Bianca took my hands in hers. “You’re doing the right thing, you know.”

“I know. Trust me, I know.” My dad deserved to be behind bars. He was a professional assassin who’d killed dozens of people. At least that we knew of. Who knew how many more there might be that he’d actually bothered to cover up. I didn’t feel any pity for him or like I was doing the wrong thing, but there was a part of me, a tiny, teensy part that balked at turning against the man who’d spent his life protecting me.

Protecting me, right. Since he was the one who put me in danger in the first place.

I ran my fingers through my hair, fingernails scraping my scalp, and was surprised when I came up short. With everything that’d happened today, I’d completely forgotten I’d cut it. “You’re going to have to handle Gavin.”

“I can handle him,” she assured me.

“If he knows what I’m doing—”

“I don’t plan on telling him.” She lifted her chin a notch, like she was waiting for me to fight her on it.

As much as I hated lying to him, he didn’t need the whole truth right now. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if he got in the middle of this. And telling him that I was helping the FBI trap my father? Well, he’d be going crazier than he already was.

A disgruntled Anderson hustled back into the room. He slapped a sheet of paper on the table. “You’ve got your deal.”

I spun the paper so I could read it. Bianca had been brilliant. Anderson wanted to plead me down to some lesser crime, I wasn’t sure which, but it would’ve still meant jail time. Even though I’d been in the dark, they’d thought I should shoulder some of the blame. Bianca, on the other hand, had calmly explained that if they had any hope of catching someone at the very top of their most wanted list, I was their only hope.

They’d caved and given me a full pardon for my cooperation.

Anderson placed an almost microscopic earpiece in my palm. “You need to keep that in at all times.”

I nodded. “What time is it?”

He glanced down at his fancy silver watch. “Half past twelve.”

“I’m late, so he already knows something’s wrong.” My hand landed on my empty pocket. “When I don’t show he’ll move on to a secondary location.”

“Which is?”

“A Holiday Inn right across the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee.”

I wiggled the earpiece into my ear, working my jaw to make sure the stupid little thing wouldn’t fall out.

“What room will he be in?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “He’ll have left a key for me at the front desk.”

“And how will you get it?”

“I’ll tell the front desk I’m there to take my father to his doctor’s appointment. That I believe he left a key for me and they’ll fall all over themselves trying to help me.” I pushed the earpiece in a little deeper. “I know what I’m doing.”

“We’ll be the judge of that.” He tapped his fist against the wall, impatient. “You ready yet?”

“As soon as you give me back my bag, I’ll be on my way.”

Grabbing it from the floor, he tossed it to me. “Obviously, we didn’t give you back the gun.” He followed me out the door, making a signal as he passed a room.

A second later a voice sounded in my ear. “Testing, can you confirm audio on your end?”

“Confirmed.”

“Great, we’re all good here. Just pretend like we’re not even tagging along for the ride.”

Anderson held the back door open for me and together, we stepped out into the hot afternoon, Bianca trailing behind us. She pulled me into a quick hug, squeezing me tight. “Please be careful.”

“I will.” I turned back to Anderson. “You know my father, so I’m begging you to be careful with your tails. He’ll be watching from the hotel room, so if you guys are right on top of me he’ll see you and be gone before I get anywhere near him.”

“You can count on our discretion.”

“I certainly hope so.” I ran through a mental checklist—I had my bag, the earpiece was in my ear and functioning, and Bianca was going to keep tabs on Gavin. There was only one more thing I needed. I held out my hand. “Cab fare.”

Anderson scowled as he fished out a pile of bills and shoved them into my hand.

Taking a deep breath, I blended into the sidewalk traffic and walked a full block before stepping to the curb and signaling for a cab. A yellow taxi screeched to a halt in front of me and I hopped in the back.

“Where to, miss?” A voice drawled with the hint of a Southern twang.

“The Holiday Inn, Fort Lee.”

He whistled. “That’s quite the fare.”

“I’m good for it.” I glanced through the divider to meet his gaze in the rearview. Mirrored sunglasses stared back at me.

We pulled out into traffic. “You visiting our great city?”

“Just passing through.” I kept my gaze trained out the window. When we passed the street I knew we needed to turn on, the first hint of unease settled in my gut.

“You here with family?”

“My father, actually.”

“How about that.” His accent disappeared. “You planning on seeing a movie tonight, Doodle?”

