I don’t have to fake my distress. I’m genuinely upset, because Zoe Evano just died in front of me and it means something has gone horribly wrong with the mission. I wanted an excuse to avoid killing Jamison Hart, didn’t I? But not like this. Not at the cost of an innocent life. No matter how valiantly I was fighting against the urge to kiss my target, I was always going to close the mission before the night was over. But if a guest has been poisoned at the Woodland Castle, and it’s not because of my aberration, there’s another killer in the mansion.

Anything could happen right now.

“What’s going on?” I ask, at a loss.

Jamie is already retrieving a cell phone from his pocket, placing an emergency call to the police. “There’s a balcony through the next room,” he says to me. “Just wait out there. I’ll come get you as soon as I can, all right?”

I make myself nod and back out of the closet, even though I want so badly to race out the front door right now. This isn’t the time to risk being held by the bodyguards or blowing my cover. The Executive is a completely different jurisdiction from the local police, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep it together for long enough to avoid coming across as someone who might be guilty.

The next room is a guest suite that appears to be vacant, the white floral wallpaper deceptively calm in what feels like the midst of a maelstrom. I should have kissed Jamison Hart the moment we ran into each other on the staircase. I should have kissed him any of the multiple times there was an opening for it. And now I can’t kiss him at all, not when Zoe Evano just died. I can already hear more voices on the other side of the door, indicating the presence of bodyguards surrounding my target for the rest of the night.

But I can still avoid solitary confinement, can’t I? The Executive just needs to hear about what happened in the Woodland Castle, and Agent Novenine needs to understand that I have an alternate plan for closing the mission.

One that doesn’t involve killing Jamison Hart just yet.

I sink down onto the bed and call Alpha from Lily Bass’s cell phone. He’s listed as her chauffeur, so it won’t be anything out of the ordinary for the situation. I’m Lily Bass, who gives the name Eliza to strangers, who just watched someone die while playing a game of Sardines.

It’s completely normal to want to abandon ship immediately.

“Ms. Bass,” answers August, sounding formal. He must be within earshot of the other chauffeurs, or maybe some of the bodyguards.

“Zoe Evano just died,” I say, forcing my voice to remain calm. “I’m pretty sure it was cyanide.”

“I see,” he says. I don’t need to explain how bad this is for our mission.

“Can you ask Agent Novenine for an extension?” I say. “I won’t be able to kiss Jamie tonight. But he asked me out on a date, so I can close the mission then. Is that okay?”

It has to be okay. I mean, this is the only way I can avoid solitary confinement and save innocent lives. But August doesn’t respond right away, and there’s complete silence for a few seconds. I don’t need to see my partner’s expression to know he’s been thrown by something. What was it that I said? Maybe he didn’t expect me to ask for an extension, or maybe he thinks I should go ahead and close the mission anyway. But then I realize what it is.

Jamie. I said Jamie.

Not Jamison Hart.

“Certainly,” August says at last. “What would you like me to do?”

There are so many things I could say right now to indicate that it didn’t mean anything when I called Jamison Hart by a nickname. My entire mission was to get Jamie to fall for me, after all. But I wasn’t supposed to fall for him, and August knows me well enough to realize it means something when I’m calling a target by his nickname and not by his full name, the one we’ve been using the entire time we’ve been preparing for the mission. I’m too flustered to think of the right thing to say, the one that fixes what just happened without directly acknowledging it.

Finally, I say, “I’ll meet you at the extraction point.”

“As always, Ms. Bass,” is all he says.

I get up and push aside a pair of frilly curtains, unlocking a sliding glass door that opens out to the balcony. I can climb up to the roof from here, then cross over to the back of the mansion and drop down to the garage. From there, it’ll only be a short sprint to reach the extraction point at an access road meant for deliveries.

Trying not to look down, I step onto the railing of the balcony and carefully balance my sneakers on the ornate metal. Then I grab hold of a drainpipe and climb up to the roof, hauling myself over the edge with relative ease. It’s not that difficult when you’ve had to go through obstacle training every month since childhood. But when I stand back up, I realize I’ve made a fatal mistake.

Someone else is up here.

The British man with the shaved head is lounging against a stairwell door, smoking a cigarette lazily, watching me with cool gray eyes. He saw me climb onto the roof just now, which means I’m definitely going to seem guilty if he talks to the police.

But then he comments, “Nice trainers.”

And I know, instantly, that he’s with the Executive. Not mine, but a different one. I don’t know how I missed it before. I’ve never met anyone from the British Executive, but it’s always obvious when I encounter another operative. The way you speak, the way you hold yourself, it’s never the same as a person who isn’t used to killing. Even though he’s still slouched against the stairwell door, I know he could be at my throat in a split second.

I should use my brain. I should exercise care. I should behave like Alpha would and approach the situation logically and rationally, without giving in to my deepest impulses.

But I’m pissed off. Really, really pissed off. This operative just screwed with my mission and got in the way of everything, which has to be why he was smirking at me earlier. He knew I was from the Executive. He probably even knew I was trying to kill Jamison Hart. But did he bother trying to meet up with me and coordinate our efforts? No, not even when he could have signaled something to me in the kitchen. Instead he went straight for his kill and let me fail at mine. All my emotions are channeling into white-hot rage directed solely at him, and I’m pretty sure August would tell me it’s undeserved.

But right now, I just don’t care.

