3. Mari
THREE
MARI
Knox's office contains a desk, a gun safe, three shelves of fight footage, and a foldout bed designed by someone who resented the human spine.
I sleep for two hours anyway.
At nine, I wake to the smell of bacon and find Knox in the kitchen wearing gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt, one hand working a skillet while the other holds his phone to his ear.
He points at the coffee pot without pausing his conversation.
"No," he says into the phone. "Don't warn Santos. Watch him. If Leveaux had help looping our camera, I want to know who has access before they know we're looking."
Santos. The former Pit favorite who'd been talking to Leveaux before Hendricks beat him. He knows the building, the staff, and the old security system.
Knox ends the call and slides eggs onto a plate.
"You cook," I say.
"I apply heat until food stops being dangerous."
"That is the least romantic description of breakfast I've ever heard."
His gaze catches mine for one quiet second. "Was romance expected?"
My pulse trips over itself. "From you? Never."
"Good."
He puts a plate in front of me and turns back to the stove too quickly.
This is the trouble with Knox. Nothing obvious happens.
A look lasts half a second too long. His hand settles at my back while he opens a door.
He remembers my coffee and forgets his own.
The space between us fills with things neither of us says, and then we discuss payout ratios as though my body hasn't noticed every one of them.
I eat at his kitchen counter while Cécile Tran answers on the fourth ring.
"Chère," she says. "Your grandmother would haunt me if she knew I was awake before ten."
"She haunted people while she was alive. You'll survive."
Cécile runs private games in the Ninth Ward and hears everything that passes through New Orleans with cash attached. I explain Leveaux's test and his demand for a joint card.
Her usual humor disappears.
"Patrick Whelan," she says. "That's your money."
Knox stops rinsing the skillet.
I put the call on speaker.
"Commercial property developer?" I ask.
"Commercial property, strip clubs, two storage companies, and more debt than he admits.
He started backing Leveaux eighteen months ago.
Everybody thinks he's washing cash through the gates and purses.
I think he's trying to build a book big enough to move real money without it looking like movement. "
"Why the Pit?"
"Your volume. Leveaux's room can wash a cup at a time. Yours can wash a bathtub."
Knox dries his hands. "Can you get us records?"
"Not the clean kind. I can get payout sheets, some runner names, maybe copies of the credit markers. Give me a day."
"Cécile," I say. "Don't put yourself in front of this."
"Your mémère once sat beside my mother for fourteen hours while my brother was missing after Katrina. We don't count favors in this family. We remember them."
The call ends.
I open my laptop and start building Whelan into the picture. Property purchases. Shell companies. Fight venues leased through subsidiaries. A storage company that appears repeatedly in Leveaux's payment chain.
Knox sits beside me, close enough that his thigh brushes mine beneath the counter.
Neither of us moves.
"If Whelan needs our volume," I say, "the joint card gives him a reason to demand combined settlement. He'll argue that one book is cleaner for the audience."
"And once his money is in our pipeline?"
"He maps it, compromises it, or leaves us holding liabilities he created. Maybe all three."
"Can we prove it?"
"Not yet. But I can make the meeting expensive for him."
"How?"
"Escrow. Each operation funds its maximum payout exposure before the first bet opens. No shared credentials. No runner accounts without identity checks. If he's solvent, he complains and agrees. If he isn't, he looks for another angle."
Knox's mouth curves. "You're enjoying this."
"He took a photograph outside my home. I intend to invoice him for the experience."
His smile fades. "You're not going back there alone."
"We agreed to reassess after Saturday."
"I remember."
"Then stop trying to renegotiate before breakfast."
"Breakfast is over."
"You made eggs. This is barely a meal."
"There was bacon."
"A persuasive argument in most circumstances. Not this one."
He leans an elbow on the counter. "Do you argue with everybody this much?"
"Only men who mistake concern for authority."
"And men who cook for you?"
"Not enough of them to judge."
His eyes drop to my mouth.
It happens so quickly I could pretend I imagined it. I don't. Mémère raised me better than that.
Knox pushes away from the counter. "I need to check the Pit."
"I'll come."
"You need to stay here."
"We were doing so well."
"Mari-"
"My work is at the Pit. My backup hardware is at my apartment. My life is not going to shrink because Leveaux wants me frightened."
"And mine isn't going to continue normally while somebody follows you home."
The words come out rougher than the argument requires.
I close my laptop. "Then come with me."
He studies my face. "To the apartment?"
"I need the offline drive from my safe. You want to check the place. We can both get what we need without pretending one of us has to win."
"That's dangerously reasonable."
"Don't tell anyone. I have a reputation."
My apartment door is locked when we arrive.
The frame isn't damaged. The alarm still shows armed. Nothing in the hallway looks wrong.
Knox makes me wait behind him anyway.
He draws a gun from beneath his cut, disables the alarm with the code I gave him, and moves through my home with a quiet that doesn't fit his size. Kitchen. Living room. Bedroom. Bathroom.
