I FELL for Konstantin Gulyev long before I ever met him.

That hard, tan jaw with its perfect shadow of black stubble was etched into my mind from staring at it day after day. I spent so much time looking at his lips, the top one hard and stern, the lower one soft and sulkily pouting, that I knew what they’d feel like brushing against mine. I knew him so well, I could tell you whether the shirt he was wearing came from his tailor in Russia or his tailor in New York, from the way the snow-white fabric stretched over the broad slabs of his chest.

There are other crime bosses in New York. Even a few other Russian ones. But none are as notorious, none have produced as many myths and legends as him. They say he takes three women to bed each night. They say he kills his enemies with his bare hands. They say his mansion has a vault stocked floor-to-ceiling with gold, and the government doesn’t dare try to arrest him because he has so much money he could crash the economy…

That last one, at least, isn’t true. I know because I’m on the FBI team assigned to bring Konstantin down, and we are trying. We’re just failing. His organization is huge and unimaginably strong, protected by guns and bribed officials and encryption. He’s untouchable and he knows it.

Watching him was my job. It had become my obsession.

As his limo entered the deserted construction site, I was a tiny speck in the distance, perched in the darkened window of an abandoned building over half a mile away. But the camera’s long lens brought me close enough that I could see the rivets on the limo’s license plate as it prowled across the muddy, churned-up ground, the tattoos on the bodyguard’s hand as he opened the limo door. And then I was looking at him. Konstantin.

He was impeccably dressed as always but he didn’t even glance down as his Italian leather shoes were ruined by the mud. He ignored the rain that hissed from the slate-gray sky and soaked his hair. With his coat billowing out behind him like the devil’s black wings, he marched over to where the other man cowered beneath an umbrella. He stopped so close, and he was so tall, that the other man had to look up into the rain to keep eye contact, blinking and spluttering, his face bone-white with fear. I held down the camera’s shutter button, taking a flurry of shots.

Everyone is scared of Konstantin Gulyev, from the small-time crooks at the bottom to the white-collar crooks at the top. You don’t run for mayor in this city unless Konstantin says so. Rumor is, you don’t run for senator.

Smuggling. Gambling. Guns. Protection. Billion dollar construction contracts obtained through bribes. He’s not a criminal, he’s the criminal.

And we—the FBI—can’t prove any of it. That’s why I’ve been watching hfim for two years.

And at some point, during that time... I started to get obsessed.

It might have started when I was listening to his phone calls, every long r and hard k of his Russian accent earthquaking down my spine to pool in my groin. Or when I was in a building across the street, a telephoto lens bringing that brutally handsome face so close, it felt like I could reach out and press my cheek against his dark stubble. It might have been the time I was in the next hotel room, my palm pressed to the wall, feeling the vibrations as he fucked his girlfriend up against the wall, his muscled body slamming into her no more than a foot from me.

He’s pure bad, given human form. And he’s not just my enemy, he’s my nemesis. I’ve run surveillance on plenty of criminals and Konstantin is the only one I haven’t been able to bring down. I should hate him. But….

But there’s something about his raw, dark power that pulls me in and holds me. He terrifies me and yet I can’t look away. I knew that, if we ever actually met, he’d utterly destroy me. But he’s as hypnotic as a tornado, as tempting as a cliff edge.

He looked up.

I froze.

I knew that he couldn’t see me. I was dressed in black, my camera was painted a dull gray, and I was deep in the shadows, up on the tenth floor of an abandoned building. But none of that mattered, not with him staring right at me.

Konstantin’s eyes are like no one else’s. At first, you think they’re utterly devoid of color, a pale gray that puts me in mind of a winter sky about to unleash a truly biblical ice storm. But if you look long enough, if you really concentrate, there’s the faintest hint of blue there. Just enough blue to give you some sort of forlorn hope. Just before he crushes it completely.

My brain knew he couldn’t see me, but my body didn’t. I stared into those frozen eyes and a wave of heat broke over my face and rippled down through my body. My lungs ached, but I didn’t dare breathe. I wasn’t half a mile away, anymore. I was there, right next to him, close enough to touch. I could feel what he felt: the rain hitting my scalp, the wind whipping across my cheeks. I could feel the heat of his body, we were so close. He could just reach out and grab me, one big hand on the back of my neck, slamming me against the huge, warm wall of his chest, panting into his pec. Then a nudge with his knuckles under my chin, gently tipping my head back….

I swallowed. God, he had the face of a king, like you’d carve him out of freakin’ marble. That elegant nose and those cheekbones, balancing that strong jaw just enough. Powerful. Commanding. Gorgeous.

He’d lean down, those lips descending towards mine—

“We gotta go,” said a voice in my ear.

I’d lost all awareness of the room I was in. My soul was down there in the rain with Konstantin and as I looked up from the camera, it had to rubber-band all the way back in. I rocked unsteadily on my stool, blinking behind my glasses, my face turning scarlet at what I’d been imagining. “…what?” I croaked.

