“I had to do it once, for Anton, for the blood carrier.”

“McDouchebag,” Roland said.

“It left me feeling . . . Carrying lies for Faye Simpson is one thing. But kissing another man, fooling around with him, even if it’s job related—no matter which way you cut it, it’s cheating. Cody didn’t sign up for that, and I’m having a hard time sitting with it.”

“Of course you are. If you didn’t feel that way, you’d be a sociopath.” Roland’s eyes searched hers for a moment. “We talked about this before you went undercover, that you’d have to find a way to put Cody to the side.”

Ellie nodded. They had talked about it. At great length.

“You’re playing a part, no different from an actress,” Roland said. “But right now, you’ve got to keep your head in the game, and that means keeping up appearances. It means allowing Max to stay over at your place every once in a while.”

“And in my bed.”

“Ellie,” Roland sighed, “all I’m asking you is to sleep with him in the same bed. I’m not asking you to have sex with him. It looks odd, you never having him stay over at your place, is what I’m saying.”

He sounded frustrated, but she saw a lot of compassion in his eyes. “Look,” Roland said, “this is a curveball, adding Max into the mix in order to deliver you messages and asking you to pretend you’re really into him. I get it. Frank moved you into that nice apartment, so it stands to reason he probably owns it, and that it’s bugged with mikes and cameras. Just up your game with Max, okay? Pretend he’s Cody, some movie star, or football stud, whoever—I don’t care. Just act like you’re excited to see him—to be with him. Frank and his buddy Sebastian are paranoid by nature—they have to be, in order to have survived this long in the blood game. Now, though, three guys dead from a bomb—it screams setup. It says someone is after them. Maybe it’s Paul or the Armenians or the Mexicans, maybe all three. Frank and Sebastian are in a watch-and-wait mode, putting everyone under the microscope, so let’s not give them any reason to suspect you might not be who you say you are, okay?”

Down the hall, Ellie heard her phone ring—the one Frank had given to her. She had paired the phone with her smartwatch, and her watch vibrated against her wrist, the name of the caller displayed on the tiny screen: Anton.

“Ah,” Roland said, seeing Anton’s name. “The game’s afoot, as Sherlock Holmes would say.”

Ellie got to her feet. “Actually, it was Shakespeare who said that. Henry the Fifth.”

“You young kids. You think you know everything.”

CHAPTER 21

THE NIGHT SEBASTIAN received the text from Paul—and he knew it was Paul, because no one else but that cocksucker would have sent him that message—he ditched his expensive smartphone, with its fancy CIA-level encryption, and went the old-school route still used by drug dealers working the streets: cheap, disposable burner phones.