The train from Berlin to Prague takes four hours and forty-seven minutes.
I know this because I've counted every single one of them.
The overnight train is mostly empty, mostly filled with few business travelers with laptops, a group of students drinking cheap beer and laughing too loud. An old woman knitting something pink and shapeless. I sat at the corner of my compartment, facing the door, my back against the wall. Old habit. You can't watch your exits if your back is to the room.
The burner phone from Vogler's chest is in my pocket. I've looked at the message a hundred times. The words haven't changed.
YOU HAVE 30 DAYS TO GET CLOSE TO KAEL SABLE OR THE NEXT BODY IS JESSA RHO.
And then his voice on the phone was calm, slow and certain.
You wanted my attention now you have it.
Kael Sable.
The man I've been hunting for six months.
The man who just told me he's been hunting me.
I watched the German countryside slide past the window. It had dark fields with distant lights from small towns and a highway with trucks running through the night. Everything looks like the world didn't just flip upside down.
Jessa's photo is burned into my brain, she was tied to a chair with tape over her mouth and blood on her head.
I try to breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. The kind of breathing they taught us at the Agency when things went bad, when hostages were taken and when colleagues didn't come home but it didn't work.
Students' laughter could be heard, one of them spilled beer on the floor, the old woman clicked her knitting needles and the businessman across from me was snoring softly, his head tilted back, his mouth open.
Normal life.
I hate them all right now.
The train came to a stop while I took a cab to Prague.
Prague is beautiful at dawn, not like I care right now.
The safe house is in Žižkov, a neighborhood of old buildings, narrow streets and TV towers shaped like rockets. Jessa found it months ago, back when we were both still working together, back before I got burned. She said it was "charmingly ugly"…she was right.
It's on the fourth floor of a building that smells like cabbage and old cigarettes. It had no elevator. Three locks on the door, windows that face a courtyard where someone grows tomatoes in plastic buckets.
I unlock the door with a key I've had for eight months. The apartment was a small one room with a bed that folds into the wall, a kitchen the size of a closet, and a bathroom with a shower that barely works. Jessa's laptop was on the table, her jacket hanging on a hook and her coffee mug in the sink, still with yesterday's coffee stains.
She was here.
I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at her laptop, of which I could open it or try to trace her but Jessa is better at that than anyone I know. If she's gone, she's gone in a way that leaves no trail.
Unless she wanted to leave a trail or wanted me to find her.
Unless—
My phone buzzes.
I grabbed it immediately seeing Jessa's name on the screen.
I answer before the first ring finishes.
"Jessa—"
"Whoa, breathe." She sounds tired, but normal. "I just woke up…what's with the fifty-seven missed calls?"
Relief hits me so hard I almost drop the phone.
"Where are you?" My voice comes out sharp, harsher than I meant.
"My apartment in Prague where we agreed to meet, remember? You said forty-eight hours but it's been thirty-six so I slept in."
I close my eyes, my heart is still pounding.
"Vale?" Concern now "What happened?"
I opened my mouth to tell the truth about the killing of Hans Vogler, the message, the photo of her tied to a chair and the fact that Kael Sable called me.
But if I tell her, she'll run, disappear or go dark to protect me, and then I'll never find her and whoever took that photo will take her for real.
"I need to see you," I say. "Now."
"I'm in pajamas. And I haven't had coffee."
"I don't care."
A pause. She hears something in my voice.
"Okay," she says quietly,"Come to my apartment."
I left to go straight to her apartment.
Jessa Rho opens the door in fuzzy purple pajama pants and a faded t-shirt that says I'm not a hacker, I'm a digital solutions architect.
Her hair is a disaster, black with those amethyst-purple streaks at the temples, all sticking up in twelve different directions. No glasses yet—she's blind without them, squinting at me like I'm a blurry intruder.
"You look like death," she announces.
"You look like you fought a pillow and lost."
She grins. "I won, actually, the pillow is in the trash."
