I'm turning toward the corridor when Gunner reaches into his jacket and checks his weapon. A brief, matter-of-fact movement — chamber confirmed, weight confirmed, holstered. He does it without comment, without looking at me.
But he did it after I said I was leaving. He did it so I would see.
Nine years I've worked alongside him. I understand what the weapon-check means for Jimmy — what his next several hours will involve, what Gunner is willing to do and entirely untroubled by doing. I look at him standing by that door, stone-faced, already somewhere past anything Jimmy might say in his own defense, and I feel cold resolve settle in my chest. Jimmy chose this. He chose it when he picked up the phone after Andrei got close enough. Gunner is the consequence of that choice.
"Get what you can on logistics while I'm gone," I tell him. "What he told them, when, how much they know. Don't finish it without me."
Gunner nods once. That's all.
I step into the corridor.
My phone buzzes before I've reached the stairs.
Nico. I answer walking.
"The Zayas are massing,” he says. "Surveillance has been tracking movement near the building for the last hour. It's not a probe. They have numbers."
I stop at the corridor wall. The building hums around me. "How long?"
"Two hours. Maybe less. They're not being subtle — which is either confidence or a message."
The play becomes clear. Héctor Zayas — patient, grief-driven, relentlessly strategic. He's watched the Andrei situation go quiet. He knows we've closed in on the mole, knows we're about to learn exactly what Jimmy told his people. Jimmy must have fired off a message as soon as I approached him. This assault isn't coincidence. It's a forcing move — hit La Sirena while Logan is standing in a holding room with his attention divided, make us defend on two fronts, extract whatever they can from the chaos before we can use Jimmy's information against them.
It's the move I'd make. You don't wait for your opponent to convert information into advantage. You force the board before they can.
Thirty minutes.
"I need the non-combatants clear," I say. "Before this starts."
"Agreed. Where?"
"The Gilded Lily." That club is in a different district, the wrong quadrant for Zayas surveillance, with controlled entry. Far enough that whatever's coming won't reach it. "Get it emptied and secured. Marisol, Juliet, the Siren out of this building now."
A pause. "And Wren?"
"Wren goes with them." I push off the wall. "I'll escort them myself."
"Logan—"
"Thirty minutes. I'll come straight back. Have cars ready."
I stop briefly at the holding room door to give Gunner his instructions, then go find her.
She's in the office, dressed again, reading a novel. She looks up when I come through the door and reads the situation before I say a word — the urgency in how I'm standing, the coat already on. She sets the book down.
"How long?" she says.
"Thirty minutes. Maybe less." I cross to the daybed and tower over her. "The Zayas are moving on La Sirena. I'm sending you, Marisol, Juliet, and the Siren to the Gilded Lily. It's secured. My people are already there."
She stands without being told to. "And you're coming back here."
"After I get you settled." I look at her. "Yes."
She holds my gaze for a moment. Not fear — the bright animal fear I know from her, something quieter. She's working out what she can and can't ask for in the time available.
"Who will be with us at the Gilded Lily? None of us can fight," she says.
"Pawlikowski. Ex-military, been with us four years. He knows you're coming. You go directly to him when you arrive, not the main door — the service entrance on the east side." I hear myself translating everything into logistics and recognize it for what it is. She receives it the same way. "If anything feels wrong — anyone you don't recognize, anyone who doesn't know Pawlikowski's name — you use the back exit and you call this number." I write it on a card from my desk, slide it toward her. "That's Nico's direct line."
