Romayne Bellamy’s morning routine started at about 7:00 in the morning, when her alarm went off. She usually spent the first few minutes of the day checking her notifications in bed, handling anything that required her immediate attention. After a light breakfast of dry toast and a protein shake she liked to put in at least an hour at the gym before returning to her spacious Peckham flat, going through her daily twelve-step skincare process, and starting work.
She kept a home office in the second bedroom for her video shooting and streaming setup, as well as her computer. A quick check of her channel’s stats indicated her latest video wasn’t doing as well as the others; she frowned and pulled up her messages.
Romayne’s assistant Gabriela was based in Romania or Malaysia or somewhere like that, but kept London hours to ensure her boss could get hold of her as needed. Dashing off a quick text, Romayne asked her to update the video’s title and thumbnail to something more enticing; hopefully that would juice the numbers a bit.
Gabriela had also sent Romayne an update on Wayward Talent’s latest acquisitions: another batch of the purchased contracts had turned over their account credentials. Romayne instructed her to compile a list of all the remaining non-compliant contracts; she’d pass it off to Hughie herself, and he’d handle “negotiations” from there.
She’d just about reached inbox zero when a new email came in, from an unfamiliar sender: the assistant of someone named DB Endicott, who was asking to meet Romayne today for lunch.
Romayne quickly looked up the name. It was attached to a mountain of press releases and articles, all enthusiastically announcing that a film called Whispers in the Velvet Fog was currently shooting just south of London. DB Endicott was credited as executive producer.
There were very few reasons a film producer would ask Romayne to lunch. She grinned, butterflies in her stomach, as she quickly and eagerly agreed to the invitation.
Endicott’s assistant had sent Romayne the address of a large, airy seafood restaurant on the South Bank with a lovely view of the river and skyline beyond. Romayne was careful to arrive a few minutes early; when the hostess escorted her to a table out on the terrace, however, a man was already there waiting.
He was tall and lean and ruggedly handsome, dressed for the summer weather in a light pair of slacks and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. With a warm smile, he said, “Ms. Bellamy?”
Romayne reached out to shake his hand and tried not to stare at the three long, thin scars that slashed across his hairline and down his temple. “You must be Mr. Endicott.”
“Please, call me David.” Endicott gestured for her to sit, then settled back into his own seat.
A waitress came by to take their drink orders; Romayne asked for a margarita, while Endicott named some cocktail she’d never heard of.
Once the waitress had departed, Endicott said, “I’m hoping you can help solve a problem of mine.”
Romayne raised an eyebrow. “Which is?”
“I’m producing a film at the moment,” Endicott explained, as casually as if he’d just told her where he’d had breakfast this morning. “It’s called Whispers in the Velvet Fog—bit of an elevated genre thing, not much in the way of budget, but we’re hoping to get picked up for distribution at one of the festivals. Shooting just started, but one of our supporting actors has had to drop out.” He lowered his voice. “Rehab, again. We’re trying to keep it quiet—no need to stir up a scandal this early in the production cycle.”
Romayne smiled and nodded and hoped this was going where she thought it was.
“I’m thinking we need a fresh new face in the role,” Endicott explained. “A rising star narrative to paper over the whole relapse thing.” He favoured her with a wide grin. “Your reel crossed my desk and, well—I think you’d be perfect.”
Romayne’s heart leapt, and she couldn’t stifle a delighted giggle. “Really?”
Endicott nodded. “Do you think you could come out to the set tomorrow? We’d need to do a few script readings, some screen tests—our director has sign-off on all casting, so you’d be meeting with him, too.”
Romayne could barely believe this was happening. She half-expected to wake up any moment, or for a camera crew to pop up out of the decorative planters and reveal this was all some elaborate prank. “Of course,” she said quickly, “I’d be happy to.”
“Lovely,” Endicott said. “I’ll have my assistant send you the details.”
The drive out to Surrey was a quiet one; Sebastian could tell Jay had something on his mind.
It was mostly rural out here, although they passed through two or three villages between long stretches of open country. On the horizon was a wide stretch of land dotted with the flat, bulky shapes of massive grey buildings; it was one of the biggest film and television production studios in the world.
Just inside the turning for the whole complex was a security checkpoint. Jay leaned out the window and rattled off their names and destination to the guard, who consulted his clipboard and passed on a lengthy series of directions that would take them to the correct soundstage.
