CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Kael — Vane’s Terms
He called two days later, on a line Sable confirmed wasn’t traced through any number we’d seen him use before, and his voice, when I answered, had none of its usual composed amusement.
“I don’t have long,” Elias Vane said. “Renata’s tightened everything since the club. I’m calling because I think you’re about to make a mistake that gets Nadia Kessler killed, and I find, against every professional instinct I have, that I’d rather that not happen.”
“Why should I believe a word out of your mouth.”
“You shouldn’t, categorically, as a rule.
It’s served you well so far.” A pause, and underneath the practiced calm I heard something I hadn’t expected from him — exhaustion, the specific kind that comes from a long time spent doing work you no longer believe in.
“I’ve worked for Renata Voss for six years.
I watched her order things done to people that your father, whatever else he was, would have called excessive.
I stayed because leaving her organization is not the kind of resignation that comes with a pension, Mr. Sorokin.
I stayed because I told myself I was managing the damage from the inside, the same story every man like me tells himself right up until it stops being true. ”
“Get to the point.”
“The point is Renata’s planning something for the night before your story runs.
A last move, timed to make sure that even if the drive goes public, there’s no one left standing to have caused it.
I don’t have the full operational details — I’ve been deliberately cut out of the planning, which is either her being cautious or her deciding I’ve outlived my usefulness, and I genuinely don’t know which. ”
I felt something cold settle in my chest. “You’re saying she’s planning to kill Nadia.”
“I’m saying she’s planning to make sure the story looks like a tragedy instead of a conspiracy.
There’s a difference in outcome for you both, but very little difference in the danger.
” Vane’s voice had lost every trace of the performance he usually wrapped himself in.
“I’m giving you this because I’ve spent six years telling myself I was better than my job, and I would like, before whatever happens next happens, to have done one thing that was actually true. ”
“Why should I trust this isn’t exactly the kind of distraction you’d use to walk us into a trap.”
“You shouldn’t trust it blindly. You should verify it the way I know your Ms. Ruiz is more than capable of doing, and act accordingly.
” A pause. “And you should know that if this goes the way Renata intends, I don’t survive it either.
I’ve become inconvenient to her in exactly the way you have.
That’s not an argument for my trustworthiness.
It’s simply the truth, which I find myself running low on reasons not to tell you. ”
He hung up before I could press further, and I sat with the phone in my hand for a long moment, turning over four years of certainty about who the villain of this story was and finding it, for the first time, considerably less simple than I’d let myself believe.
Nadia had been right. Vane wasn’t the enemy. He was a man who’d made his choices a long time ago and had spent every day since discovering exactly how expensive they’d become.