I STUMBLED to a stop. Ahead of me, Konstantin kept running. I pressed the phone hard against my ear, shutting out the din of the aircraft overhead. “What?” I asked. “What do you mean, what’s changed?”

“The photo you sent, of Grigory putting that case into the trunk of his car?”

Now I remembered why my phone had been off. I’d shut it down when I was hiding in the basement garage, just after I’d taken the photo. And the last few days had been a non-stop rush: I hadn’t turned it back on since. The photo must have been sitting in my outbox and it had sent as soon as I’d turned my phone back on. Even as I’d been running away with Konstantin, I’d been unwittingly sending one last piece of evidence to the FBI. “What about it?”

“There was a model number on the case. I ran it through the computer. Hailey, it’s a Russian sniper rifle, designed to punch through bulletproof glass. That’s what Grigory was delivering for Konstantin. That’s the “tool” the guy you met at the shopping mall needed.”

It made sense. One of Grigory’s jobs was managing weapons for Konstantin’s men. He was the perfect person to get hold of a rifle and deliver it. My stomach lurched: I already knew what Calahan was going to say next.

“Hailey, it’s an assassination. Konstantin paid that guy at the shopping mall a quarter of a million dollars to murder someone!”

I shook my head. “No!” Ahead of me, Konstantin had realized I wasn’t with him, and had spun around to look. He frowned, worried, as he saw me standing there on the phone. “He wouldn’t do that,’ I said. “Not cold-blooded murder.” But a creeping dread was spreading through me.

“That’s exactly what he’d do. Hailey, this is Konstantin Gulyev! He wants to take over the city and if he’s trying to kill someone protected by bulletproof glass, someone so important it costs a quarter of a million—”

“...it must be one of the other crime bosses,” I finished for him. Killing one of them would trigger the gang war the FBI feared, the very reason I’d been sent to take Konstantin down in the first place. I wanted to throw up.

“We’re on our way,” Calahan said. I heard the screech of tires in the background. “But we won’t get to the airport in time to stop him. You have to do this.”

Konstantin was running back towards me, now. “What’s the matter?” he called. “What’s going on?”

The dread reached my heart, my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. Calahan was still talking, telling me to do it, do it now, but my arm went limp and I dropped the phone to my side and just stood there, staring at Konstantin as he approached.

I can’t.

But I had to. I could accept what Konstantin was but I couldn’t be party to this, to cold-blooded murder and the war that would follow. Hundreds of innocents would die in the crossfire.

Unless I did the unthinkable.

Konstantin reached me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Hailey! What’s the matter? Who’s on the phone?”

The dread changed to hot, jagged pain. I’m so stupid. Everyone—even him—had warned me about men like him and I’d ignored them. I’d believed a criminal could be honorable. Carrie’s voice rang in my head. She’d been right. I’d forgotten who I was. I’d forgotten I was FBI.

My vision swimming with tears, I felt for the secret compartment of my suitcase and shoved my hand inside.

Konstantin’s voice was gentle but panic thickened his Russian accent. “Hailey! We have to go!”

Tears welled and heated and then, as my fingers found the grip of the gun and closed around it, they spilled free and started running down my cheeks.

He stared down into my eyes, his own eyes icy blue and full of worry. I remembered telling him at Battery Park that I didn’t need to know his secrets, that I trusted him. How could I have been so wrong?

He gripped my shoulders hard. “What’s the matter? Hailey!”

I pulled out the gun and pointed it right at his face. “You’re under arrest,” I panted through my tears.