As Jay carefully steered the car through the maze-like roads of the studio, Sebastian’s phone pinged. It was an email from, of all things, his email provider; according to the alert, there had been a series of failed attempts to log into his account, and all further logins would be blocked for the next few hours.
Not long after they’d started seeing each other, Jay had insisted on doing a full pass through all of Sebastian’s cybersecurity. He’d set Sebastian up with a password keeper, changed all his passwords to random chains of numbers and letters, and enabled two-factor authentication on every account he could; it made logging in a bit of a pain, but had set Jay’s mind at ease.
Sebastian tilted his phone screen so Jay could see it. “Anything I should worry about?”
Jay quickly scanned the email; cold fury flashed across his face, and he turned his eyes back to the road. “Someone must’ve got your old password from a data leak,” he said, affecting a flat tone. “When that didn’t work, they would’ve tried to brute-force their way in.”
“I’m being hacked?”
“Not very well,” Jay reassured him. “Your password’s too complex for a brute-force attack. And even if they get lucky, you’ve got two-factor set up. You’re fine.”
He didn’t sound entirely confident of that, but the soundstage that was their destination loomed up ahead. It was largely indistinguishable from those around it, marked only with a massive number 17 on the side. Jay managed to find a spot in the crowded car park and quickly exited the car.
“Tell me if you get any more of those alerts,” Jay said, as Sebastian followed him out. “Or if there’s anything else odd with your accounts.”
As they approached the small metal door that led inside the soundstage, Sebastian pulled out his phone again and texted the number his friend Anika had given him:
We’re here
Anika trained animals for film and television. She’d put Sebastian in touch with a colleague who was currently working as a grip on a film being shot here. A surprising number of Hollywood movies and shows preferred to shoot in the UK; the unions were weaker, and the labour accordingly cheaper. Anika had once heard an American producer call his British crew “white Mexicans”; Anika, being Indian, had found it particularly funny in that way which prompted no actual laughter.
The door opened to reveal a stocky, bearded man in cargo shorts and a loose-fitting t-shirt. “You Sebastian?” he asked briskly.
Sebastian nodded. “Griffin?”
The man nodded in return and opened the door further to welcome them inside.
The building’s interior was essentially one massive room; catwalks and rigging criss-crossed high overhead, and the film’s various sets were arrayed around the concrete floor. The sets were little more than open-sided boxes lined with green or blue screens, each surrounded by cameras and lights and other bits of equipment.
Nobody appeared to be shooting anything at the moment. The crew were all gathered in loose groups, chatting or tweaking their setups or grazing off the craft services table. The cast were at similarly loose ends; some of them had costumes on, but many were in black or green bodysuits dotted with sensors that would be digitally painted over in post-production.
Overall, Sebastian would be hard-pressed to identify exactly what kind of movie was being shot here—and so would Romayne Bellamy.
“Anika said it was better if I didn’t ask what you’re up to,” Griffin said, unconcerned. “If you need us to look busy, I can tell everyone you’re here to shoot some behind-the-scenes stuff.”
“She said the production’s been …” Sebastian cast about for the right word. “… troubled.”
“Our director was fired two weeks ago,” Griffin replied bluntly. “Our new director was supposed to be here this morning, but so far nobody’s heard from him.”
“I don’t think you’ll be seeing him for a while,” Jay said.
Darren tapped his phone restlessly against his thigh and fumed. The car sat on the shoulder of a back road in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but empty fields.
He’d flown in from LA last night, checked into his hotel, and slept the sleep of the severely jet-lagged. This morning, a car arrived to take him to set; the driver had opted for a winding route through the labyrinthine streets of London, which he insisted was the fastest way out of the city and into Surrey.
And then the car broke down.
The driver was outside, tinkering and muttering under the open hood of the car. Darren checked his phone again, although it was a futile gesture; there’d been no hint of a signal since they left the city, which meant he hadn’t been able to call the set and tell them he was running late.
His patience running thin, Darren leaned out the open window. “Listen, uh …” he checked the text he’d received when the driver arrived to pick him up. “… Shinwell?”
The driver’s face sidled into view from under the hood and gave him a friendly smile. “Call me Porky.”
“Uh … right,” Darren said, with no intention to do so. “How long are we gonna be stuck here?”
“Oh, not much longer,” the driver replied, and disappeared back under the hood.