This is Jessa. Sarcastic, brilliant, incapable of taking anything seriously except the things that matter. We've known each other for seven years and she's the only person in the world who knows my real name, my real story, my real everything.
She steps aside and I walk in.
Her apartment is exactly what you'd expect. Two monitors on her desk, both running code I can't read with cables everywhere. A half-eaten bowl of instant noodles from last night and a cat—gray, fat, glaring at me from the windowsill.
"That's Loki," she says. "He hates everyone."
"He hates me specifically."
"Everyone specifically. It's his brand."
I sat on her couch which was covered in cat hair…not like I care.
She disappears into the kitchen and comes back with two mugs of coffee. Black, no sugar, the way we both drink it. She hands me one and sits in the chair across from me, finally locating her glasses on top of her head.
"Okay," she says. "Talk."
I drank my coffee which was too hot but I drank it anyway.
"I've been tracking Sable Industries for six months."
She stares at me.
"Six months," she repeats.
"Yes."
"Six months. You've been burned for eight months. Which means you started tracking them two months after the Agency cut you loose."
"Yes."
"Vale" Her voice is carefully controlled. "That's not a coincidence but an obsession."
"I know what it looks like."
"It looks like you haven't let go…like you're still hunting. It looks like—" She stops to take a breath. "When does it stop being about your father and start being about you?"
The words hit exactly where she meant them to.
I put my mug down with a shaking hand.
"My father jumped off a building, Jessa. I don't get to stop"
She leans forward, her eyes are softened. The sarcasm was all gone.
"I'm not saying you stop. I'm saying you need to ask yourself why you're doing this. Revenge? Justice? Or just... something to feel?"
I couldn't give an answer.
"Okay," she says finally. "What do you need?"
Relief floods through me cause she's not going to fight me or tell me I'm crazy but she's going to help.
"I need to get inside Sable Black with legitimate access, an identity that will hold up to scrutiny."
Her eyebrows go up, "Inside? As in, work there?"
"Yes."
"Under a fake name?"
"Yes."
"Doing what?"
"Whatever they're hiring for."
She stares at me for a long moment then she stands up and walks to her desk, her fingers fly across the keyboard. One of the monitors changes to something that looks like a corporate website.
"Sable Black," she reads. "Privately held conglomerate, defense contracts, security consulting, financial services. Annual revenue is classified by Kael Sable." She glances at me, "Your target."
My stomach tightens at his name.
"What are they hiring for?"
She scrolls and reads.
"There's a big merger which is the European defense contractor. They're bringing in outside consultants for due diligence. Financial forensics, corporate restructuring, and crisis management."
My specialty.
"Level of clearance?"
She whistles. "Omega. That's... that's not just background checks, Vale, that's deep verification. They'll dig into everything. Education, employment history, social media, financial records. They'll interview references and find inconsistencies."
"Then we don't give them inconsistencies."
She turns to face me. "You're serious."
"I'm serious."
"Vale, if they catch you—"
"They won't."
"You don't know that."
"I know I have twenty-nine days to get close to Kael Sable."
The words slip out before I can stop them.
Jessa freezes.
"Twenty-nine days," she repeats. "Why twenty-nine days?"
I look away.
"Vale, why twenty-nine days?"
I can't tell her. If I tell her, she'll want to know why and If she knows why, she'll want to help. If she helps, whoever sent that photo will know, they'll hurt her for real.
"Because that's how long until the merger closes," I lied. "If I'm not inside before then, I lose my chance."
She studies me. I can feel her eyes on my face, looking for the cracks.
"You're lying," she says quietly.
"I'm not."
"You are. I've known you for seven years so I know when you're lying."
I meet her eyes.
"I need this, Jessa."
She holds my gaze for a long moment. Then she sighs running her hands through her disaster hair.
"Fine but if this blows up, I'm saying I told you so repeatedly for years."
"Deal."
She turns back to her computer. Her fingers start moving again.
