This isn’t an escort for diamonds with things hidden. It’s coercion. I step closer.
“Tell him I’m coming with you,” I say loudly. One man reaches subtly toward his jacket. Wrong move, jackass. I pivot, twist his wrist, and slam him into the stair railing before he can draw.
The second man lunges. I disarm him cleanly without gunshots … just controlled violence.
Kat still holds the phone. The voice on the other end doesn’t raise in alarm. I find that interesting.
“Who is this?” the voice asks calmly.
I take the phone from her hand.
“This is the complication,” I say.
“You’re interfering.”
“No,” I reply evenly. “I’m restructuring.”
And that’s when the negotiation begins.
Chapter 10
Katerina
The man on the other end of the phone does not sound angry. That unsettles me more than shouting would have.
“This is unnecessary,” he says evenly.
Hawk stands beside me, close enough that I feel the heat from his body. One of the escorts groans softly where he’s pinned against the railing. The other stays very still, wrist bent at an unnatural angle. No one else has drawn a weapon. That is intentional. They still need me cooperative.
“Your men initiated physical contact,” Hawk says into the phone. His tone is measured, not heated. “I responded proportionally.”
“Again, you are complicating a transaction that does not concern you,” the voice replies.
“It concerns me now.”
I close my eyes for half a second. He is stepping into something he doesn’t fully understand. And he is doing it without hesitation.
“You’ve delayed long enough, Katerina,” the voice continues. “The suite upstairs is prepared. The buyers are ready. The shipment awaits authentication.”
The shipment … upstairs, probably behind reinforced glass and private security. This is the last moment to stop it.
“I will not clear anything,” I say calmly, “unless my companion accompanies me.”
There is a pause long enough for the air to tighten around us.
“That is not the agreement,” the voice says.
“Neither was attempting to intercept me,” I reply.
Another pause. He is recalculating risk. They could restrain me. Threaten me. Force me. But if I lock down and refuse biometric clearance, the transaction stalls indefinitely.
They do not have override. If they did, they would have used it.
“You are overestimating your position,” he says softly.
“No,” I answer. “I am correctly assessing yours.”
Hawk’s presence at my side shifts the balance. They can remove me. They can silence me. But if I disappear before clearance, suspicion expands outward — into buyers, into partners, into competing interests.