Endicott had sent a car round Romayne’s flat to take her out to the set. The drive through the studio seemed to go on forever, row upon row of grey featureless buildings towering overhead, but eventually the car pulled up in front of a soundstage marked with the number 17. Endicott was waiting by the door; he waved her over as she stepped out of the car.
“Glad you could make it,” he said brightly, and led the way inside.
The cavernous interior of the soundstage bustled with activity as Endicott brought Romayne over to a huge row of monitors. Behind them sat a surprisingly young man; he was a little on the short side, maybe Romayne’s own height, wearing a cap with the letters “WVF” embroidered across the front.
“Rafe,” Endicott called out to the man. “This is Romayne Bellamy. Ms. Bellamy, this is Rafe Morrison—our director.”
Morrison turned to face them, studied Romayne for a moment, then said, “No.”
Endicott rolled his eyes and sighed. “Rafe—”
“No,” Morrison repeated firmly. “She’s got the wrong face. Too contemporary.”
“Excuse us for a moment,” Endicott said to Romayne as he pulled Morrison aside. They spoke heatedly, in hushed tones; Romayne just caught the words, “I know you were attached to Liz,” but not much more than that.
Finally, Morrison threw his hands up and snapped, “Fine! Put her in front of a camera. Let’s see if she’s any good.”
With a satisfied air, Endicott gestured for Romayne to follow them to a further corner of the room. There was a small green screen set up here, with a single camera. Morrison handed her a few sheets of paper—a short scene, with one particular monologue highlighted.
“All right,” Morrison said in clipped tones, “we’re going for wuxia atmosphere and tone here, but we’re using Celtic history and myth as a base instead of Chinese. Make sense?”
It did not, but Romayne said, “Yeah, of course.”
Morrison went on in that vein, detailing the character she was reading for—Ciara, the lead’s childhood friend—and the context of the scene, all of it rattled off with such intense speed and focus that Romayne could only smile and nod. Then she was standing in front of the camera, pages in hand, and the camera was rolling.
Romayne clutched the pages in her hands and read the monologue aloud—halting at first, but soon the rhythm of the words overtook her. There was an exhilaration to this, an energy that set her blood bubbling like champagne as she moved from line to line.
And then it was done, leaving her tense and giddy and waiting for her audience’s reaction. There was a long silence as both Morrison and Endicott regarded her with contemplative expressions.
“I can do it again?” Romayne offered heart sinking.
“Just a moment,” Endicott said, and took Morrison aside again.
There was more hushed conversation, and it went on for far too long. Romayne shifted anxiously from one foot to the other as they went back and forth, occasionally glancing her way.
Then Morrison nodded, and Endicott turned back to Romayne with a grin. “Congratulations.”
Joy and relief swept through Romayne, and she laughed. “I got the part?”
One of the crew—a short, broad man in cargo shorts—hurried over to Morrison and muttered something Romayne couldn’t hear. Morrison nodded and caught Endicott’s eye.
Romayne couldn’t quite decipher the look that passed between them, but in short order Endicott was nudging Romayne away from the cameras and toward the exit.
“We can start shooting your scenes next week,” he was saying, the words oddly rushed. “I’ll have someone send the necessary contracts over.”
“Okay,” Romayne replied, still reeling at how quickly this was all happening.
And then they were at the door, and Endicott herded her outside. “We’ll be in touch.”
The door closed.
Another car had just arrived, idling next to Romayne’s. A man stumbled out of it and slammed the door shut behind him, then leaned down to shout through the driver’s window: “Three hours! Three fucking hours late!”
Romayne was tempted to stay and spectate, but her car was waiting. She settled into the back seat and shut the door as the driver pulled out of the car park.
“All right,” Kitty said, “so Romayne Bellamy thinks she’s about to become a movie star. How does this help you steal all her money?”
They’d ordered takeaway from one of the approximately five thousand Italian restaurants near Sebastian’s flat in Chelsea. Moriarty sat atop the kitchen island with a comfortable, proprietary air, picking his way through a plate of spaghetti bolognese—although Kitty couldn’t help noticing how often he stole bites from Sebastian’s side order of calamari. It hadn’t escaped Sebastian’s notice either, although he didn’t seem to mind.
“We’ve told her she’s going to get something,” Moriarty explained, between mouthfuls. “To a mind like Bellamy’s, that means it’s already hers. So when we threaten to take it away, she’ll give us anything we want if it means she gets to keep it.”
