Tonight was the night.

Jisoo was full of nerves on the long plane ride over. She gave Teddy a long hug outside her uber that would take her to the airport. The girls also texted her encouraging messages before they had to depart for their own missions. She needed their support more than ever right now. But she would be strong without them.

The flight had her feeling a bit jet lagged, since she had not been out of the country since she was 12 years old. Her parents took her to California, where they went sightseeing in San Francisco for a week. So she took a melatonin pill last night in order to try to adjust her sleeping schedule a slight bit. It seemed like it worked, Jisoo felt very refreshed and alert. It could just be her anxiety that was keeping her on edge, though.

She spent a majority of the day looking over the mission plan, the layout of Samuel Min’s penthouse, and going over possible scenarios that could happen. She and Teddy surmised that in order to obtain the blueprints, she had two ways of doing it—Jisoo could either lay low and try to break into his office or cozy up to Samuel in hopes of leading him right into her trap. The first option would only work if she could sneak by the security guards and figure out how to break in without setting off any alarms. It looked like she would most likely have to go with Plan B.

Either plan had its flaws and many different factors could be thrown into the mix. The absolute worst thing that could happen was if V showed up and stole the show from her. Or her life.

Jisoo took a deep breath as she looked in the mirror. She didn’t wear makeup much and when she did, it was very natural and light. When she saw her reflection, Jisoo knew that she was a different person tonight. Gone was innocent and studious Kim Jisoo. Sasha Jung, her alias for the mission, was present. And Jisoo had to admit that Sasha looked pretty damn hot.

Incra gave her a passport with Sasha Jung’s personal information on it and Teddy prepared her well to speak on Sasha’s backstory, or rather, her backstory. Jisoo was grateful she had three best friends who were fluent in English because she gradually learned how to speak it over the years. Now she would have to pull off an Australian accent, but that wasn’t much of a problem since Rose was also from Australia.

Jisoo checked the time on the hotel bedroom clock. It was 10 o’clock. She grabbed her purse and made sure she brought a bobby pin. Just in case she had to pick a lock.

When Jisoo stepped outside of the elevator on the 32th floor, she could hear of the bass of the music coming from the penthouse door. One security guard stood outside the door.

“ID, please.” The big man grunted.

Jisoo pulled out her passport. After studying it for a couple of seconds, he opened the door. “Enjoy, Ms. Jung.”

The party was in full swing, with waiters walking around with champagne flutes on their trays. Jisoo grabbed one for herself and examined the scene. The penthouse was modernist in style and seemed very futuristic. Everything was so sleek and minimal, yet it held an air of wealth. New wealth, to be more specific.

She scanned the room for Samuel Min. It was pretty dark in the apartment, since the strobe lights and bar were the only sources of illumination. Jisoo could make out the outline of bodies and people’s most prominent features, but that was about it. Lucky for Jisoo, she was wearing a deep red dress and matching choker that highlighted her curves delicately and sparkly silver kitten heels that could be seen even with the poorest of lighting. Plan B would definitely be in action, but Jisoo wanted to explore the rest of the house in order to see how much security was around first.

Jisoo’s head nodded to the loud music as she passively watched couples dancing on the floor. They were playing an awful lot of Calvin Harris. Jisoo squinted to see where the DJ stage was… wait was that actually Calvin Harris performing his songs in the flesh? She was impressed. From the dance floor Jisoo looked up and saw a spiral staircase that led up to a VIP section, she assumed, since there was another bodyguard at the foot of the stairs. From her position near the stage, she could see those up on that floor. Initially, her eyes darted back and forth from the scantily-clad women to the dapper men who were lounging on plush couches and ordering round after round of drinks to their tables. There were also a couple of lone individuals on the balcony upstairs watching the crowd below.

That’s when her heart stopped beating.

Dressed in an entirely black suit and leaning against the balcony was a man all-too familiar for Jisoo’s liking. In fact, Jisoo’s body was frozen in utter shock.

Kim Taehyung.

How did he get here? Why was he here? More importantly, was her cover compromised?

Almost as if he could read her thoughts, his gaze suddenly landed on Jisoo’s vicinity below. Before she could process what was happening, they locked eyes. In that moment, Taehyung’s lips parted, as if he was floored by Jisoo’s presence. His expression was still unreadable as usual, but Jisoo didn’t want to wait to see what would happen next. She pretended as if she did not recognize him and walked to the ladies’ restroom, out of his sight.

She was grateful that a empty stall was waiting for her and she could strategize in solitude. Jisoo locked the door, sat on the toilet, and leaned her head on the stall wall.

What the hell just happened? She had years of prior training to prepare her for spying out in the field, but there wasn’t anything that prepared her for encountering someone who knew her real identity on her first solo assignment.

And it wasn’t just any ordinary person from Myungwol. It just happened to be a person who was willing to go extraordinary lengths to torment her just about anything.

This was the worst thing that could have happened and she had barely been at the party for more than 15 minutes.

Jisoo closed her eyes and took deep breaths. If she could avoid Taehyung the entire night and somehow still talk to Samuel Min, she would be fine. She had gotten this far and she was not going to fail Incra. She was still shaken up internally, but Jisoo was still undeniably talented at the end of the day. Jisoo was filled with a renewed motivation to win tonight, no matter what.

As long as the mysterious V wasn’t going to show up tonight along with Taehyung, then she would get a hold of the blueprints. She left the stall and glanced at herself in the mirror, and it only solidified her confidence. Kim Jisoo was Teddy’s protégé and she was gonna act like it.

In case Taehyung was going to ambush her from the bathroom, however, she kept her head down as she walked back out to the party. All of a sudden, she collided into a hard chest. She looked up.

Jackpot.

Samuel Min dusted off his immaculate white shirt and took a look at Jisoo. “Are you alright? I’m sorry, I was looking at my phone and I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“I’m alright. Thank you for asking, though.” The words felt foreign to her as she reminded herself not to respond in Korean.

The Australian accent must’ve piqued his interest because he tilted his head trying to get a better look at her, but the light was too dim. “I’m Sam and I’m the host of this party. It’s nice to meet you… What’s your name?” He held his hand out to shake hers.

“Sasha Jung. It’s nice to finally meet you, Samuel.” Jisoo gave him a