits. I’m going to be backstage with you, but in case anything happens I want you to be able to get yourself to safety.”

“In case anything happens. You mean in case you get shot.”

He doesn’t answer. He’s a bronze statue that stands at the corner of the building, a sentry, a gargoyle with a handsome jaw. There is nothing that reaches through the metal exterior. “You don’t wait for me. You don’t take me with you. You—”

“If you get shot I don’t think you’ll get to tell me what to do.”

The exterior cracks, revealing a man at the edge of his limits. He drags me into the shadows. His mouth slams on mine, and I think he’s going to kiss me—but he doesn’t. Instead he breathes in deep. It’s half kiss, half breath as our bodies find the same rhythm.

“I need to stop them once and for all. The only way I can do that is if I know you’re safe. Understand? Promise me you’ll leave me behind. Promise me you’ll stay safe. If I’m worried about you, I’m already dead.”

A shudder down the length of my body. It doesn’t matter that warm air barely circulates in the daytime. Doesn’t matter that we’re safe at this moment. A chill seeps out from his words. It encompasses my arms, my chest, my heart. He gives me a little shake, not enough to hurt. Enough to demand. “I promise,” I say, gasping out the word. It’s forced from me, this promise. It’s the only thing I can do in the face of his desperate demand.

Liam

We ran background checks on the members of the orchestra, on the stagehands. We even ran cursory checks on the names on the tickets, but it would be too easy to fake ID for the purchase. Despite strong objections from the company managing the performance, metal detectors and X-ray conveyers block the entrances. Our methods rival any embassy. Any airport. On the surface we’re completely safe. My gut has kept me alive this long. It tells me that something is going to happen tonight.

Dread. Relief. If they didn’t strike tonight we’d have to keep putting her on stages, using her as bait. Or worry that they’d try to get at her in the chateau. I want them to reveal themselves when I have armed men under my command sitting in every section.

I want them with bullets in their brains, but I’ll have to settle for taking them alive. If we have that, if we can pull a confession out of them, if we can prove the link without Samantha, then she won’t pose a threat to them anymore.

That’s the only she’ll be free.

Women mill around in designer eveningwear and glittering heels. Men laugh the too-loud chuckle they do in the company of other powerful men. The crowd consumes enough champagne to fill the caverns downstairs.

I run the check-ins to each man stationed in the foyer, the auditorium, and outside. They come back like clockwork. It doesn’t reassure me. If anything, the tension tightens in my body.

I study the faces of each patron, wondering which one hides behind a mask of careless high society. I knew that Ambassador Brooks was involved in dirty business, but what Samantha’s mother revealed proves this goes much, much higher than him. Those are the kind of people with the resources to get into an embassy or an airport undetected.

The kind of people who commit treason and walk away unscathed.

Not tonight.

Lights above us blink three times. It’s time for the show.

There are additional credentials required to go backstage. I swipe my pass. No one gets special treatment tonight. Not Josh. Not me. Bethany and Romeo are doing stretches in the corner. Dissonant sounds come from the stage, where an orchestra waits behind the canvas curtain. I know the background of every stagehand who hurries around, pulling ropes and messing with the lights. I know who owes money and whose daddy went to prison.

Samantha crouches beside her violin case as if she’s giving it a pep talk.

Are you afraid I’m going to stand up there and not play a note?

I’m not sure if she’s worried about it, but I’m not. The fact that she hasn’t played since the violin went back in her possession? That’s pure stubbornness. My fault, for trying to command her into doing it. The old Samantha would have jumped to obey me. The new Samantha takes pleasure in independence. More than that, she likes giving commands to me. I’m just perverse enough to enjoy that, too.

I kneel beside her, flicking open the locks on the case. “If you get nervous, don’t picture the crowd naked.”

Her hands press together. Like a prayer. “No?”

“Picture me naked.”

A breathless laugh. “I don’t think that will make me less nervous.”

“No?” I ask, using the same European lilt she used.

“You’re kind of intimidating when you’re naked. Did you know that soldiers fighting the Romans used to fight naked? They would hold their weapons. That’s it.”

“That sounds impractical.”