Agent Rotter won’t let it go. He thinks I spent sixteen years covering my tracks to be intimidated in a little room by a little fucking prat.

“You’re a very insistent chap.”

Rotter opens a folder and flips through the pages. It’s all for show. I don’t look at what he’s flipping through because he has fuck-all on me.

He spins the folder to face me and taps the page he’s found. “Is this you?”

I will not be rushed.

I will not be coerced.

I will not be strong-armed into risking QI4.

I don’t care about the company itself. Don’t give a flying fuck about quantum mechanics or changing the world blah blah blah. I don’t even give a shit about money anymore. They can have it, the whole rotten lot of them.

I push away the folder. This entire drama’s put me off my lunch. Agent Rotter’s bloody smirk is going to get him a mouthful of fist one of these days.

But not today.

I promised Taylor I’d be there today, and I will be.

Taylor could have turned over on me a hundred times. But he didn’t. And when I told him I was looking to go straight, he partnered with me, knowing I was a risk. He could have gotten plenty of investors.

I’m not going to be late thanks to the rotter here. But for the bird?

Where is Agent Bird?

Someone’s on the other side of the mirror on my left, and if I’m any judge, the woman who helped drive me here from Barrington is watching five feet away, on the other side. She’s distractingly beautiful and gloriously proud. As soon as I saw her, I had a vision of her atop a mountain, ruling the world, and a second vision quickly followed. Her under me, begging, with my name on her lips, over and over, pride shattered.

I feel her watching from the other side of the mirror. It’s not an unpleasant feeling. It is, however, inadequate. I want to see her again. I want to see if I saw something that wasn’t there. I want to regain control of the situation.

Turning to the mirror, I make my request. “Won’t you join us, Agent Grinstead?”

Agent Rotter clears his throat. On the other side of the mirror, we hear a door open, then close.

Taylor’s going to get on my arse for bringing the FBI calling. I’m going to have to convince him they were jagging off into their little files, trying to get me to turn on Keyser Kaos. They brought me all the way to Doverton to see if I have a death wish.

When the door opens and she comes into the interrogation room, I smell her perfume. It’s lavender, calming, and I know the scent isn’t to calm her but to lull me.

I’m not lulled. I’m physically aroused in a way I have no control over.

“Mr. Bridge.” She stands astride the FBI action doll of a man.

No, I was right. She’s proud, but not arrogant. Her accent’s American. They could have flown her in from anywhere.

Thirty-ish. Five-eight.

Freckles on her nose the makeup doesn’t cover.

Grew up outdoors.

A few grey hairs at the root.

Fingernails trimmed, clean, unpolished.

A bare left ring finger.

Does she have a lover?

That releases a flood of mental imagery I have no time for.

“Why hide behind a mirror, Agent Grinstead?”

She looks me in the eye without shame or fear. It’s a frontal attack I’m not ready for. Her hair is the black of silk sheets, and her eyes are the grey of London’s early morning fog.

“We were giving you a little space.”

She’s blindsiding you.

It’s true, but I’m not turning away. She can come at me all she wants.

I can tell there’s no love lost between her and Agent Rotter. As soon as she’s in the room, I know she cares a bloody ton more about this case than the Boy Scout.

Which is good. I can use that.

“That answer’s beneath you.”

“If you have someplace else to be,” she says, tilting her chin toward the dossier, “you know the quickest way out of here.”

I lean forward. My answer should shake her a little, but not too much. I think about her response two seconds and formulate my own. “We’re in the middle of a promotional event. The mayor’s there. The press. The Lord himself is looking down on the Barrington factory, and you expect me to believe you want to give me space.”

“If you want less space, that can be arranged.” Her voice is so crisp, it’s seductive.

Walking confidently in six-inch heels, she steps from her position and gets behind me. Her calves are shaped for my hands. If I want to see her, I’ll have to twist all the way around. If I face forward, she has the benefit of speaking without me watching her reactions. This puts me at a disadvantage, technically. But without seeing her, I don’t have to be captivated like a schoolboy, getting me back a fraction of the leverage I’ve lost.

“Is this where you move from implications to accusations?” I say. “Maybe pull something else out of this little folder here? Reveal your narrative of crimes? Make a sincere but manageable threat, close the walls in on me, then show me a singular way out? Yes? A little Reid technique?”

Ken looks over my shoulder to her.

“A plea bargain. Maybe you want me to flip on someone?” I push the folder back toward Ken. “Keyser Kaos maybe? I read an article in the Intercept about him. Quite a character. According to the article, of the thousands of people on the dark web offering assassination services, he’s the only one who can make good on them.”

She speaks from behind me. “We have a trail that connects you and Alpha Wolf.”

“No.” I turn slightly, so her blur is in my peripheral vision. I can smell her with more clarity than I can see her. “No, you don’t.” I turn back toward Agent Rotter. Even in the corners of my vision, Grinstead is distracting. She takes up way too much room in my attention. “You could just tell me what you want.”

Rotter’s watch tick-tocks. The air conditioning snaps off. I hear Grinstead breathe. Otherwise she is immobile behind me. I know she and this plastic version of a man are talking with looks and hand signals.

“Two years ago, you invested in QI4,” Ken says.

“My friend Taylor came to me with an opportunity I had the resources to take advantage of.”

Such a flat answer for such a thick web of motivations. Taylor’s a genius. I wasn’t surprised when he cracked quantum computing. Anyone would have invested, but I did because it’s the right way to thank him for his friendship and loyalty before the rest of my plans go into motion.

“You and Keyser Kaos have been partners for years,” Rotter says. “We’ve tracked everything, and now you’re claiming to be legit? How could we not follow up?”

He shrugs as if this is just procedure. He’s going to be the good cop now. The role reversal is standard in Reid technique interrogations. I feel as though I’m the only audience for a play that’s been put on every day for a generation.

“When did partnerships become illegal?” I ask.

“When their purpose is to launder money,” Grinstead says, and I like her as the bad cop. She’s got a slick competence for wickedness that intrigues me.

“Maybe not?” Rotter’s like a teddy bear at this point. “Or maybe you never intended to finance QI4 with laundered cash and it’s Kaos with the baggage. It’s Kaos who lied to you. Maybe you’re just getting caught up in his malfeasance.”

I wait for her to go bad cop and say something refuting this soothing fairy tale, but she doesn’t.

After a few breaths, I say, “I’m sure that you think you have something in that folder that proves I’m Alpha Wolf, or that I launder money through cybercurrencies. But I know you don’t. There are no recordings, no screenshots, no nothing of Kaos communicating with any persona you can prove is me. This is a parlor trick, and a particularly bad one.”

I lean back, knowing I’m right. They have fuck-all. I know what exists in my world and I know what’s been erased, and by whom.

“Thank you, Mr. Bridge,” Grinstead says, coming back around the table. She’s quite a sight, and I wonder why a woman that beautiful would want to be a federal agent. She must be ever so much more than she appears. “We’ll spare you further exposure to our parlor tricks.”

She walks out, taking the air out of the room with her.