The Mediterranean was a black, churning void that swallowed the fire from the explosion above.
Silas hit the water first, his body breaking the surface tension to create a pocket for Elara. Even as the freezing salt water scorched his lungs and the pressure hammered against his eardrums, his grip on her waist never faltered.
They surged upward, breaking the surface just as the debris from the Monte Carlo penthouse rained down like dying stars.
"Breathe!" Silas choked out, shaking the water from his eyes.
Elara gasped, her crimson dress heavy and clinging to her like a second skin. She pushed him away the moment she found her bearings, her eyes darting toward the black speedboat idling twenty yards away.
"I had a diver waiting under the pier, Silas," she hissed, treading water. "You ruined the extraction."
"Your diver is currently being interrogated by a Spetsnaz team," Silas countered, his voice rasping. "I saw them move in ten minutes before the gala started. If you'd gone to the pier, you'd be a corpse by now."
Before she could argue, a blinding spotlight cut through the dark, pinning them against the waves.
"Silas Vane! Elara Vance!"
The voice was amplified, cold, and female. It didn't come from a megaphone; it came from the speedboat's integrated PA system.
"Identify yourselves and prepare to be boarded. If you submerge again, we will deploy depth charges."
Silas looked at Elara. For a fleeting second, the 'Viper' looked human—vulnerable, shivering, her hair plastered against her face. Then, the mask slid back on. She reached into her cleavage, pulling out a small, waterproof transmitter. She crushed it.
"Our agencies are gone, aren't they?" she whispered.
"I didn't want to believe it," Silas said, reaching out to grab a ladder that had just been lowered from the side of the boat. "But when my handler didn't give the 'clear' signal after the hit... I knew."
He climbed up first, then reached down to haul her up. As he pulled her over the railing, their bodies collided—wet, cold, and trembling with adrenaline. He held her a second too long, his hands resting on her waist, feeling the frantic beat of her heart through the thin silk.
"Don't," she warned, though she didn't push him away.
"Don't what? Save your life? Or remember how it felt?"
She glared at him, but the conversation was cut short by the sound of boots on the deck.
Six operatives in grey tactical gear stood in a semi-circle, their rifles lowered but ready. At the center stood a woman in a charcoal power suit, her silver hair cropped short, her eyes as sharp as a scalpel.
"Welcome to the afterlife," the woman said. "I am M. And as of sixty seconds ago, the world thinks you both died in that explosion."
Silas stepped in front of Elara, a protective instinct he thought he'd killed in Paris roaring back to life. "Who do you work for? CIA? Mossad? The Syndicate?"
"I work for the people who pay to keep the world from ending," M replied, turning to walk toward the cabin. "Follow me. Unless you'd prefer to swim back to the coast and see how long you last before a drone strike finds you."
They followed. Inside, the cabin was a high-tech command center. Monitors displayed real-time feeds of the Monte Carlo fire and, more chillingly, two files on the main screen.
SILAS VANE: STATUS - TERMINATED.
ELARA VANCE: STATUS - TERMINATED.
"You've both been burned," M said, pouring two glasses of amber liquid and sliding them across a steel table. "Your agencies have been compromised by an entity called Ouroboros. They didn't just want you dead; they wanted your reputations erased. You're being framed for the theft of the Ares Key."
Elara grabbed the glass, her hand steady now. "I don't work for free. And I certainly don't work with him." She jerked her chin toward Silas.
"You'll work with whoever I tell you to," M said, her voice dropping an octave. "Because right now, the only thing keeping your 'brother' alive in that Swiss medical facility is my funding, Elara."
Elara froze. The glass shattered in her hand. Blood bloomed in her palm, but she didn't seem to feel it.
Silas's head snapped toward her. "Your brother? Leo? You told me he died in the Istanbul raid."
Elara didn't look at him. "I lied. I had to. The Syndicate told me if I stayed with you, they'd pull his life support."
The air in the room felt like it was being sucked out. The betrayal in Paris—the bullet she had put in Silas's shoulder—wasn't about a mission. It was a ransom.
Silas felt a surge of white-hot fury, not at her, but at the world that had played them like pawns. He stepped toward the table, his eyes fixed on M.
"What's the catch?" Silas asked. "You didn't fish us out of the ocean out of the goodness of your heart."
M smiled, a hollow, chilling expression. She slid a single document across the table. It was a marriage license, stamped and notarized by the state of Nevada, dated five years ago.
"Ouroboros is holding an auction in Tokyo," M said. "The Ares Key is the prize. Only the elite—the most dangerous married couples in the underworld—are invited. You two are going as Mr. and Mrs. Sterling. Arms dealers. Lovers. Partners in crime."
"Absolutely not," Elara spat, wiping the blood from her hand onto her dress.
"It's not an invitation, Elara," M said. "It's a contract. You sign, or I stop the payments to the clinic. And Silas... if you want to find the man who ordered your burn notice, he'll be at that auction."
Silas looked at the marriage license. Then he looked at Elara. The woman who had shot him. The woman who had kept his ring.
He picked up a pen and signed his name in a jagged, aggressive script. He slid the pen toward her.
"One mission," Silas said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "We get the key. We kill the man who burned us. Then we never see each other again."
Elara stared at the pen as if it were a venomous snake. She looked at Silas, searching his eyes for the man she had loved in Paris, but finding only a cold, hardened soldier.
She grabbed the pen. "Fine. But if you touch me when the cameras aren't rolling, Silas... I'll finish what I started in the rain."
She signed.
M nodded to one of her guards. "Take them to the 'Marriage Suite' downstairs. They have forty-eight hours to memorize every detail of their fake lives. And give them something to wear. They look like they've been through hell."
"We have," Silas muttered as they were led away.
As the door to their new "home"—a windowless, high-security room with a single king-sized bed—clicked shut and locked from the outside, Silas turned to Elara.
"We're married now, 'wife'," he said, his voice thick with irony. "I believe it's traditional to carry the bride over the threshold."
Elara pulled a concealed ceramic shard from her hair—a weapon he hadn't even noticed. She pressed it against his throat.
"Try it, Silas. I dare you."