The woman presses a button somewhere under the counter, and a steel door to our left buzzes—harsh, mechanical, the kind of sound that saysyou're being watched.
The hallway beyond is narrow enough that our shoulders would touch if we walked side by side.
Fluorescent tubes run the length of the ceiling, casting everything in that particular shade of institutional white that erases color, erases warmth, erases anything human.Our footsteps echo too loud on tile worn smooth by years of people coming here to do business they don't want anyone else knowing about.
At the end of the hall, a guard waits.
He's older—sixty, maybe more—but he stands like military: straight spine, weight balanced, eyes that assess us in the time it takes to blink.The sidearm on his hip isn't for show.
He checks our IDs against a tablet, takes longer than he needs to, then nods once and unlocks another door.
The vault room opens.Ten by ten, if that.Steel walls that swallow sound.A single light overhead—too bright, too white—casting shadows that have nowhere to go.No windows.No vents that I can see, though the air moves.
One metal table bolted to the floor.Two chairs.That's it.
The door closes behind us.
The sound is final, like someone just sealed a tomb.
Adena stands in the center of the room, and I watch her do what I just did—scan for cameras, for microphones, for any sign we're not alone.
There's nothing.
We have forty minutes before Valentina arrives at the hotel, expecting to take her shopping.
Forty minutes to say everything we can't say anywhere else.
She doesn't waste a second of it.
“My boss made contact,” she says.“He warned me not to come here.”
“The flyer on our bikes?”
She nods.“The DEA wouldn’t sign off on Hightower providing backup, so Silas sent in two of our people covertly.There’s a fallback spot on Baronne.”
I freeze.The realization hits in waves—shock, then anger, then the twisted edge that was why she sent Lucia there.“Your boss doesn’t trust the DEA?”
“We nearly lost two team members recently.He’s probably just being overprotective.”
If her boss made contact—if she got a covert message—then Nolan is not going to be happy.
“Probably?”
Her shoulders dip a fraction.“Okay.No.He wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.He must have had a reason.”
"But you ignored him?"
A tiny crack runs through her composure."What else could I do?I had two minutes to make a call.I made it."
Disobeying an order is one thing; watching someone else do it for you is another.Admiration, anger, guilt—they all hit at once.None of them useful.
“We need to find out what the warning is about.”
She nods."I’ll contact him," she says.
"No."
A slight frown appears between her eyebrows."I have to go shopping with Valentina.I'll see if I can borrow a phone, make a call?—"