“How did you do it?” I spit out, marching across the roof to face him. “Cyanide, right?”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but I can see an expression of surprise flash across his face. It’s gone in a heartbeat, and then he stubs out the cigarette and smirks at me, indicating with his body language that he doesn’t consider me to be a threat.

But if that was really true, he wouldn’t have to indicate it to me at all.

“You’re the Echo,” he says. “Did you kill Jamison Hart yet? Looked a bit close from where I was standing. Too scared?”

Every Executive uses the same set of code names. As an Echo, I’m the girl next door who gets close to her targets by echoing their personalities to create the illusion of love. It takes me longer to close my missions, but I do it without leaving any trace of foul play or drawing attention to myself. Alpha, on the other hand, is the sniper who kills his targets from a distance. The location has to be just right, but no one will ever catch him.

This man is ridiculously handsome and dressed for the occasion. He’s cool and suave, not distant or unfriendly, and he just killed Zoe Evano. There’s only one gentleman who uses charm like this to get close to his targets.

“I’ve met Romeos before,” I say angrily. “You act like you don’t care, when really you care more than anyone else. You won’t have to fake it with the police later, because you’ll actually be upset that Zoe Evano had to die. There’s a reason you’re up here smoking, and it’s not because you don’t want to blow your cover. Don’t you dare talk to me about being scared.”

He narrows his eyes, contemplating me with a neutral expression. I’m right, of course, and we both know it. But he’s never going to admit it. Not to me, maybe not even to himself. The Romeo that August and I knew, the one at our Executive, was like that as well. He could charm any target into taking a drink from his flask, but he bottled up everything inside, always kept up a shield and never let anyone see past it.

Up until he shot himself a month ago.

“Overkill, don’t you think?” says Romeo casually. “You could’ve just said you weren’t scared.”

“I’m the only one of us who had to watch Zoe Evano die!”

“Then you need a drink more than I do,” he says, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out his flask. He takes a long swig, his eyes still on mine, before offering it to me. I grab the flask from his hand, then hesitate when I catch a whiff of what’s inside.

Cyanide. The alcohol is poisoned with cyanide. And he just drank from it.

What the hell?

I should be climbing down the side of the mansion, sneaking back to the limousine, telling Alpha about everything that just happened at the Woodland Castle. But something about tonight has made me feel unsettled inside. I still have no idea what I’m going to do about Jamison Hart, and I rarely have to stick around to see anyone die. Watching Zoe Evano lose her life has shaken me more than it should have.

I raise the flask with as much dignity as I can muster and take a drink.

“Cyanide,” I say, trying not to cough as I hand the flask back. “Just the way I like it.”

But I’m freaking out inside, fighting the urge to ask him all the questions running through my mind.

Are you aware that we just drank cyanide?

Are you immune to poison?

Are you like me?

Romeo is watching me carefully. He’s expecting me to do something about the cyanide. Spit it out, maybe, or retrieve an antidote from my purse. But I just stand there with my arms crossed for what feels like an eternity, waiting for him to figure it out. Finally, his expression clears and he returns the flask to his pocket.

“Interesting,” he says. “I’ve suspected that you existed for some time now. I tried to have my Query hack into your Executive’s files to search for you, but he couldn’t get past the firewall. That’s how desperate I was getting. To find someone else who...”

He’s playing the Romeo game, waiting for me to fill in the blank, being as vague as possible to make me feel like we belong together. Which means he’s still not sure what makes me an aberrant. Regardless of what I say, he’ll agree with it, and it won’t matter if it’s true or not.

“No,” I say flatly. “I’m not going to fall for that. Either you tell me what you are, or I’m leaving.”

He blinks, then lets out a sigh. “Fine. What I searched for was another operative with immunity to poison.”

So he’s not exactly like me after all. I feel momentarily disappointed, but only because I haven’t registered what this means yet. Soon enough, another thought begins to emerge in the back of my mind. If Romeo is immune to poison, it’s as if my lips aren’t poisoned anymore—at least not for him.

I could kiss him without consequence.

But that can’t be all, can it? Because if he was only immune to poison, he’d still be like everyone else. He could kiss anyone he wanted, and he wouldn’t be asking another operative to find someone like me. There has to be more to it.

“Sorry,” I say. “But you’re going to have to tell me the rest.”

Romeo appears to be smirking again. But then I realize he’s actually showing me his canine teeth, pressing a finger against one of the pointed tips, sharp enough to draw blood. He shows me a substance on his finger, and I know what it is instantly.

Venom.

“I can’t kiss other people,” he says. “I can’t share food with other people. And I can’t do what I want in certain situations with other people.” The smirk is back again. “The name is Reese, by the way.”

No. I can’t do this right now. First I’m falling for Jamison Hart, and then I’m watching Zoe Evano die, and now I’m meeting another person who can’t kiss anyone else without killing them? A sound breaks through the silence, the wailing of sirens approaching in the distance, and it’s the last straw.

I can’t stay here anymore.

But as I turn to climb off the roof, I glance back at Reese. He’s watching me leave, his gray eyes unreadable. He is like me, about as close as you can get, and even I have to admit that part of me wants to know what it’s like to kiss someone without knowing they’ll have to die. Even if it never happens, I have to at least keep open the possibility that we’ll eventually mean something to each other because of what we are.

“Eliza,” I say simply.

And then I begin my descent into the night, leaving the Woodland Castle behind, with nothing to show for it but a beating heart and cyanide in my veins and blue, blue eyes on my mind.