Chapter 2 THE LAST CON
The applause followed Sienna all the way out of the auditorium, and for a few moments she simply stood beneath the afternoon sunlight with her graduation certificate pressed carefully against her chest, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the brightness. Around her, families crowded the walkway, taking photographs, calling names and embracing graduates still dressed in their caps and gowns, while the warm air carried the mixed scents of perfume, flowers and food drifting from vendors gathered beyond the university gates.
Then Vera came rushing through the crowd with a grin so wide that Sienna barely had time to react before her friend threw both arms around her.
“You did it!”
Sienna laughed as she hugged her back, the weight of the certificate suddenly feeling lighter in her hands. “We did it, because I only survived those exams with your constant threats to drag me back to the library whenever I tried to escape.”
Vera pulled away with an offended expression that lasted only long enough to make Sienna laugh again. “Please, you graduated with excellent results. I merely survived the exams with enough dignity to collect my certificate.”
“That is not what your grades say.”
“Then we shall blame the grading system.”
They spent the next few minutes taking photographs beneath a large tree, arguing over angles and complaining about the sunlight until Vera finally declared that they had enough pictures to prove they had actually graduated. When they were done, Sienna looked down at the certificate in her hands, and the sight of her name printed clearly across the top brought a quiet satisfaction she couldn't quite hide.
Sienna Sinclair.
She ran her thumb lightly over the letters, remembering the years of studying, late nights and examinations that had brought her to this moment. Helen had sponsored her education, making sure tuition, books and accommodation were never things she had to worry about, but the degree itself belonged to Sienna. Every examination she had passed and every mark she had earned represented work she had done herself, and for once there was nothing false about the name on the page.
Vera slipped an arm through hers as they walked toward the parking lot and gave her a sideways glance. “So, graduate, what happens now? Are you finally going to stop talking about acting and actually audition?”
The word stirred something warm in Sienna's chest.
“Maybe,” she admitted. “Now I finally have time to try.”
“Then try,” Vera said, nudging her lightly. “You have spent long enough preparing for a future you haven't allowed yourself to begin.”
Sienna smiled as she placed the certificate carefully inside its folder. She had spent years imagining what it would feel like to reach this point, and now that she was standing there, the future seemed less like something waiting to be assigned and more like a door she could finally choose to open.
That evening, she sat on the sofa with her laptop open while Vera sorted through their graduation photographs on her phone. A casting notice caught Sienna's attention, advertising a small role in an independent film by an unfamiliar production company. The pay was modest and the production hardly glamorous, but she saved the notice anyway because she wasn't expecting her first opportunity to arrive wrapped in fame. She only wanted the chance to stand in front of a camera and hear her own name called for a role she had chosen.
Vera glanced over when she noticed the saved listing and smiled. “You actually saved it.”
Sienna closed the laptop halfway and returned the smile. “It is only a start, but that is enough for now.”
“Then start.”
The simple encouragement settled warmly between them, although Sienna wasn't ready to audition yet. There was still one thing she needed to finish before she could seriously pursue acting, and she had no idea that the decision would soon be taken out of her hands.
Instead of returning to the casting notices, she opened another laptop and brought up the blog she and Vera had built together.
GLITCH AND GOSSIP.
What had begun as a private hobby had gradually grown into a small anonymous investigative blog where they followed stories that didn't quite add up. Vera handled the writing and public interaction as Gossip, while Sienna worked behind the scenes as Glitch, using her technology skills to trace digital records, connect scattered information and uncover details people had assumed were safely buried. They kept their real identities away from the blog, and Sienna preferred it that way because there was a particular satisfaction in finding a digital trail someone believed was hidden and following it until the pieces began to fit.
She was still scrolling through an unfinished story when her phone rang.
Helen.
The pleasant mood in the room disappeared almost immediately.
Sienna answered and listened as Helen told her she needed to see her first thing the following morning at the office. The conversation lasted barely a minute, but by the time it ended, Sienna already knew that whatever Helen wanted had nothing to do with graduation.
Vera looked up from the photographs and studied her face. “Helen?”
Sienna nodded, and Vera didn't ask anything more.
---
The next morning, Helen's office looked exactly as Sienna remembered it, with dark wood covering the walls beneath warm recessed lighting and a long window overlooking the city through partially drawn blinds. The faint scent of leather and polished furniture lingered in the room, mingling with the stronger aroma of coffee, while everything remained as neat, controlled and deliberately private as it had always been.
Sienna knew every corner of the place.
Before college, she had spent countless hours in that office learning from Helen how to observe people without staring, construct identities that survived scrutiny and enter unfamiliar places as though she belonged there. Those lessons had turned into skills she could use almost instinctively, and the missions that followed had made her increasingly difficult to deceive herself.
She walked in without knocking.
Helen looked up from her desk and offered a small smile. “Congratulations on your graduation, Sienna. You finished with excellent results.”
“I worked hard for them,” Sienna replied, taking the chair opposite the desk.