"Clear," he says.
I step inside and know immediately that it isn't.
The ceramic bowl on the entry table is turned a quarter inch clockwise.
Nobody else would notice. I notice because Mémère gave me that bowl, and the hairline crack faces the wall so I don't have to see it.
"Someone's been here."
Knox turns. "What changed?"
I point to the bowl. His expression doesn't question how I know.
We search without touching more than necessary. My laptop is still on the desk. Television, jewelry, emergency cash, all present. The small safe in my bedroom closet is locked.
Inside, the passport and cash remain. The silver USB drive is gone.
Knox swears quietly. "What's on it?"
"A backup of the Pit's settlement routing, account histories, and fighter payment records."
His face goes hard enough to make the room feel smaller.
I let him suffer for three seconds.
"Or that's what the label says."
He looks at me.
"The real backup is in Mémère's old recipe tin at Cécile's house," I say. "The missing drive contains a mirrored environment, false account routes, and a beacon that tells me when and where somebody opens it."
Silence.
"You planted a decoy in your own safe."
"I run an illegal book for an outlaw motorcycle club. It seemed prudent."
"How long has it been there?"
"Eleven months."
"You didn't tell me."
"If everybody knows a trap is a trap, it's decoration."
He stares at me for another second, then laughs under his breath, releasing a fraction of the pressure locked across his face.
"Jesus Christ, Mari."
"Compliment accepted."
I open the tracking dashboard. The drive hasn't been connected yet.
Knox walks to the bedroom window. The latch shows a fresh scratch. Outside, the fire escape drops into the alley.
"They got in without tripping the alarm," he says. "They knew where to look and took one thing."
"Which means Leveaux doesn't merely want to damage the book. He wants to use it."
"And somebody gave him enough information to bypass your alarm."
My skin crawls, but my mind is already moving. "Santos knew I kept backups. He saw me transfer one after the outage last winter."
"He doesn't know where you live."
"He drove me home once after your bike-"
I stop.
Knox turns from the window. "After my bike what?"
"After your Dyna broke down outside the Pit."
"It didn't break down. The ignition wire was loose."
"You spent forty minutes swearing at it. The distinction felt academic."
"Santos drove you home?"
"Eighteen months ago. Before he started talking to Leveaux."
Knox's jealousy is subtle. A line beside his mouth. A little extra care when he holsters the gun.
"Did he come inside?"
"No."
"Did he try?"
"Knox."
"That's not an answer."
"Yes, he tried. No, I wasn't interested. And this is a remarkably unprofessional direction for the investigation."
He steps closer. "Was there somebody you were interested in?"
The room changes.
There are a dozen clever answers available. I don't choose any of them.
"Yes."
His eyes hold mine. "Still are?"
"Some days more than others."
"Today?"
"You're interrogating me in a bedroom while holding a gun. The presentation is mixed."
His mouth almost smiles, but the rest of him doesn't. "Mari."
The way he says it strips the joke away.
I could tell him. One sentence and the careful distance between us is gone.
But a thief has been in my home, a rival wants my work, and Knox is standing between me and the window like he can block every threat with his body.
I don't know where fear ends and want begins, and I won't make a decision while another man is controlling the deck.
My laptop chimes.
We both turn.
The decoy drive is online.
I pull up the location. A storage facility in New Orleans owned by a Whelan subsidiary.
"There," I say. "Now we know who took it."
Knox is beside me again, all business, but the unanswered question stays between us.
I send the beacon a command. The false files open normally while a hidden folder copies the accessing machine's directories, network address, and recent transactions.
"How long?" Knox asks.
"However long they keep it connected. Five minutes gives me enough. Twenty gives me their underwear size."
"Remind me never to make you angry."
"You make me angry daily. You're still here."
"Maybe you like me."
"Don't become reckless."
The first directory list arrives. Leveaux's event contracts. Whelan's property files. A folder labeled JOINT SETTLEMENT.
I open it.
The document inside is a draft agreement for Saturday's meeting. Buried beneath the event split is the clause I expected: the Pit assumes all public betting liabilities, while Leveaux's operation contributes only its net stake after the event.
If Cortez wins and Leveaux floods the book with proxy bets, the Wild Savages could owe hundreds of thousands before a dollar of Whelan's backing arrives.
A second file loads.
It contains photographs of Knox's surgical records.
My stomach drops.
MRI reports. Operative notes. The reconstruction of his right shoulder, the surgeon's warning that another full tear could end normal use of the arm.
At the bottom is a single line from Leveaux to Whelan.
Barrera takes the fight. Cortez ends it in one.
I look at Knox.
His gaze is fixed on the screen, face unreadable.
"They aren't only coming for the book," I say.
"No."
"They're coming for you."
He closes the laptop gently.
"Then Saturday's meeting is going to be interesting."