Desirae's lips pressed against my back, waking me the best way possible. I arched into her warm body and pulled Artemisia's hips with mine. How perfect our bodies all fit together.

"We should get going," Desirae warned. But even she was slow to slip out of the sheets. The amber glow of the lamp in the corner caught the curves of her body. Behind her, the angel floated above her in the not-Caravaggio painting.

Artemisia sat up reluctantly. "We can take breakfast to go. I will see if Mariem is awake yet."

After we got dressed, we made our way down the stairs to the coffee shop. With a warm smile, Mariem let us in through the back of the kitchen. I heard Artemisia mention Youssef, but Mariem shook her head as she packed up a canvas tote bag of pastries and fruit for us.

"He knows where to go when his cat gets hungry again," Desirae assured her.

Artemisia poured us each a coffee and didn't say anything more about him. But I could tell it was bothering her. She took two phones out of the envelope and slid one over to Desirae. "Wait until we get back to the harbor before you turn it on."

Mariem wrapped one of those egg filled pastries in paper and handed it to me. Brik, I heard her say. She motioned for me to take a bite. As I bit into the flaky crust, I didn't realize how hungry I was. The savory flavors all melted in my mouth with the soft egg. I wasn't even sure what else it was stuffed with, some kind of meat seasoned with harissa, maybe lamb or goat, and spinach. She had another one wrapped to-go for me as I gobbled it all down.

We all finished our coffee and thanked Mariem for everything. She walked us out through the front with a saucer of milk and set it down at the far table where Youssef had sat last night. Whether he'd be back or not with his little black cat, some other would come along. The shop owners here and all throughout the Mediterranean, always looked after the street cats.

Dark sky overhead began to lighten as we made our way back to the harbor. The whitewashed walls of the medina glowed blue in the early dawn. The first adhan of the day called out beautifully from the Great Mosque. As we crossed the street to the pier, Desirae was already tapping at her phone.

"Kirby?" She covered the mouthpiece. "Will you go grab his phone from the boat? I don't want to lose signal going too close to the water."

I took the canvas tote from her shoulder and hurried down the cement dock towards the yacht. Already, the sun was coming up. People had started milling about, mostly heading toward the mosque.

I stepped down onto the yacht's swim platform, then jogged up the stairs to the saloon. Inside, Georgiy's phone remained on the bar counter where I had left it. I tapped the screen, just checking for good measure that it was still locked.

It was still locked.

I just hoped Desirae's friend could open it.

It wasn't even so much about proving my innocence anymore. Whatever connections Desirae had at the Agency, they would find me guilty in some way regardless of what was on that footage. But I had information they wanted which meant I had leverage. And I trusted her. But I no longer trusted myself.

I wanted to know what happened that night.

So I could maybe begin to process what was continuing to happen. Those blackouts. The blood.

I needed to know.

My thumb pressed against the fingerprint scanner just to test it again. The phone buzzed with disapproval. Not recognized. I glanced over at the fridge.

No.

Just let the feds handle it.

I began unpacking the tote bag, but stopped as I opened the fridge. Desirae had wrapped his thumb well, but I couldn't put fresh food in there with it.

I loaded the food onto the shelves then carefully unwrapped the gross appendage. It had gone through hell and back with me, but despite a few wrinkles and some shrinkage, the print remained intact. My eyes fell to Georgiy's phone again as his cold thumb rested in my palm.

I closed my hand around it and bent down to slip it into the side of my shoe. Whatever hesitations I had, I needed to get rid of it regardless. I soaped up my hands and ran them under hot water, then grabbed his phone on my way out.

Awkwardly, I stepped down the stairs to the wooden deck. The cold dead skin rubbed against my pinky toe with every step making me uneasy on my feet. My fingers tightened around the phone as I hopped up onto the cement dock, worried I was going to drop it into the dark harbor.

After every bridge I had burned to get here, losing the phone at this point would just be tragic.

I hurried back towards the pier where vendors had lifted the doors to their storefronts early. Artemisia likely had something to do with that. She browsed through clothes and jewelry while Desirae made her phone call close by.

"Yes, we have his phone in our possession," Desirae stated, holding out her hand for it. "It's locked with a fingerprint." She flipped Georgiy's phone over and opened the back of it. She read off a few numbers and replaced the cover, then looked up at me. "Yes, she will be cooperative. I—" The woman's voice on the other line continued to talk. She seemed unconvinced. Desirae's teeth tugged at her lip. "I know, I know. A lot has happened though. I promise you—" She handed Georgiy's phone back to me. "I would risk my career on it."

I started getting cold feet.

But the thumb, on the other hand, didn't feel as cold against my toe as before.

I started inching away.

"Already?" Desirae glimpsed over at me again, then turned away enough that her voice was hushed. "Are you sure?"

