Back to Las Vegas.

Goddamnit.

Approaching Vegas at night was like driving toward an early and uncanny sunrise, the horizon aglow with the thousands of megawatts that kept the neon glowing. The actual sunrise was still a few hours off, and Tansy was glad to have made such good time on the drive down from the compound. He was even gladder about there not being a roadblock to turn him around or to check the occupants in the vehicle. The occupant and contents—Carly and his wide array of tools and weapons—might have raised a little too much suspicion.

He looked over to his new partner. She was as alert as ever despite not sleeping a wink during the ride. She’d had the opportunity to sleep, several hours’ worth. But she’d refused, and, instead, offered to drive. Tansy countered that with a warning about how boring things might be during their wait in the car once they got to their destination, but how it might not be a very convenient time to finally fall asleep.

But she was fine. She was “wired.”

Despite the lack of real-world familiarity, Tansy was confident rolling into battle with her. She was a little harder than he expected, a little rougher around the edges. And she had a chip on her shoulder. It was a big contrast to her innocent, girlish looks. A potentially very useful contrast.

Maybe they’d be a good pair after all.

Tansy could already hear Jackson teasing him about her, as if his boss could be the only one to not only fall in love with a beautiful, talented woman, but get to work with her on a daily basis.

Yep, love. You’re done.

But even if there were a limit to such employees, it wouldn’t matter to Tansy. After this mission, if they survived—and if they weren’t in jail—he would ask Carly to join him in their own team. Their own business. Maybe call it a renaissance for the hacking collective. Anything. He’d let Carly name it. He just wanted to work with her again, this time legally. And in person.

His daydreaming was interrupted by a mileage sign for Las Vegas. They were 14 miles out of Sin City, where his trip had started. DEFCON. His police car presentation. It all felt like it happened months ago, not days.

“Should we hit up the Bellagio real quick before we get started?” Carly asked with a crooked little grin.

“You feeling lucky?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Save it for the mission.” As much as he’d like to find a hotel room and fuck her for hours, he couldn’t. Not yet—not if he wanted to save them both. Tansy took an exit off the interstate and began following a lonely desert highway. When they came to an abandoned gas station, he pulled over and parked. The two support vehicles that had been following came up on either side of the van.

“We’ll do it here,” Tansy called to the driver of the van next to him. He put his van in park, cut the engine, and then looked over to Carly. She was definitely wide awake. Maybe even . . . scared?

“How are you doing?” He tried to sound casual, like there was nothing at all to worry about.

“Okay,” she mumbled, her chin pressed down to her chest.

“That doesn’t sound very convincing.”

She laughed. “You’re right. It doesn’t.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Well, come on, shake it up. Get loose.”

“I’m loose, alright. I’m fuckin’ crazy. This is fuckin’ crazy,” she said, laughing again.

“There you go. That sounds better.”

“It just hit me,” she said, her laughter fading. “It hit me that, you know. . . . That we’ve gotta separate now.”

“Not really. We’ll be watching you the whole time. And listening. Eyes and ears.” Tansy handed her a plastic pen. “You press this into anything, and it leaves a micro-dot tracking device.” He waited for her to take hold of the pen. “Test it out on yourself. Anywhere.”

Carly made a dot on the inside of her wrist. And then Tansy showed her another dot, a corresponding blinking spot on his tablet that denoted her location. “See? It’s like radar. As long as we can see this dot, we’ll see where you are. Try to make other dots if you can, on his clothes, on his car. But only if you can do it safely, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, still inspecting the tip of the pen.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Look at me.”

She looked at him with those beautiful, doleful eyes. Without saying anything else, Tansy leaned in to kiss her softly on the mouth. It wouldn’t be their last. He would make sure of it.