He glanced at his cell phone to check the time. Eleven twenty. He needed sleep, but he also needed answers. He was wavering on which need would win out when his phone rang.

He picked it up to find Director Palmer on the line. He hit the talk button. “This is Levi.”

“Do you have a minute?” Director Palmer asked.

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“We have a lead on our gunmen,” Director Palmer said. “Finance found a spike in fees being paid from Satori Oil to Pantheon over the past six months. The amount is small enough to fly under the radar, but when you add them all together, it’s nearly $400,000.”

“Can they link it to our gunmen?”

“One of them, anyway,” he said. “They’re working on the other one.”

“Let me know what you find out,” Levi said, then added, “Any luck finding the Escobars?”

“The oldest son, Rinaldo Escobar, passed away three years ago, and Orson died two years before that,” Director Palmer said. “We’re following up on any children they might have had, but nothing definitive yet. I’ll give you an update at the end of the day.”

“Thanks.”

“There is one more thing.”

“What’s that?” Levi asked.

“Our tech guys developed a new spyware program. I want you to embed it on Princess Cassandra’s laptop.”

“What? Why?”

“Levi, you know as well as I do that Sereno isn’t always friendly to the United States. Gaining access to the communications of their next head of state could be invaluable in protecting our interests in the region and in identifying any future threats.”

“Sereno is a small island country with no military to speak of.”

“And it’s about to control a significant piece of the oil trade in the area,” Director Palmer said. “The program is in your email. The easiest way to load it would be to drop it from an email account.”

Levi’s gut twisted into knots. This was his job. Spying was what he did for a living. So why did the thought of performing the simple task send ripples of anxiety through him.

“What about detection?”

“That’s the tricky part. You’ll need to identify what kind of defensive programming she has on her computer to see if you can load the spyware without detection.”

“Great.”

“We’ll touch base tomorrow.”

The line went dead, and Levi circled his desk and sat down. He opened his email and saw the spyware program the director mentioned.

He worked through several scenarios in his head, ultimately choosing a simple solution. He created a new email account and added the spyware to it, even as he fought against the knowledge that if he followed through, he would be betraying Cassie’s trust.

Levi considered a tracking program he and Janessa had adapted a few months after she’d become a royal. Following instinct, he added that program too.

He stood and took a moment to erase the last few minutes from his mind. He would go to bed and pretend none of this had happened. The conversation with Director Palmer didn’t exist.