Calahan was standing next to me. “They want everyone back at the office,” he said.

Sam Calahan is my best friend, and my opposite. I’m small and the way I hold myself makes me look even smaller; he’s a hulking beast of a man. I’m just a surveillance specialist; he’s a bona fide field agent with a whole slew of high profile cases under his belt. And where I don’t even run in the hallways, Calahan breaks the rules a lot. Ever since I’ve known him, he’s been one reprimand away from getting fired. We work well together. He doesn’t mind me being quiet and weird and I do my best to reign him in so he can keep his job.

He’s always sort of rumpled, like he’s been up all night, but he manages to make it look good: tousled black hair, a stubbled jaw he rubs when he’s thinking and a worn suit that fits that hard body just right. Hell, he’s hot. There were times, early on, when I was yelling at him that no, he really shouldn’t defy orders and run off to Mexico to single-handedly chase down a suspect, that he’d narrow his eyes and sort of smolder down at me and I’d swallow and—

And then he’d look away and nothing would ever happen. And then one night, after too many tequilas, he told me the story of the woman he lost. Her death shattered him: he’s broken in a way I don’t know how to fix and it breaks my heart because if ever someone deserved to be happy, it’s Calahan. Since that night, we’ve settled into friends and that works.

I put my eye back to the camera’s viewfinder. “In a minute,” I murmured. Konstantin had turned away again, still talking to the other guy. I was praying for a shot of something incriminating: an envelope of cash changing hands, a crate of guns. But I knew it was a long shot. You’re too damn smart, aren’t you?

“Now,” said Calahan. “It’s Carrie. She says it’s an emergency.”

I looked up, startled, and then scrambled to pack away my gear. Carrie Blake was the head of the entire New York office of the FBI. Taking down Konstantin was her number one priority, so for her to pull us from surveillance, something huge must have happened.

As we left, I took one last look over my shoulder. Without my zoom lens, Konstantin was just a dot in the distance, but I still couldn’t tear my eyes away. It’s like an aura he has: he sucks you in. Everyone knows him, everyone talks about him. He dominates any room he walks into.

And me? I’m the perfect person to watch him. No one notices me.

My name is Hailey Akers, and I’m the closest to invisible a person can be.

Carrie Blake is in her fifties with long, gray-blonde hair. When she wears it down, it gives her a kindly, Earth-mother look. Right now, though, she had it pulled back into a ferociously tight ponytail and her eyes were bright with gleeful excitement. “Who can tell me who this is?” she asked, bringing a photo up on the conference room’s big screen.

Calahan and I looked up at the screen... and my hand shot up into the air. Then I remembered this isn’t school and flushed and tried to make it look as if I’d just been pushing my glasses up my nose. “Um, Christina Rogan, ma’am. Konstantin’s girlfriend.” They’d been together about four months, now. She was beautiful, with big blue eyes and glossy, sleek black hair, but I didn’t really like her.

A few weeks after they met, Konstantin had taken her on a business trip to Monaco. I’d watched through the security cameras as Christina strutted empty-handed through the airport while one of Konstantin’s maids struggled along behind her, pushing an overloaded trolley filled with her luggage. Christina had kept turning around to snap at her to hurry up and the poor maid had almost been in tears.

“Correct, Hailey.” Carrie grinned. “About two hours ago, while Christina was on a shopping trip in Milan, this happened.”

The picture changed to show a wrecked sports car, its hood wrapped around a lamppost.

I drew in my breath. “Oh my God! Is she okay?”

Everyone else around the conference table stared at me, startled. Christina was the enemy. Then Carrie softened and gave me one of those Oh Hailey looks I get a lot. “She’s fine,” she said. “Bumps and scrapes.”

I flushed again. I can’t help it. I’m just a surveillance geek, not a field agent, and I’m not hardened like the others.

“What this gives us,” said Carrie, leaning forward over the conference table, “is a unique opportunity. I managed to pull some strings with Interpol and they’ve told Konstantin that Christina’s injured. Nothing life-threatening, but she’ll need a series of operations. He’s not expecting her back in the US for three weeks.” She walked over to the door and showed in a man in his fifties with curling silver hair and a shiny bald pate. “This is Doctor Franklin. He runs the plastic surgery team who assist with our witness protection program. He’ll explain.”

Doctor Franklin took up position beside Carrie. “We’re going to take one of our female agents and use plastic surgery to make her the exact double of Christina. Then we’re going to send her back to Konstantin in Christina’s place.”

There was total silence for maybe five seconds. Then the table exploded into a chorus of disbelieving what’s?!

Calahan’s bass rumble drowned out the others. “That’s insane! You can’t make her look exactly the same!”

