Chapter 13 #3
“Exactly,” I said. “And the office above the loading bay will have sightlines to both entrances. If they want to see Damian arrive, they will position someone high. Use that.”
Sofia nodded slowly. “A visual false arrival.”
“You can put someone in Damian’s car,” I said. “Not someone who looks like him from three feet away. Someone who looks like him from the second floor in bad light. Coat, posture, security pattern. Give them the image Malachi is waiting for.”
Nico’s name came into my mind. He was shorter than Damian, but the same dark hair, the same movement. More importantly, he knew how to become a threat in any room.
“He will hate this,” Damian said.
“Your brother?”
“He will enjoy it,” Adrian said. “Which is worse.”
Sofia’s expression remained professional, but I saw a brief flash of approval. “This is good. But we need a reason for Benedict to keep talking.”
I looked at the evidence box.
“He thinks I have the final part of the archive,” I said.
Damian turned toward me so sharply the chair legs scraped the floor.
“No.”
I met his eyes.
“You said you would not speak for me.”
“I am not speaking for you. I am telling you this is not an option.”
“It may be the only way to keep them in one place long enough for the teams to move.”
“You are not bait.”
The old anger sparked in me, but beneath it was something else. Fear. His fear. It had stopped being flattering days ago. It was simply human now, ugly and sincere.
“I am not bait,” I said. “I am the person they need to hear from. There is a difference.”
Sofia put both hands on the table. “No one is asking you to enter the building. You can make contact from a secure vehicle. We record the call. You give them proof you have the material. We control the location.”
Damian’s jaw worked. He looked at Sofia, then at me.
“Do you want to do this?” he asked.
There it was. Not permission. A question.
I thought of my mother’s letter. Do not let any family turn you into a price.
“I want to end this,” I said. “I want my father to sleep without wondering who is outside his window. I want to walk into my office without security checking the doors. I want to know that the next choice in my life belongs to me. This is the first thing I have been able to do that leads toward that.”
Damian looked at me for a long moment.
Then he said, “All right.”
The word was quiet. It cost him something. I could hear it.
Sofia began assigning roles. Adrian would coordinate the financial evidence and speak to the agents.
Nico would lead the visual decoy. Marcus would control the maintenance entrance.
Agent Weaver would be in the command vehicle.
I would make the call from a separate armored car, with Damian beside me only if I wanted him there.
“I want him there,” I said before anyone asked.
Damian’s eyes met mine.
Not because I needed protection. Not because I was giving in.
Because the thing that had begun between us had become something neither of us could afford to pretend was only a contract.
When the meeting broke, Sofia gathered the evidence back into the box.
She paused beside me. “Your mother would have been proud that you made them all listen.”
I looked at her. “You did not know her.”
“No,” Sofia said. “But I know what it takes to be the only woman in a room full of men convinced they understand the stakes.”
Then she walked out.
Adrian watched her leave with an expression that was almost annoyed.
“Do not,” Damian said.
“I did not say anything.”
“You were about to.”
Adrian smiled. “You are becoming very observant.”
I picked up the black coffee and took a sip. It was awful.
For some reason, that made me feel ready.
The armored vehicle smelled of rubber, gun oil, and the bitter coffee Sofia had given me.
Rain had begun again by the time we reached Quarry Road.
It streaked the narrow windows and turned the industrial district into a smear of lights.
In the front seats, Marcus and Agent Weaver spoke in clipped phrases over a radio.
Adrian was in the command van behind us.
Nico was already in position, wearing Damian’s coat and moving through a plan that depended on Malachi seeing exactly what he expected to see.
Damian sat across from me, not beside me.
I noticed the distance before I understood why he had chosen it. He was giving me room. He was allowing me to feel the shape of the decision without his body turning it into an answer.
The choice made me want to close the distance.
Instead I checked the phone in my hand. The recording app was open. The blue tin from Saint Aurelia lay in an evidence pouch at my feet, along with a decoy folder Adrian had filled with copies too incomplete to harm anyone if they were taken.
“Do you have any questions?” Agent Weaver asked through the open partition.
“Several,” I said. “None of them are useful.”
“That is a normal response.”
“Good. I was worried I had become unreasonable.”
Damian looked at me. A tiny movement at the corner of his mouth.
The radio crackled.
“Nico is visible at the west entrance,” Marcus said. “Possible visual confirmation from upper office. We have eyes on two armed men in the catwalk corridor.”
My skin went cold.
“Benedict?” Weaver asked.
“Not yet.”
Damian reached toward me, stopped before touching my knee, and let his hand fall back into his lap.
“You can stop this,” he said.
I looked down at the phone.
“You have said that three times.”
“I will say it as many times as necessary.”
“Why?”
“Because I need you to believe it.”