As she continued to convince whoever was on the other end that I would be a good girl and be cooperative, Artemisia slipped farther away as well, tapping at her phone to make her own call. I looked down at the black, locked screen in my own hand. It had been nice being without phones for the past couple days. Technology was something I still hadn't gotten used to after being locked up for years without it.

But I saw my chance.

While they were both busy, I squatted down to pull out Georgiy's rancid, gray, now-lukewarm thumb from my shoe.

I pushed and smooshed the thumb against the screen. Nothing. Rolled the pad side to side. Nothing. Tip to bottom. Nothing. The rot crept up to my nose, gagging me the more I worked it. I finally had to turn my head away.

The phone vibrated.

And clicked.

"Oh my god."

The screen opened, fully unlocked. I flipped through his apps just to be sure.

"Oh my god," I said again, my voice rose with excitement.

Both Desirae and Artemisia looked over at me.

"It worked!" I laughed, holding it out so they could see it. "It actually fucking worked!"

"I'll—I'll call you back..." Desirae began to lower her own phone. Her eyes widened. "Kirby!"

As a bike whizzed past me, a hand snatched the phone from my fingers.

"Shukran, Kabir!"

With the little black cat on his shoulder, Youssef zipped down the pier, pedaling towards the medina with Georgiy's unlocked phone.

"You little shit!" I growled.

Desirae grabbed my arm. "Kirby, don't."

But I broke out of her grip. My feet pounded the cobbled walkway, shoes flapping off my heels as I chased after him into traffic. Horns blared, men yelled. I nearly toppled an elderly woman in full niqaab rounding the corner into the medina.

The crowd barely parted for him, slowing him down some, but not enough that I could get close. My heart hammered in my chest, lungs heaved for breaths. But I couldn't stop. I wasn't gonna let him get away. Not when I was so close to knowing the truth of what happened that night.

Down the tiled steps. Around every other corner. Pushing people out of my way. Through a piss stenched alley. Now less people in my way. Zig zagging at a fork. Youssef finally came to a walled off dead-end in front of a barred up storefront. A woman completely covered sat on the ground all hunched over with a horned goat.

"You thieving little shit," I gasped, sucking down air. "Give it back!"

As I ran up to him to snatch the phone back, a hand tore into my shoulder to rip me around. My head hit the faded whitewashed wall. My vision went with it.

"Calling the kettle black, aren't we, mate?" The voice echoed with familiarity in my spinning head. "Imshee!"

Youssef's tires skidded. The sound of his pedals pumping faded with distance. My focus began to unblur, sharpening on the large brown eyes in front of me.

"You should have aimed better, Mac."

I reached back to rub my head. "You told me not to hesitate."

Chaya's thumb dug into my wound, tearing through stitches and unhealed flesh. I cried out, tried to grip her wrist, but she only dug deeper.

"I liked you, Mac. Still do, actually. It's so hard to find women like us who don't mind getting their hands dirty. But you fucked me over. And there are consequences."

"I wasn't trying to kill you, Chaya. Fuck." My teeth gritted. "I'm nothing like you."

She twisted her thumb deeper. "You are one tragic death of a loved one away from becoming me."

I tipped my head back against the wall, banging it over and over to push the searing white-hot pain away from the source. Anywhere else. I counted in, then out. My short ragged breaths deepened. Ribs expanded.

"That's a good girl. Breathe. Work through it."

I lowered my head back to face her. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks to my clenched jaw. She pulled the covering away from her mouth. Our lips were less than an inch away.

"This wasn't how I wanted to be inside of you again, but..."

Her lips parted as she slowly pulled out of my shoulder. She raised her bloody thumb to my mouth and rubbed it against my bottom lip. As I jerked my head away, it streaked along my jaw. She laughed a little, rubbing her thumb against her tongue this time.

"Are we good?" my voice cracked.

I held my breath as she reached into a pocket of her niqaab, but she only pulled out Georgiy's phone. She tapped at the screen and swiped through. Security footage from the villa began playing, but she tipped it away just enough that I couldn't see.

And I didn't try to move.

"You know, a lot of people are interested in this phone." As she watched the footage, her brows raised and she looked back up at me. "Interesting." Her fingers tapped at the screen again. Her head tipped, eyes focused. "Your girlfriends are both trying to sell it out from under you."

"I don't care. I don't care whose hands the phone ends up in or for however much money. I just want to know what happened."

Her laugh cut through me, stinging worse than my wound. She pressed the phone's power button, locking it once more. Bending down, she picked up Georgiy's thumb from the ground. Her tongue clicked a couple times and the brown speckled goat strutted over. The bone crunched like a fucking carrot between its jaws.

Chaya's dark eyes found mine again. "Then I guess we are good. For now."

She covered her face again then pushed against the shop's boarded up door. Even as that fiery rage built up inside me, I didn't dare try to follow her.

Just as the door closed, the squeak of bike tires echoed through the dead-end alley. Running footsteps padded against the flagstone walkway.