Mrs. Undercover -

“No,” Ellie said. She crushed the juice box. Apple juice sprayed into his face. He blinked—one second of shock. That was all she needed.

Brenda stepped inside. The moment the door closed, she dropped the smile. “Agent Phoenix. You’re harder to find than a needle in a haystack.”

She was looking for him .

That was the problem. After ten years of marriage, three of them deep undercover as a wife , Ellie had become her disguise. The Agency had stopped calling. Her handler, a chain-smoking cynic named Harris, had retired to a shrimp boat in the Gulf. She was, for all intents and purposes, a ghost. Mrs. Undercover

Brenda raised an eyebrow. “Glitter glue?”

“Why me?” Ellie asked.

Mrs. Eleanor Undercover—yes, that was her real married name, a cosmic joke she’d long since accepted—was living proof. “No,” Ellie said

Until the casserole arrived.

She zip-tied his wrists with a phone charger cord, then knelt beside the bomb. The timer read 00:12:47. She didn’t have time for finesse. She remembered something Harris had told her, years ago, after a mission gone wrong: When you can’t win, change the game.

It was a truth universally acknowledged in the intelligence community that a stay-at-home mom in the suburbs was the perfect undercover operative. No one ever suspected the woman who packed juice boxes and folded tiny socks of being able to disable a bomb with a bobby pin. He blinked—one second of shock

Somewhere in Langley, a dusty file was reopened. Across the top, in red ink, someone had written: ACTIVE. DO NOT DISTURB. SHE’S EXACTLY WHERE SHE NEEDS TO BE.

“Because you’re already here,” Brenda said. “And because your file says you’re the only operative to ever get inside his head.”

That night, after the kids were asleep, Dave found her in the kitchen, staring at the empty floral dish.