That nickname, our emergency phrase. My heart felt like it’d been injected with a full dose of adrenaline, racing so fast I thought it might come beating out of my chest. “Autumn?” The voice in my ear called. “Is everything alright? What’s going on?”

The earpiece let out a shriek, fuzzing out. I cursed and yanked it from my ear and it fell to the floor. When I looked up, Dad was setting a small, black box on the dashboard. “It’s harmless. I’m just jamming the frequency so we can talk in private.”

I sat back until the seat was firmly against my back. “Where are you taking me?”

“For a drive.” He sighed. “If you’ve got questions you should ask them now.”

Surprisingly, the first question that came wasn’t any of the hundred that should have been at the front of my mind. “Did Mom take me to the beach?”

He grunted. “Once. She thought she could take you away from me. The two of you weren’t hard to find.”

“Why was she running?” My gaze dropped to my lap. I couldn’t possibly look at him when I asked my next question. “They told me there were reports of domestic disturbances at the apartment.”

“Arguments. I know what you’re trying to ask, and the answer is no. I never laid a finger on that woman. I loved her more than life itself.” His hands circled the steering wheel as we made a right turn. “She knew who I was from the very beginning. What I was. She never cared until you came along, and then she thought she could steal my daughter from me.”

“Is that why you killed her?” It came out sharper than I intended, but I didn’t want to take it back.

“It was an accident.” His fingers flexed. “I’d caught her that morning with bus passes. We were arguing about you and she saw the gun. She tried to grab it from me, we struggled over it, and it went off.”

“Even if I did believe you. What can you possibly say to explain away the rest of the blood on your hands? The guy in the CIA, the mom in the NSA, what about the—”

“Things aren’t as black and white as you’re trying to make them out to be, Doodle.” We hit a pocket of traffic, so he stretched his arm out across the seat and turned around to look at me. “Did these lovely FBI agents tell you about the CIA agent?”

“Are you trying to justify what you do?”

“If you were walking home one night and you came upon a man holding a gun to a child’s head, would you consider yourself a murderer for killing him? Or would killing him be the right thing?” A horn blared and he was forced to turn around and pay attention to the road again. “You can make me out to be the monster if you want to. In some ways I probably am. But I’m the monster that kills monsters.”

We switched lanes and the cab slowed to a stop at the curb. He shifted into park. This time when he turned around again, he took his sunglasses off and folded them in his hand. “I’m pretty sure I know what the answer’s going to be, but I’m going to ask it anyway. Are you coming with me or is this the end of the road for us?”

“Whether you can justify what you do or not, I can’t go with you anymore. I’m not a killer. I’m never going to be that person.”

“I never expected you to.” From the seat next to him, he picked up a baseball cap and slipped it on his head. “There’re two last things I need to tell you before we say goodbye.” He glanced back at me. “One: I’ve made my enemies and as much as you’re not at fault, they’re your enemies too. Be careful.”

I knew I should be leaping for the cab door, running to the nearest phone to call the police. Or maybe I should be trying to subdue him, which was laughable, but I felt like I should be doing something other than just sitting there and listening to him.

“Second: If you ever need me, your friend, Rachel, can help with that. There are places on the Dark Web where a message can find me.” He cracked his door open, the sound of a car whizzing by invading the quiet of the cab. “I know you’re probably questioning it now, but one day I hope you’ll believe it when I say I love you, Doodle. I’ve only ever done what I thought was best for you.”

The driver’s door slammed closed behind him as he crossed the street. I exited on the passenger side, never losing sight of him. Keeping him in my periphery, I frantically searched for a landmark. Something to tell me where I was so when I got Anderson on the phone I could give him good information.

I sprinted down the sidewalk, trying to simultaneously not run anyone over, keep my father in my sights, and figure out where the hell I was. The corner loomed in front of me, the sign flashing that it wasn’t safe to cross the street.

There, right in front of my face, was the answer I was looking for.

Half a block in front of me was the precinct.

Right on top of their head.

I darted into traffic, suffering a near miss with another taxi cab. In the mere seconds it’d taken me to make it across the street, my dad had disappeared. My feet pounded against the sidewalk as I rushed into the precinct.

I ran straight to Anderson who was in the middle of throwing an epic hissy fit behind the front desk. “He’s right across the street.”