As the taxi pulled up in front of his building, Evan saw Ben already pacing outside, beckoned by a cryptic text.

They didn’t speak until they were inside his flat with the door securely shut.

“You look shattered,” Ben said. “What’s going on?”

“I’m away for work.”

“Where?”

“I can’t say.”

“When are you back?”

“I don’t know.” At Ben’s stricken look, Evan added, “Soon, I hope. Maybe even in a couple of days.” Unless I’m in more trouble than I ever imagined.

“Are you in danger?”

“No.” He risked a tiny clue. “This trip, it’s administrative, not operational. Can you look after Trent for me?”

“Of course.” Ben picked up the meowing cat and kissed the top of her head.

Evan went to the kitchen and fished the spare keys from a container stuck to the underside of a drawer, then slipped a note into the dry-cat-food bin. “She’s got enough tins until Saturday. Hopefully I’ll be back before—”

“Oh my God, Saturday.” Ben set Trent on the couch. “The quarterfinal match.”

“The same one I missed last year. I’ve just spoken to Charlotte, and I’ll send my teammates an email today, but I don’t know if I can say enough for them to understand.” He took Ben’s hand and placed the keys on his palm, keeping his gaze upon them. “What I need to know is, is it enough for you?”

“Hey.” Ben touched Evan’s cheek, forcing him to meet those deep, dark eyes. “I believe you. I trust you. I love you.” He kissed him softly. “Those aren’t just words to me.”

Evan felt his throat tighten. “I wish I could give you some certainty.”

“So do I.” He kissed Evan again, more deeply. “If you’ve told me everything you can, maybe we should stop talking.”

Evan glanced at the clock. “I need to be at the train station in thirty-three minutes, and I’ve not even packed.”

“Then we’d best hurry.” Ben grabbed him by the waistband of his trousers.

They dashed into the bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind them, then threw off their clothes.

As they wrestled atop the covers, hands everywhere, Evan tried to memorize the feel of Ben’s skin against his, tried to smother the dread inside that told him this could be their last time.

Ben reached between them to stroke Evan’s cock, his fingers and thumb forming a masterful circle. Evan stiffened so fast it made him groan.

Ben bit Evan’s bottom lip. “I want you inside me.”

“Are you sure?” he gasped, though his body was eager to comply. “There’s not much time.”

“I don’t need much time.” Ben rolled away and got onto his hands and knees at the foot of the bed. “Do you?”

“Not when you look at me like that.”

Evan readied himself with condom and lube, then did his best to make Ben as supple as he could.

“I’m ready,” Ben soon said, his toes curling back around Evan’s thighs. “And before you ask, yes, I’m sure.”

Still Evan entered him carefully, letting Ben’s body guide him into the right angle. Ben pushed back to take him deeper, then deeper still as he emitted a softly moaned “Yes” with each long, shaky breath.

Then he arched his arse against Evan. “Fuck me now. Fuck me hard, and don’t stop till you come.”

Evan obeyed. He drew back, then slammed forward, again and again, faster and faster. Soon Ben’s moans turned to long, ragged howls. His fists bunched the covers, and his arms trembled with the effort to hold himself up.

Evan wanted nothing more than to hold him close and kiss him until the end of the world, the way they had at the inn in Stromness. But right now, Orkney felt as far away as the sun from the earth. So this was all they had, and he would make it as good as he could.

Just as Evan neared orgasm, he felt Ben’s limbs begin to give out. He leaned forward, looped an arm around him and pulled him back against his chest. “I’m gonnae come,” he gasped into Ben’s ear. “Come with me.”

“Yes…” Ben stroked himself with one hand and cupped his balls with the other as Evan ground into him.

Evan’s body convulsed as he came, the sensations rocketing out from his core to his limbs. Ben buckled in his arms, jerking with his own orgasm.

They parted all too soon. Ben turned to sit on the bed, his cheeks reddened and eyes glazed. “I miss you already.”

“Me too.” Evan took his face in his hands and kissed him thoroughly, to make up for the lost time ahead of them.

Ben trailed a finger down Evan’s bare chest. “Can I stay here while you’re gone?”

“Trent would like that.” He squeezed one of Ben’s knees. “Now I really need to pack.”

“On you go.” Ben got up and moved toward the door. “I’ll fetch your shaving kit and toothbrush from the bathroom.”

Evan opened his wardrobe, wondering what one wore to an MI5 inquisition. He instinctively reached for a royal blue shirt and a crimson tie, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to don patriotic colors. He probably didn’t even need the tie—no one at MI5 apart from directors bothered with suits—and wearing an unaccustomed one might make him seem nervous. He packed it anyway, deciding to decide tomorrow.

When he turned back to the wardrobe, he caught sight of himself in the looking glass. But it wasn’t his own image that made him stop short.

They’d not used the mirror just now. He’d fucked Ben without seeing his face—with his own back to the bedroom door, no less. And not for one moment had he thought about being ambushed, bound, gagged, and hooded.

Today, when everything else was falling apart, one piece of Evan had finally mended.

