“Oh, joy.” My gaze connects with hers in the mirror and my whiskey-brown eyes narrow in mock ferocity. Feather’s bright blue lipstick matches her eyes as she winks.
I don’t return her saucy smile because lighthearted tone or not, Feather isn’t joking. And while ridiculous, this situation isn’t remotely funny. The Lion’s Den is London’s most notorious kink club, and in less than an hour I’ll be walking through its depraved black doors, all my goods on full display.
This is what I’ve wanted. Plotted for. Dreamed of.
But in these dreams, I was always fully dressed.
“Come on.” Feather clicks her tongue like a scolding schoolteacher. “Don’t be a brat.”
I exhale a frustrated breath, but damn it, she is right. I have to suck up my reservations for the good of the mission—and in this case that means going undercover to help British Intelligence as a BDSM aficionado. It’s a far cry from last week, when I sported a chic Chanel suit and nude Louboutin heels while running the Hong Kong office for the Order, a top-secret international agency whose mission is simple: protect the world from itself. Order agents are carefully curated and come from all nations and walks of life to prevent wars, dispose despots and foil terrorist attacks. Sometimes we help out partners such as the CIA, Mossad or, in this case, my home country of jolly old England.
No one in mainstream society knows the Order exists, and it’s better for everyone that way.
I’m a trained assassin, fluent in seven languages, an expert in poisons and knife play. I’ve worked my currently bare arse off to become a powerful, take-no-shit woman. Not someone who enjoys wearing a collar and parading about like an overprimped lapdog.
“I was instructed to pass along the final mission briefing after you were dressed.” Feather hands over a sealed manila envelope. It’s marked with a black marker slash—Z. That’s how I’m known in the Order. All agents are assigned a random one-or two-letter name, our true identities protected even from those we work with. The name I was born with, Lora Summers, only daughter of a Cornwall couple whose boat sank off the coast of Calais, doesn’t exist anymore. My records were purged right down to my birth certificate.
I’m a ghost. I’ve been one for years.
To work in the Order means to sacrifice the individual for the good of the group. Husband. Children. Simple Sunday mornings doing crosswords and eating leisurely breakfasts. Lives civilians take for granted, little acts of normalcy, have been denied me for the better part of two decades. But as I enter my early forties I can’t help reconsidering my place in the world.
Maybe it’s a midlife crisis, but the thought niggles like an itch that I can’t scratch.
What if I want a new life?
“I’ll fetch you a glass of cab sav,” Feather mutters, the pucker between her plucked brows revealing a twinge of annoyance at my recalcitrance. “I know it’s your favorite, and you need to loosen up before the Dom arrives.”
My heart skips its next beat as the room’s temperature seems to rise ten degrees.
The Dom. The Dominant. The man who is supposed to play the role of my master.
I try to snort and roll my eyes. As if.
Feather snickers and I know I’ve played the part she expects. Agent Z is a wordly badass.
Little does she know.
As Feather clicks out the hotel room door in her high-heeled boots, I rip open the envelope with shaking hands. The mission brief is printed in a pale green ink, sourced from the Nightshadow plant found only on the southern coast of an islet off Sumatra. The Nightshadow ink will fade in a few more minutes...leaving the paper utterly blank and these words undectable.
Mission: Lion’s Den
Posing as “King” and “Princess,” you and your assigned partner will infiltrate the Lion’s Den and attempt to connect with club owner Dante Price. When not presiding as the ruler of Britain’s kink underworld, Price allegedly smuggles arms to terrorist cells throughout Central Asia in return for heroin. We need concrete proof to get an arrest warrant. This means gaining his trust and being believable in your respective roles. Please note that sex acts (real, not simulated) and BDSM role-play are to be expected and embraced for authenticity. Both you and your fellow agent have been cleared for sexually transmitted diseases as per Order policy, and your hormonal birth-control shot is up-to-date.
It’s not until I finish reading the mission that I taste the metallic flavor of blood. I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek so hard that I broke the flesh.
The sight of Dante Price’s name will do that to a person.
Me more than most...
Dante Price is the baddest of bad guys. He makes a business out of chaos, profiting from human misery. Now he is mine for the taking. Not that this is a surprise.
I’ve waited to get him for years. It’s finally time, and I’m ready. But that doesn’t mean it will be easy. In fact, this will be the hardest mission I’ve ever done in more ways than one.
“Fuck me,” I mutter, dropping the note to the floor.
“Sorry, love, it appears that will be my job,” a deep voice growls from my left, and just like that the balcony door slides open, and in steps a blast from my past. The moment I’ve been waiting for with equal parts anticipation and dread.
He’s over six feet tall and built like a swimmer, all broad shoulders and a trim waist; his flat abs are shown off to perfection by the tight tee over a pair of faded, low-slung black jeans. His close-cropped dark hair is flecked with strands of silver that match the small, sharp spikes gleaming along the arms of his leather jacket.
“Max?” My voice is nothing but a squeak. Not exactly the sultry, bored intonation I’d been rehearsing for weeks in anticipation of this encounter.
“Agent X,” he corrects coolly, his icy expression traveling my exposed body. “Nice to finally meet you in person...Agent Z.”
“I...” A lifetime flashes past me in the span of seconds. This powerful silver fox with the wolfish expression was my first lover. After falling for each other at Frasier Academy, the Highland boarding school we both attended once upon a time, we stole away for a weekend to France. Maybe a cramped bed at a dodgy inn isn’t the most romantic place for two teens to lose their virginities, but it was for me and Max—because it was us.
Before words like duty and mission replaced hope and love.
“Right. Well. You and I are going to have some serious catching up to do.” He mutters the understatement of the year before glancing at his Rolex with a frown. “But that little reunion will have to wait. We’re going to be late if we don’t leave now.”
It’s only then that I register the tic in his jaw. The quiet, suppressed fury.
He is seriously pissed about this situation, and I can’t blame him.
The room seems to spin, but I don’t falter or faint.
He disappeared at eighteen, breaking my heart into a million tiny pieces. It wasn’t until ten years later, well after I became Agent Z, that I discovered the full story of what happened to him. He had been recruited by the Order, as well.
I should have stayed away. But just over three years ago, I emailed him from the Hong Kong office, a short, perfunctory message on an arrest for a sex trafficker from Belgium.
He responded, asking a few clarifying questions, and we struck up a conversation of sorts.
And against every bit of my common sense, I eventually asked for a meeting. He had no idea I was Lora from Frasier Academy. He just knew me as Z. And I made damn sure he never saw my face. At my request, he wore a blindfold to every one of our meetings. I