Page 19 of Last Chance to Save the World

Just as she knows the plan. Therealone.

I drop a hand to my belly. “Although a little queasy. Planetary gravity always fucks me over.” The only thing worse than planning a high-stakes heist with your enemy? Doing it while on your period, which has come with a hell of a punch, straight to the uterus.

“Ugh, sorry,” Mom says. “Do you need anything?”

“I took some meds. And I’m drinking all the coffee tomorrow. All of it.” Caffeine helps. And it’s hard to get beans in space. It was just crummy timing and inaccessible meds while I was in the black that led to this.

I touch my ear, the one unadorned. Mom’s eyes follow me.

“You lost an earring,” she says.

“I know. At the gala.” I know she knows what I mean:That part of the mission was a success.

Mom leans over and looks at my other earring.

The pair are a matching set, but they’re far, far more than they appear. I wore them to the gala on purpose.

Kidnapping Rian was only one goal, after all. And these high-tech earrings are pretty nifty. The one I still have hasn’t been used yet. The other one—the one I “lost” at the gala—is a code scanner. Tiny, wireless, put it next to any computer using basic coding, and it scans the data, recording it for analysis later.

“How was the gala?” Mom asks.

“It went well, I hope.”We’ll find out how well after tomorrow.

Mom nods. Her face is grave, her shoulders tight.

“Why did you want me to come visit, Mom?” I ask softly. What we both know I mean is:Your cover is going to get blown now. Why did you force my hand to get me here?

Imighthave been able to distract Rian from how I have a residency claim to Malta through my mother. He might have glossed over the fact that he didn’t find much information about her in her official records. I could have done things to help facilitate a ploy big enough to pull his razor eyes away from my mother and her tower full of birds.

It’s too late now.

That’s why I couldn’t let him get a hotel—why I have to control who he sees and communicates with at least until tomorrow and the mission is done. It’s not just that he could call in backup. One deep dive into my mother’s identity, and he will notice that the holes in her record have been sliced out with surgical precision.

By me.

Mom still hasn’t answered my question. “We didn’t have to come here,” I say gently. “We could have pinged the locator and then gone to a hotel or back to my ship.”

“I’m aware,” she says curtly.

“You’ve been here a long time.”Are you going to have to leave now?

“I’m aware of that, too.”Maybe. Probably.

She looks a little sadly at the dovecote. Everything we say, everything we do—it has double meaning. Just in case someone else is listening.

Just in case it’s Rian.

I’ve brought the enemy into my mother’s home.

But in my defense, she invited him.

“You’re aware...” I say slowly. “But I’m missing something.”

One curt nod.

Fuck.

I’m missing something. There’s an angle here I’m not seeing.

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