From #1 New York Times bestselling author and Edgar Award winner Alex Berenson, comes a supercharged espionage thriller about marriage and the dangerous secrets spouses keep. Rebecca and Brian Unsworth appear to have it all: a nice house in a Washington,?DC, suburb; two well-behaved teenagers; and high-pressure government careers—Rebecca in FBI counterterrorism and Brian as an NSA coder. Brian even developed and sold a profitable app. But twenty years in, their marriage has deteriorated. Communication and intimacy have dwindled. To reignite their connection, they take their kids, Kira and Tony, on a European vacation. Fun turns to terror when Kira is abducted one night in Barcelona, sparking a frantic weekend-long search. As a kidnapping spree unfolds, hidden dangers tied to espionage, encryption, and international ransom emerge. Rebecca taps her FBI and NSA resources to locate her daughter, while Kira—revealing resilience and cunning—fights to escape. Over the course of a weekend, the couple confronts marriage strains, career secrets, and betrayal. In this globe-trotting spy thriller, suspense escalates as family dynamics and the dangerous world of espionage collide. The Power Couple combines domestic espionage, spy fiction, and marriage thriller elements in a fast-paced plot full of shocking twists, while offering a nuanced look at the cost of ambition, parenthood, and trust within modern marriage. "Mr. Berenson, a veteran storyteller, succeeds quickly in getting the reader to care about his main characters... The Power Couple , rife with crime-busting subplots and energized by a teenage captive determined not to be a victim, is one of the most unpredictable thrillers in years." -- The Wall Street Journal "Berenson writes with vigor and pace...This thriller is tailor-made for the big screen." -- Publishers Weekly "The pace is unrelenting, and Berenson has a few twists in his arsenal. He also creates an engaging character in the brave and resourceful Kira, who is so much more than a helpless victim. A fast-paced and engaging political thriller." -- Kirkus Reviews "A well-written and compelling story about crime, a crumbling marriage, spousal resentment and betrayal." -- Washington Times Alex Berenson is a former New York Times reporter and award-winning novelist. He attended Yale University and joined the Times in 1999, where he covered everything from the drug industry to Hurricane Katrina and served as a correspondent in Iraq. In 2006, The Faithful Spy , his debut novel, won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best First Novel. He has since written twelve more novels and a nonfiction book, Tell Your Children . Currently, he lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife and children. Chapter 1 1 Barcelona, Spain Have fun! See you at midnight like we agreed! XXX Mom Kira Unsworth swiped left, stung the red delete box. Goodbye. She didn’t remember agreeing . She remembered Rebecca saying Midnight, okay? Not okay. Not even close. Even if Jacques didn’t show… and Jacques was going to show… she wasn’t Cinderella and she wasn’t going to be home at midnight. Not in Barcelona. People came from all over to party here, the ultimate late-night city. She could say the time difference had confused her, though Mom wouldn’t bite. Did it confuse your phone too? Rebecca could smell fibs from ten feet away. You do remember your dear old mother works for the FBI. Trying to sound like she was joking, though they both knew she wasn’t. The words a challenge: Don’t even try it. Mostly Kira didn’t. She’d learned the best lies were the ones she didn’t have to tell. Tonight she would play it cool, no excuses. I’m nineteen, I’m not a baby, come on. Dad would be fine as long as she made it back by one. Maybe even a little later. Good ol’ Bri, part of him still wanted to be nineteen. With his microbrews and Nirvana T-shirts. Even Becks would lighten up once Kira got back to their Airbnb. She knew midnight was ridiculous. Reediculous , Kira mouthed at the girl in the mirror behind the bar. The room around her was long and dark and stuffed with torn leather couches and paintings of long-gone Europeans that had been covered in graffiti and sliced up. The net effect was a castle post–zombie apocalypse. But with better music. MGMT shading into Twenty One Pilots shading into Fleet Foxes. Even the occasional band Kira didn’t know, and she knew just about everything. She loved new music. She loved music, period. The bar was called The Mansion—lots of Barcelona bars had English names—and was supposed to be one of the coolest places in the city. Though it was still mostly empty. Kira should have been intimidated to be here alone. She was, a little. But she felt more confident than she’d expected. Probably because she already knew she was meeting someone. She was drinking sangria from a battered copper cup. Dark and sweet and it didn’t seem to have much kick, but