After seeing Evan to the train station, Ben went home for a few hours to finish the dissertation tasks he needed to do on his desktop. Then he packed up his laptop and holdall before returning to Evan’s place for the night.

Trent greeted him as though he’d been gone a week.

“You hungry, puppy cat?” he asked over her insistent meows. Their voices echoed against the foyer walls, accentuating Evan’s absence. Ben set his laptop bag on the table, then froze.

The lamp beside the couch had definitely been off when he and Evan had left.

As he approached it, he spied its cord plugged into a timer device. He remembered with a pang in his heart how the lamp was timed so Evan would never have to walk into a dark flat.

Still, Ben moved through each of the rooms to search for intruders, his hands raised in the fighting stance he’d learned in Krav Maga class. It was weird to feel…not exactly confident in his ability to handle himself against an attacker, but at least determined.

“Yes, yes, I’ll give you an early snack,” he told Trent as he entered the kitchen. “We won’t tell your daddy, okay?”

Trent yawped her approval, circling the metal bin that contained her bag of dry food. Ben found a clean bowl, then pried open the bin.

Inside, taped to the bag of kibble, was a note scrawled in Evan’s loopy handwriting:

Ben,

If the worst happens, please know that I will try till the end of my days to return to you. It’s not fair to ask this, but please don’t give up on me. I love you.

Evan

PS: Trent gets 1 scoop per day MAX. Don’t let her con you into more.

Ben felt a chill move up his spine. By the time it reached his head, it had warmed into hot tears he couldn’t hold back.

What did Evan mean by “if the worst happens”? Had he committed a crime? Had he made a dangerous enemy? Unlike with Ben’s father, if the worst happened to Evan—prison or even death—Ben might never know.

He tried to mentally talk himself out of these fears. Evan probably just had to answer questions or maybe even help with the investigation into these alleged attacks.

Ben was more relieved than ever that he’d never told Evan about his own investigation into David Wallace and Jordan Lithgow. He’d copied the BVP men’s information into a private query in his own WhoWhatWhere account, then deleted the original search, and finally set an alert to notify him with results on those two phones. If Evan knew about Ben’s “helpfulness,” he could be in serious trouble.

Trent head-butted Ben’s shin. With a murmured apology, he scooped kibble into her dish and set it on the placemat beside her water bowl.

Then he caught sight of the Certificate of Awesomeness on the refrigerator. Evan had told him it was a fake stand-in for an award he’d received at work. Did this wrinkled piece of A4 stationary represent his commendation for bravery, the one he’d mentioned as they’d sat in that play park in Stromness?

The In Recognition For ________ line in the center was still blank. On impulse, Ben found a thin blue marker and filled it in.

As Evan entered the polygraph room after his debriefing, he was glad he’d opted not to wear a tie. It would be hard enough to breathe properly without an extra restriction around his neck.

Inside the room, he met a middle-age woman who bore a surface resemblance to Evan’s mum, which he assumed was no accident. She gave him a warm smile as she shook his hand.

“Thank you so much for meeting with me,” she said, as if he had a choice. “I’m Mariah Hansen, your forensic psychophysiologist. I hope you had time for a sandwich or something after your debriefing?”

“No,” Evan said, practicing his minimalist responses. He knew she was trying to establish a rapport and disarm him with her warm demeanor. He’d been trained to do the same himself with interrogation subjects. Next she would be talking about the weather.

“Gorgeous day out there,” she said as she led him to the table in the center of the barren beige room. “It’s a tragedy we’re to be trapped inside all afternoon.”

He didn’t reply, just sank into the chair and sat forward so she could loop the pneumograph tubes around his chest and abdomen. Then he rolled up his right sleeve for the blood-pressure cuff. Hansen blethered on as she hooked him up to the transducers that would conduct his body’s electrical signals to the computer on the table.

Did the Service think Evan was the source of the leak? If anything, he’d wanted to tell the public about the lack of threat.

This morning’s debriefing had given him no clue as to their suspicions, but it had put all his theories about Operation Caps Lock through the proverbial wringer. The branch director himself had questioned Evan, jabbing holes in his conclusions with the ease of an ice pick through a wet paper towel. He’d never felt so out of his league.

“First we’ll just have a little chat, shall we?” Hansen sat across the table without connecting the diagnostic equipment to the transducers.

None of this initial interview would be recorded by the polygraph machine (though it was most certainly being recorded on CCTV). The purpose of this first phase was twofold: to set Evan at ease and to help Hansen choose which questions to include in the actual exam. So far the process was the same as the polygraph he’d taken when he’d first applied to MI5.

Hansen began with the old standards such as Evan’s name and place of birth, then asked about Operation Caps Lock: when it had started, what role he’d played in it, and his basic findings—questions he’d already answered at this morning’s debriefings. Following each response, Hansen typed in a few notes.

“Your partner’s name is Behnam Reid?” she asked. “Am I pronouncing that correctly?”

“Yes,” he said. “Reid, as in, ‘read a book.’”

Hansen chuckled, and Evan thought, Two can play this rapport game.

“Did Mr. Reid know about Operation Caps Lock?”

Evan spoke carefully. “The evening after the evacuation at St. Andrew’s, I gave him the information I was cleared to share.”

