“I watched professionals try that once,” she said. “You nearly died from one bullet. This time they’ll be waiting.”
Then she drew a tiny stick figure holding a tray.
“But they won’t be watching the catering staff.”
Danylo frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“The help,” Alena said. “Nikita is throwing a summit. That means catered food, bartenders, servers, cleanup staff. The people rich men stop seeing the second they put on a uniform.”
She tapped the little figure with the marker. “I know that world. I’ve lived in it for ten years. Wealthy men don’t look at a waitress. They look through her.”
Danylo stared at the drawing, then at her. Understanding dawned slowly.
“You want to walk into the lion’s mouth.”
“I want to open the door from the inside,” Alena said. “I can get hired through a staffing agency. My résumé is solid. Once I’m in, I can slip something into drinks, shut down the internal security system, or get you access through the service elevator.”
“No,” Danylo said immediately. “Too dangerous. If Nikita recognizes you—”
“He saw a terrified woman in a designer dress,” Alena cut in. “He won’t notice a tired catering waitress with her hair under a net, ugly glasses, and a baggy uniform. That’s the point. It’s perfect camouflage.”
She stepped closer and put her hands on his shoulders. “You told me yourself I see things other people miss. Let me use that.”
Danylo looked worn down, older than before. He hated the idea of putting her in danger again. But he also knew she was right. He was still too weak to take the place by force. He needed a key.
“All right,” he said at last, voice rough. “But if you do this, you follow every order I give you. If I tell you to run, you run. If I call it off, you walk away. No arguments.”
“Deal,” Alena said.
Viktor got them electronic blueprints of the penthouse security system. Danylo called in an old favor from a tech specialist named Taras, who provided a USB drive loaded with malware designed to disable the interior cameras.
To prepare, Alena cut her hair short and dyed it a dull brown. She bought ugly glasses with plain lenses and a shapeless server uniform two sizes too big, one that hid every curve.
The night of the summit arrived. Danylo dressed in black tactical gear Viktor had somehow dug up from storage. He checked his weapons with calm, lethal precision. Then he looked at Alena, who was adjusting her white apron in the mirror.
“You look…” he began, searching for the word.
“Invisible?” she offered.
“Beautiful,” he said simply.
He pulled her in by the waist and kissed her hard. The kiss carried fear, promise, and something deeper.
“Come back to me,” he said.
“I’m just serving appetizers,” she said, trying for humor though her hands were shaking. “What could go wrong?”
The Moroz penthouse floated above Kyiv like a palace in the sky, full of cigar smoke and the low hum of power. Alena—now just “Klara” from the catering company—moved through the crowd with a tray of champagne flutes. She kept her head down and her voice bland.
“Champagne, sir.” “Excuse me.” “Coming through.”
Just as she predicted, no one really looked at her. They looked at the tray, or at each other. In the center of the room stood Nikita Vesper, raising a glass. To Alena’s disgust, he was wearing one of Danylo’s custom suits.
“A toast,” Nikita announced. “To a new era. An era of peace in this city, now that the tyranny of the past is over.”
Rudenko laughed and slapped him on the back. “To the new king of Kyiv.”
Alena nearly gagged. She moved quickly toward the bar area, the USB drive clenched in her damp palm. She knew the main security terminal was behind the counter. She just needed a distraction.
It came when a young server tripped and sent a tray of shrimp cocktails crashing onto the marble floor. Heads turned. Glass shattered.
Alena slipped behind the empty bar, found the right port on the terminal, and jammed in the drive. A progress bar crawled across the screen. Ninety-nine percent. Then done.
Every interior camera in the penthouse went dark.
She tapped her hidden earpiece twice—the signal that the way was clear…
