She stared at me for a long moment, those hazel eyes seeing too much. Reading the things I wasn't saying. The calculation behind my certainty. The professional experience that let me recognize traps because I'd set them myself.
"You've done this," she said. Not a question. "Set traps like this. Used people's families against them."
I didn't deny it. Couldn't, even if I wanted to. "Yes."
Something shifted in her expression. Not disgust, exactly, but a kind of weary understanding. We were all monsters here, just different breeds. Her monsters wore white coats and sold organs. Mine wore tactical gear and extracted information through carefully applied pressure.
"What do we do?" she asked finally, and the defeat in her voice made my chest tight.
"We wait. Tomorrow, Maks will trace the message, check on your contacts through channels that won't trace back to you. We handle this properly, strategically." I risked a step closer. "Buttonight, we do nothing. And you absolutely cannot go anywhere near that warehouse."
She nodded, but it was too quick. Too easy. The kind of agreement that came when someone had already made a different decision internally.
I should have seen it then. Should have recognized the shift from argument to acquiescence, the way she'd stopped fighting just a little too soon. But I was focused on the external threat, on Brand's people and their sophisticated trap.
I didn't realize the real danger was standing right in front of me, already planning her escape.
Theacquiescencelastedmaybethirty seconds before I watched her spine straighten, her shoulders square, and suddenly the woman who'd played with stuffed animals three hours ago was gone. In her place stood the doctor who'd survived six months underground, who'd stitched up gunshot wounds by candlelight, who'd learned to read danger in the space between heartbeats.
"No," she said, and the word had edges sharp enough to cut. "That's not good enough."
She moved away from the window, and her whole body language had changed. No longer curled inward seeking comfort, but balanced on the balls of her feet like she was ready to fight or run. This was the Maya who'd grabbed a scalpel the night we met, ready to defend herself against an unknown threat bleeding in her basement.
"What if you're wrong?" She faced me fully, those hazel eyes hard as surgical steel. "You're making calculations based on probability, but what if this one time, this specific instance,your math is off? What if Frank really is bleeding out in that warehouse while we sit here debating tactics?"
"The probability—"
"Fuck probability." The profanity surprised us both—Maya rarely swore, saved it for moments when nothing else would suffice. "Mrs. Zi is seventy-three years old. She has arthritis in her hands but still makes dumplings every morning. Still insists on working the register even though Frank begs her to rest. What's the probability that she can defend herself if Brand's people come for her?"
The image she painted was vivid, deliberate. Humanizing the potential victims, making them real instead of theoretical. Classic medical training—never let the patient become just a case number.
"They won't hurt her if she doesn't have information," I said, but even I heard how hollow it sounded.
"You don't know that." She started pacing, that nervous energy that appeared when her anxiety spiked. "You're assuming rationality from people who traffic organs. Who cut people open and sell them for parts. Where's the rationality in that?"
I wanted to tell her everything then. That Brand's people wouldn't hurt Mrs. Zi because she was worthless to them—no medical training, no young organs to harvest. That this was all about Maya specifically, about her value as inventory. But those words would shatter her, and she was already fracturing at the edges.
"Frank helped me," she continued, her voice cracking slightly. "He noticed I was in trouble and chose to help anyway. Stole supplies, risked jail time, never asked for anything in return except that I help people who needed it. And now you're asking me to abandon him because it might be a trap?"
"It is a trap," I corrected, but she wasn't listening anymore.
"Even if it is, even if there's a ninety percent chance this is fake, that still leaves ten percent where he needs help. Where I could make a difference." She stopped pacing, turned those devastating eyes on me. "Could you live with that? Knowing there was even a small chance you could have saved someone and chose not to?"
The question hit harder than she knew. Because I'd made that choice dozens of times. Left informants to die rather than compromise operations. Watched collateral damage pile up because the mission mattered more than individual lives. But those had been strangers, not people who'd helped someone I loved.
"This is different," I said, searching for words that would make her understand without revealing too much. "They're specifically hunting you. This trap, it's designed for your psychology, your weaknesses—"
"My compassion is not a weakness." The words came out fierce, defensive.
"In our world it is." I immediately regretted the phrasing when I saw her flinch. "That's not—I didn't mean—"
"Yes, you did." She laughed, bitter and sharp. "And you're right. Caring about people, wanting to help, it's a liability in your world. But it's also what makes me human. What makes me different from Brand, from the people hunting me."
"You think I don't care?" The question escaped before I could stop it. "You think watching you tear yourself apart over this doesn't affect me?"
"I think you've learned to compartmentalize so well that you can't see past the tactics anymore." She moved closer, close enough that I could see the tears she was fighting. "You see a trap. I see a kid who might need help. Both things can be true."
She was right. Fuck, she was right, and I hated it. Hated that I couldn't just grab her and lock her in this room until the dangerpassed. Hated that she was forcing me to see the human cost of strategic thinking.