"Okay. For the new identity, you need something boring and forgettable. The kind of name that doesn't stick in anyone's memory."
"Elara," I say.
She glances at me. "Elara?"
"My mother's middle name."
A pause then she nods. "Elara...?"
"Vance. Elara Vance."
"Elara Vance." She types it in. "Age?"
"Twenty-nine."
"Education?"
"Harvard MBA, class of 2019."
She grins, " They actually check those."
"Then make it checkable."
She works while I watch her. Jessa is beautiful when she's focused, her eyes narrow with her lips pressed together. Her fingers move like they're connected directly to her brain, no delay, or hesitation.
"Okay," she says after twenty minutes. "Elara Vance exists now. Birth certificate, social security number, passport…all backdated and verified in government databases. If anyone checks, she's real."
"Employment history?"
She pulls up a list. "Consulting firms, and boutique shops, the kind of places that close down or get acquired so the paper trail ends. You worked here for eighteen months, here for two years, here for one. They are all verifiable with references who will confirm your identity."
"References?"
"Old contacts, people who owe me favors. They'll say whatever I need them to say."
I stare at her.
"What?" she says.
"You're terrifying."
"I know." She grins again, "It's my best quality."
She prints something like a single sheet of paper, hands it to me.
"Memorize this then burn it. Your name is Elara Vance, you graduated Harvard with honors specialising in financial forensics and corporate restructuring. You're independent, expensive, and you're very, very good at your job."
I read the sheet, dates, places and names. A whole life, created in forty minutes.
"What about the merger?" I ask. "How do I get assigned?"
She taps her keyboard, "Sable Black is using a third-party firm to vet consultants. That firm has a junior partner who owes me approximately forty-seven thousand dollars in poker debts, he'll make sure your application lands on the right desk."
"And the Omega clearance?"
"That's on you. Once you're in, you're in. But if they dig too deep—"
"They won't."
"You don't know that."
I fold the paper and put it in my pocket.
"I know I don't have a choice."
Jessa watches me, her face is unreadable.
"Vale," she says quietly. "What aren't you telling me?"
I stand up, walking towards the window looking at the cat hisses at me but I ignore him.
"I'll tell you when it's over."
"And if it's not over?"
I look at her reflection in the glass. Her purple hair, her worried eyes and her stupid cat.
"Then you'll know I loved you and I was sorry for all of it."
She's quiet for a long moment.
Then she throws a pillow at my head.
"Stop being dramatic, you're not dying, you're just stalking a billionaire."
I caught the pillow and laughed.
"Same result, probably."
"Probably." She stood up walking over then she hugged me. "Be careful, Vale. He's not just rich but dangerous."
I hugged her back.
"I know."
I pull away heading towards the door.
"Vale."
I turn.
Jessa is standing in the middle of her apartment, surrounded by cables and code and the ghost of instant noodles. She looks smaller than she should, more fragile.
"When this is over," she says. "When you've done whatever you're going to do. Come back okay? Just... come back."
I nod.
"I will."
I walk out the door before she can see my face.
The stairs smell like cabbage and old cigarettes.
I take them slow. One step at a time with the paper of my new life is in my pocket, next to the burner phone from a dead man.
Elara Vance.
A person who doesn't exist, someone who's about to walk into Kael Sable's world.
My phone buzzed and I looked at it.
Jessa: You forgot to say you love me too.
I smile just a little.
Then I type back: I love you too, even your stupid cat.
Her response: Loki says you're acceptable, don't screw this up.
I put my phone away, stepping out just to see that a bakery which was close when I came to Jessa apartment was now open, it had the smell of fresh bread mixed with diesel exhaust and morning rain. An old man walks his dog and a woman hurries past with a briefcase.
I head for the train station.
Twenty-nine days.
Jessa thinks this is about revenge but she doesn't understand.
Revenge is just an excuse. What I really want is to feel something other than this endless, suffocating guilt.