Germany was so much more relaxed in that way.

She passed through automatic glass doors for the outside, where fall air already had a winter bite, and she scanned the sidewalk in both directions.

The decision to exit had been a roll of the dice.

Target could have routed for the skyline and hopped terminals, headed for rail transit, or chosen to sit out the hours in a lounge or restaurant, waiting for the storm to pass, but if he was planning to leave and hadn’t already, he’d have to come this way, and it’d be easier to spot him coming through the doors than milling among the crowds inside. Mind searching, she glanced toward the taxi stand. There, her focus snagged like a hangnail on a shag carpet, ripping her out of one hunt and yanking her back for a stomach-churning double take at the woman at the head of the line.

Her hair was black instead of blond.

She wore tight jeans instead of slacks, had on a cropped designer jacket better suited for someone ten years younger, and dragged expensive luggage to round out the look, but there was no mistaking who she was. Of the many possibilities Kara had accounted for on this op, running into Emilia Flynn wasn’t one.

Confusion collided with wariness and a hint of protective jealousy.

She had met Emilia twice, both times in a professional capacity, knew her better by reputation than in person, but Emilia wasn’t a person one forgot, unless, of course, that’s what Emilia wanted. At headquarters she was all long legs and sly nods. Gazes shifted when she walked into a room, and starstruck stutters started up in her wake.

She was beautiful, graceful, likable. Everything Kara wasn’t.

Rumor had it Emilia and Nick had been a thing for a while, which wouldn’t have been the least bit surprising. Nick had a lot of women gunning for him.

He was charming. Good looking. Had a bad boy edge about him.

Women were stupid.

Kara had no issue with Emilia personally, not any more than she had with people in general. Emilia wasn’t a fake-laugh, patronizing backstabber, and she wasn’t cruel, just self-centered and indifferent, which was par for the course since Kara registered so low on most people’s attention meter they often forgot they’d met her, but she did have a big issue spotting Emilia right here, right now.

Emilia, like Nick, led a tactical team.

She’d been working for headquarters longer than Nick had.

But where Nick’s team was mostly renditions, Emilia was strictly wet work—liquidating terroristic individuals, the ones who posed too great a threat to national security and were too dangerous to risk putting into the hands of traditional law enforcement—liquidation operations like the one Kara was on now.

Emilia reached for the taxi door.