“And what was that?”

He held back a sigh. The answer had been contemporaneously documented by both Kay and Evan. “That there’d been a bomb threat which seemed connected to St. Andrew’s—as the events manager there had already told Ben—but that nothing was found and no motives were known. I told him the rest was classified.”

“Do you believe that he believed you about there being no threat?”

Evan certainly hoped so, but he wasn’t inside Ben’s head. “I’ve seen no evidence to indicate otherwise.”

Hansen smirked. “Spoken like a true intelligence officer.” She continued typing. “When did you tell your supervisor, Kay Northam, that Mr. Reid had ceased to coordinate same-sex weddings?”

Here we go. Evan had dreaded this part—it was his one real misstep, and the truth would probably get him removed from Operation Caps Lock, if not suspended altogether. “February. I don’t remember the exact date.”

Hansen pushed a calendar across the desk. “Will this help?”

Evan flipped back to the month in question, his chest going heavy with dread. “Monday the sixteenth.”

“When did you learn that Mr. Reid had agreed to coordinate a same-sex wedding on the eighteenth of April?”

Evan didn’t need the calendar to remember the date of the Warriors’ seventh-round cup tie. “March seventh.”

“When did you inform Ms. Northam of this new information?”

He pushed the calendar away. “April second.”

“As in, yesterday.” She made another note, then paused, fingers over the keyboard. “Did you tell Mr. Reid about any threat to same-sex weddings, even in a hint?”

“No.” He decided to be extra forthcoming. “I wanted to, but I knew it could jeopardize the operation, maybe even put more lives at risk down the line.”

“Hmm.” Hansen began to type again, faster than ever. The silence gave Evan time to worry:

Do they think Ben could be the source of the leak? With all the cybersecurity forensic evidence pointing toward the Russians, how could they suspect anyone on our side?

Then again, the “bot” army could have been on standby in case the investigation was leaked by someone else. Russian intelligence was clever enough to cover all eventualities. But Ben couldn’t have leaked it—like most normal people, he couldn’t fake the sort of shock and anger he’d expressed when the news had broken.

A sudden thought occurred to Evan: What if they asked whether he’d told Ben about any of his operations, past or present? Ben knew much more than he should about Belfast. They could both be in trouble if Evan offered that confession.

So he spit out what he hoped was a less damaging truth:

“I told my father.”

Hansen looked up from her laptop, a flicker of excitement twitching the corner of one eye. “You told your father, Hugh Hollister, about Operation Caps Lock?”

“None of the specifics. I only said I was on an op in which there seemed to be intentionally misleading intelligence.”

“Why did you share this with him?”

“I needed advice.” Evan paused, knowing if the polygraph had been running right now, it might show lingering tension, as though he was leaving something out. “Also, he was having a rough night. Family issues. I thought a bit of work talk might distract him.”

“I see.” Hansen stood, her chair scraping the bare linoleum floor. “I’ll be right back.”

For the next half hour, time seemed to pass more slowly than on almost any other day of Evan’s life, second only to the one spent in that Belfast warehouse. He knew he was being watched, his every movement or lack thereof scrutinized by people who held his fate in their hands.

Finally Hansen returned—alone, to Evan’s surprise. She slid into her seat and picked up her pen as if she’d been gone but a minute. “Evan, where does your father work?”

“Here, right? That is, he’s employed by MI5’s D Branch, in counterespionage. I don’t know if he works at headquarters.” Evan’s heart started to pound in a way that would drive the polygraph mad. Had his father left the Service? Did he now work for a private intelligence firm? Why wouldn’t he have told Evan, of all people?

Hansen gave a slight cough. “Were you aware that your father, Hugh Hollister, is now employed by MI6?”

Evan blinked at her. “He…what? Why?”

“Answer the question, please.”

“No.”

“You refuse to answer?”

“No! I mean, my answer is no, I wasn’t aware. Since when does he work for Six?” he asked, though he knew Hansen wouldn’t tell him.

“Did Hugh Hollister give you the idea that Russian intelligence had fabricated a planned terrorist attack on same-sex weddings?”

“Yes, but—”

“Did you conceal the source of this idea when you presented it to the members of Operation Caps Lock?”

“I didn’t tell them my father provided the original spark. But I was able to find solid supporting intelligence. And the chatter we tracked after Wednesday night’s leak supports that conclusion. We filed reports with headquart—what are you doing?”

Hansen was unclipping the galvanometers from his fingertips. “There’s no point keeping you here while the Powers That Be confer with MI6. You go down to the cafeteria and have something to eat, and we’ll complete this examination later.”

He thought of tomorrow’s quarterfinal match and the long train ride from London to Glasgow. “When is later?”

“Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. Maybe Monday.” Hansen unwrapped the blood-pressure cuff and gave his shoulder a brief squeeze. “Sorry, lad. You know how they are.”

He did know how they were. The question was, which they did she mean?

As he walked out of the examination room, Evan’s head spun from the revelation his father now worked for MI6. Enemy #2, Dad had always called it, often with a smirk.

But he’d lied. It’s what spies did, even to the people they loved.