“I know you did.”
Helen opened the drawer beside her, and the movement immediately caught Sienna's attention. She had learned long ago that Helen never summoned her without a reason, and the thin black folder Helen placed between them confirmed that this meeting had nothing to do with congratulations.
“You're finished with school now, and you've spent enough time proving what you can do,” Helen said as she opened the folder. “So I'm giving you one final assignment.”
The first photograph slid across the desk.
Sienna looked down.
For a moment, the room seemed quieter.
The man in the photograph wore a dark suit and stood outside what appeared to be a corporate event, his expression composed and his posture confident in a way that immediately brought back a memory Sienna had not expected to revisit. She knew that face, because she had spent part of a flight sitting beside him a year earlier, when an accident with her handbag had scattered her belongings and briefly exposed the identities she had been carrying.
The stranger from the airplane.
Sienna forced herself to keep her expression neutral.
“Kade Blackwell,” Helen said. “Twenty-eight years old and CEO of Blackwell Logistics.”
Sienna continued studying the photograph while Helen explained that Blackwell Logistics was pursuing a major government logistics contract and that Kade had become increasingly difficult to approach. Helen needed something from inside the company before the deal was settled, but instead of giving Sienna every detail, she slid another page across the desk.
“The file is called the Meridian Protocol,” she said. “I don't need you to understand everything about it yet. I need you to get close enough to Kade Blackwell to find out where it is and how it is protected.”
Sienna looked up slowly.
“You want me inside the company.”
“Inside his daily life,” Helen corrected. “You will become someone he has a reason to trust.”
The implication was clear.
“His assistant?”
“Exactly.”
Helen opened the second file and revealed an identity already prepared for her.
AURORA JETT.
Sienna turned through the documents, taking in the employment history, references, identification, address and academic records. The woman called Aurora Jett had a history, credentials and enough supporting documentation to withstand ordinary scrutiny, which meant Helen had already done most of the work before Sienna had even agreed to accept the assignment.
“Once you're hired, you stay close to Kade,” Helen continued. “Learn his routine, his habits and where he keeps sensitive information. When you discover what I need, you take it without leaving anything behind that can be traced to you.”
Sienna looked at the photograph again.
“And after that?”
“You walk away.”
Helen's expression softened slightly before she added, “This is the last one, Sienna. After this, you are free to decide what you want to do with your life.”
The words struck deeper than Sienna expected because they arrived at exactly the moment when she had begun allowing herself to imagine acting seriously, building something under her own name and making decisions that did not depend on Helen's next call. She had spent years moving from one identity to another, but graduation had made the possibility of another kind of life feel close enough to touch.
She looked down at Kade's photograph again.
The coincidence unsettled her.
The man she had met by chance on an airplane was now the man Helen wanted her to infiltrate.
Still, she had learned not to allow unexpected complications to interfere with a job.
“When do I begin?”
Helen's smile was brief. “Immediately.”
She reached into the folder and withdrew another document.
“Kade's current assistant will be leaving shortly, and the position should become available within weeks.”
Sienna's fingers paused against the edge of the file.
Helen continued as though she hadn't noticed. “Your application will be ready, and your references are already prepared. Once the vacancy is posted, Aurora Jett will be exactly the candidate Blackwell Logistics needs.”
Sienna lifted her eyes from the document and studied Helen's face.
Something about the statement bothered her.
“How do you know the position will become available?”
“I planned accordingly.”
The answer was simple, almost casual, but Sienna knew Helen well enough to recognize when she had deliberately chosen not to say more. She looked down at the documents again, yet the question remained lodged in her mind.
How did Helen know about a vacancy that hadn't even been publicly announced?
Sienna said nothing because she had learned another important lesson from Helen: sometimes the information people refused to give you was more valuable than the information they offered freely.
Helen reached for a black credit card and placed it beside the folder. The name embossed across it was Aurora Jett.
Sienna picked it up, feeling the smooth plastic between her fingers before slipping it into the file with the identity documents and Kade's photograph.
“One last job,” Helen said.
Sienna gave her a measured look. “You have said that before.”
Helen's smile didn't quite reach her eyes. “This time I mean it.”
Sienna gathered the documents and secured them inside her handbag before rising from the chair. If Helen kept her word, this assignment would finally close the chapter that had begun years ago, leaving Sienna free to decide what came next without waiting for another call or another identity.
She turned toward the door and stepped into the corridor, closing the office behind her.
Kade Blackwell's photograph was safely inside her handbag, along with the identity she would soon become and the credit card that would help make Aurora Jett real. The man who had once been nothing more than a quiet stranger beside her on a flight was now her target, and she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that the coincidence meant more than she understood.
Yet one detail troubled her more than the rest.
Helen had known Kade's assistant would be leaving before the vacancy had even been announced, which meant someone had given her information that ordinary outsiders shouldn't have had.
As Sienna walked toward the elevator, the question followed her.
Who had told Helen?
