Chapter 3.

Jake pulls up the file on his laptop, and the picture becomes clear fast. Rafael Marchetti has a standing appointment at this jeweler every Thursday which happens to be today, an old habit from before he could afford anything on the shelves.

If I happen to be inside that store at the exact same hour, buying something no reasonable federal salary could explain, it isn't a coincidence. It's bait dressed up as fate.

"You want me to walk in and buy something worth more than my apartment," I say.

"The Bureau's money, not yours." Something almost like humor flickers across Isa's face. "Try not to enjoy it too much."

"Please steal something while you're in there," Jake says. "As a personal favor."

"I'm not stealing jewelry, Jake."

Despite the fear still sitting cold in my chest from twelve hours ago, I laugh, and it feels like the first honest thing I've done since I walked into that gala.

Few hours later, I'm standing inside a jewelry store that smells like money and cologne, trying on a wristwatch worth more than most people's cars, when I catch him in the reflection of the display case, already there, already watching.

Rafael Marchetti, examining a tray of cufflinks like he has all the time in the world, though I'd bet everything in this store that he noticed me the second I walked in.

I let my pulse settle first, let my face arrange itself into something unbothered before I meet his eyes in the glass.

"That's a serious watch for someone shopping alone," he says, not looking up. "Most people bring a reason with them when they spend that kind of money."

I turn slowly, watch still clasped around my wrist, and go still.

"You," I say, before I can stop myself.

"Me." His mouth curves, satisfied, the way a man looks when a plan lands exactly where he put it. "I never got your name. You disappeared before I could ask."

"Elena."

"Elena." He says it slowly, filing it somewhere. "I looked into you, after. Wanted to know who I'd handed a problem to for free."

"I'm fine. I don't rattle easily."

"I noticed." He steps closer, close enough that his cologne cuts through the store's sterile air. His gaze drops to the watch, then lifts back to my face. "That one's fine. But it's not the piece you should be wearing."

He nods toward a diamond necklace I'd barely glanced at, delicate, understated. "That one's looking at you."

"Are you always this confident about jewelry you're not buying?"

"Who says I'm not?" He signals the associate without breaking eye contact. "We'll take it. And the watch, if she wants it."

"I don't need you to buy me anything."

"I know." His smile doesn't waver. "That's exactly why I'm doing it."

Before I can protest, he takes the necklace from the associate's hands himself. "Turn around."

"You're going to put it on me?"

"That's generally how it works."

I sweep my hair aside, and his hands find the clasp without hesitation, without a single fumbled second, the motion of a man who has done this before, more than once, for women who didn't ask where he learned it. The clasp clicks shut in under three seconds.

"There."

I turn to face him, the diamonds cool against my collarbone, and for a second neither of us says anything at all.

"Tell me something true, Elena. Real estate doesn't usually pay for a watch like that.”

"It does when you're good at it." I keep my voice light. "I find things people don't know they want until they see them."

"Interesting." Something flickers behind his eyes, sharp, assessing, the same darkness I caught at the gala before he buried it again. "My brother deals in things like that too. Rare. Worth more than people expect.”

"I've heard."

"Have you." It isn't a question. He studies me a beat longer, deciding how much of himself to show me, then decides against it. "I like a puzzle, Elena. And you're shaping up to be a very good one."

"I'm not that complicated."

"Everyone says that right before they turn out to be the most complicated person in the room." His smile settles into something quieter, more patient than warm.

"I'll need a way to reach you." He reaches for his phone. "Business."

The word doesn't match his smile.

"I don't give my number to men I just met."

He doesn't laugh, not quite. He slides the phone back into his jacket and produces a black card instead, pressing it into my palm without lingering. He doesn't ask twice. Men like him don't have to.

"You'll use it when it's useful to you. I can wait." His eyes drop to the necklace against my skin. "I'd like to know exactly what kind of woman lets a stranger put diamonds on her before she's told him her last name."

It isn't until I'm three blocks away, card still in my palm, that I let myself feel it, the quiet, unsettling satisfaction of a door swinging open exactly on schedule.

It had been almost too easy. And nothing in this job is ever that easy without a reason. There is only one way to find out.

The apartment is dark except for the kitchen light Daniel left on, same as always.

I find him at the table, still in his scrubs, a glass of untouched whiskey in front of him like he poured it an hour ago and forgot it existed.

"You're up late," I say.

"Couldn't sleep. Figured I'd wait."

Something in his voice makes my stomach tighten before he says another word.

"Daniel."

"I ran into Cassie at the pharmacy today." His jaw works, tight and controlled in a way that scares me more than shouting would. "She didn't say much. Couldn't, I guess. But she looked at me like she was sorry for something, and told me to make sure I tell you I love you more often lately. That's not a normal thing to say to your friend's fiancé, Selene."

The room tilts.

"Daniel, it's just work. You know I can't talk about the details."

"I'm not asking for details." Finally he looks at me, and it isn't anger I see there, it's exhaustion, the kind that comes from loving someone through too many locked doors. "I'm asking why your own co-agent looked like she was saying goodbye to me on your behalf. I've spent two years telling myself I trust you with whatever you can't tell me. I don't know how to trust whatever that was."

"It's not as bad as it looked."

"Then tell me it isn't." His voice cracks on the last word. "Tell me something true for once, Selene, even if it's small."

So I tell him what I can. That the case is dangerous, more than usual. That there will be nights I can't call. That I need him to trust me even when I can't hand him a reason to.

It isn't enough, and I watch him understand that in real time.

"I can't keep lying awake wondering which version of you is coming home," he says quietly. "I can't keep filling in the blanks with worse things than whatever you're actually doing."

"Daniel, please."

"I need space to think. Real space." He stands, pulls his coat off the back of the chair, movements slow and deliberate, like a man rebuilding himself in real time. "Don't wait up for me.”