“Actually, we can.” Doctor Franklin had the excited grin of a child unpacking a new toy. “As long as the subject has suitable bone structure and she’s the right height and build, she can look identical. And the beauty is, Konstantin’s been told that Christina’s sustained facial injuries. He’s expecting her to have had plastic surgery. That’ll explain any minor differences.”

My head was spinning. Would someone actually do that? Change their whole face? And then strut straight into the life of one of the most terrifying men in the world and... Jesus, she’ll have to sleep with him! My mind snapped to a very specific, graphic image: some nameless female agent on her back, legs open, with Konstantin’s muscled body pinning her to the bed, his ass rising and falling—

Just as my face went hot, Calahan spoke again. “Who?”

“Me,” said Alison from further down the conference table. “Carrie briefed me before the meeting. I’ve already volunteered.”

I twisted around to look at her. Alison is like my cooler, prettier, older sister. She has long, shining black hair and is so good at martial arts, the FBI uses her to help train new recruits. If anyone could impersonate Christina and come out alive, it was her. But the idea of my friend in that sort of danger made me go cold inside.

Calahan agreed. “It’s way too risky. Alison would have to mimic Christina perfectly. Voice. Walk. Everything.” His voice rose. “If one thing goes wrong, she’s dead!”

“I know it’s dangerous,” said Carrie. “But just think what Alison will be able to accomplish. All criminals confide in their girlfriends—in a few weeks, she’ll know every detail of his business. And she’ll be right inside his home: she’ll be able to get into his paperwork, his laptop... we’ll get all the evidence we need to bring him down.” Her face turned grim. “And we need this. We’re running out of time. Every day, Konstantin takes over a little more of this city.”

She brought another image up on the screen, a map of New York with neighborhoods drawn in three colors: blue were controlled by Luka Malakov, a rival Russian mafia boss. Green were controlled by Angelo Baroni, an Italian Mafioso. And black were controlled by Konstantin Gulyev. At first, the three colors were roughly equal: the three powers had been in an uneasy truce that had kept the violence to a minimum. But as Carrie fast-forwarded through the last twelve months, the black expanded like a shadow falling across the city, squeezing out the other two. “We’re at crisis point.” said Carrie. “Another month, maybe two, and Konstantin’s expansion will force the other two into an all-out gang war. We cannot let that happen!”

Calahan and I nodded grimly. Hundreds of innocents would die in the crossfire.

And for Carrie, this battle was personal. Konstantin might wage war with the other crime lords, but as the head of the FBI in New York, she was his real enemy. The two of them had been locked in combat for years: she’d make arrests and gather evidence and raid properties and he’d trot out alibis and expensive lawyers and slip free every time. When we interrogated one of Konstantin’s men, sometimes he’d deliver a message, always scrupulously polite, usually gently mocking. Mr. Gulyev says: you’ll have to try harder than that. Rumor had it, they’d actually met face-to-face once, at a cocktail party, and exchanged words. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that.

“We have to do this,” said Carrie. “We’ll never have an opportunity like this again and it’s our only shot at stopping a gang war. Doctor Franklin will operate on Alison tomorrow. Hailey, I want you to pull together all the information you have on Christina. I’m also having Christina flown here so we can question her. The Italian authorities found cocaine and amphetamines in her car so she’s looking at jail time unless she strikes a deal with us and cooperates. That’ll be all.”

As I left the conference room, Calahan grabbed my arm and pulled me into the stairwell. “We can’t let them send Alison into Konstantin’s bed!”

“I know! But….” I gave a helpless shrug. What can we do?

He pressed his lips together and looked furtively around. I started to get a bad feeling. “Konstantin’s in Boston tonight, at some political fundraiser. He’s staying the night in a hotel.” He looked at me carefully, watching my reaction. “So he’ll have a hotel room.”

I sighed. “If it was that easy, we’d have arrested him years ago. We’ll never get a warrant to search his room. Most of the judges are on his payroll.”

Calahan just looked at me.

My jaw dropped. “You want to search it without a warrant? You mean break in? Anything you found would be inadmissible!”

“I know! But maybe we can find something that’ll give us an advantage. A date, a place... something that’ll let us plan a bust. Then we can talk Carrie out of this plan.”

I gawped at him. “What if you get—” He made shh-ing gestures and I lowered my voice. “What if you get caught?! You’ll go to jail!”

“I won’t get caught,” he said levelly. “Not if I have someone keeping watch.”

My stomach dropped to my feet. “Oh God. No. No! Absolutely not. I am not running off to Boston with you on some illegal, unsanctioned….”

I trailed off. Calahan was looking right at me, open and sincere, and I could see the pain in his eyes. I remembered what he’d told me about his past. He can’t lose someone else he’s close to.

“Please,” he said.

He was my best friend. I couldn’t let him go alone. And Alison is like a big sister to me. If doing this kept her out of danger…. I sighed and my shoulders slumped in resignation. Then I pushed my glasses up my nose. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”