He’d said it so casually, Kitty could almost forget how unsettling the actual words were. Almost.
Sebastian leaned against the island next to Moriarty, picking at the remains of his own meal. “Any more trouble from Bellamy’s men?” he asked.
“Not so far,” Kitty said, “although I haven’t been out of the flat much.”
“So long as we’re keeping her busy with this,” Moriarty mused aloud, “she might not pay much attention to anything else. Should give you a bit of a break.”
Sebastian’s phone pinged; he fished it out of his pocket, glanced at the screen, and made an annoyed noise low in his throat.
“Another one?” Moriarty asked.
In lieu of answering, Sebastian simply handed his phone to Moriarty.
As Moriarty set his food on the counter and began tapping at Sebastian’s phone, Kitty asked, “Something wrong?”
Sebastian sighed. “I’ve been getting spam texts all day.”
“Phishing attacks,” Moriarty clarified, most of his attention still on Sebastian’s phone. “Trying to trick him into giving up his passwords.”
Kitty blinked. “Someone’s trying to hack you?”
“Unsuccessfully.” There was a defensive tension in Moriarty’s shoulders as he handed the phone back. “There. Blocked.”
Sebastian tucked it into his pocket and dumped his empty takeaway container in the bin before sliding the rest of the calamari decisively across the counter toward Moriarty. “I’m going for a smoke.” He glanced at Kitty. “Coming?”
Kitty was careful not to look directly at Moriarty as she replied, “Nah, go on.”
Sebastian nodded and stepped through the kitchen door out into the garden, settling on the bench out there as he lit a cigarette.
Moriarty, meanwhile, was steadily finishing off the rest of the calamari.
“So,” Kitty said to the room at large, “what happens when you get bored?”
Moriarty looked up from the pilfered seafood. “What?” he asked, with feigned bafflement.
“I figure it’s all about solving the problem for you,” Kitty explained, thinking carefully as she spoke. “I’m an interesting problem, for now. But I need to know what happens when I stop being interesting.”
Moriarty watched her for a moment, chewing slowly. “You read people pretty well.”
“I have to,” Kitty said. “Got to know what a client wants but can’t say out loud. Got to know who’s safe and who’s dangerous.”
“Am I dangerous, then?” Moriarty’s expression was flat and unreadable, but there was a wounded tremor in his voice—old pain, resurfacing unexpectedly.
“I don’t know,” Kitty had to admit. “Sebastian was easy to figure out, in the end. You’re … more complicated.”
Moriarty’s eyes narrowed, his voice stern and cold as he said, “And what have you ‘figured out’ about Sebastian?”
It was suspicion, and anger, but it was … protective. Assessing a potential threat—not to Moriarty himself, but to Sebastian.
“I don’t tell other people’s secrets,” Kitty said firmly. “Bad business.”
That, oddly, seemed to soothe him.
And now Kitty understood. He’d keep working the problem, even if it stopped satisfying whatever itch it put in his brain—because Sebastian had asked him to.
You wanted Jay Moriarty as your friend. The alternative was much, much worse.
Jay paced an uncertain circle around the sitting room as Moran stepped outside to put Kitty into a cab. When he came back in, it was with a hopeful look that made Jay’s ribcage feel a size too small.
“I should be getting home, too,” Jay muttered vaguely, hating every word.
“It’s late,” Moran replied—an observation, and an invitation.
Jay bit back the urge to point out it was just as late when Kitty left. Kitty Winter didn’t have a standing invitation to stay the night. Not like Jay.
Moran was standing so close, and Jay swayed into his welcoming warmth. He could stay. He could sleep in Sebastian’s bed and wake up next to him tomorrow morning. He’d starved himself for weeks, knowing he could have this any time he wanted. He’d barely need to ask.
But Jay was being followed, which meant he could’ve been followed here. Even the few interactions between them over the past few days had made Moran a target; things could only get worse. Jay sidestepped past Moran, reaching for his laptop bag where it rested on one of the armchairs.
And then Sebastian was right there behind him, chest pressed to Jay’s back, one arm slipping around his waist to hold him close. “Please.” His voice was a low murmur as he gently kissed the side of Jay’s neck. “Please stay.”
Jay’s resolve crumbled. He relaxed in Sebastian’s embrace, easing back into the solid heat of his body. “Okay.”
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