By the time the pilot announces our descent into Boston, Maya has curled sideways in her seat, one boot pressed beneath her, her head resting against the armrest between us. Her eyes are closed.
Not asleep.
Just resting.
Her hand has drifted near mine on the shared console.
I could take it.
I do not.
The pilot’s voice comes through the cabin again.
“Ten minutes to landing.”
Maya opens her eyes.
The softness leaves her face before the sentence finishes.
She straightens. Pulls her coat snug. Checks the weapon at the small of her back with a movement so practiced it barely looks like one. The woman who argued about action-movie physics disappears behind Agent Reeves’s control.
Omar wakes immediately and opens his laptop again.
The cabin changes.
No one says it has changed.
The airfield in Boston is colder than Miami by enough that the wind bites through Maya’s coat the moment we step onto the stairs. Cloud cover has flattened the sky into a hard white ceiling. Black SUVs wait near the hangar. Raven stands beside the first one with two agents positioned behind her, blonde hair pulled back hard enough to make her look sharper than the weather.
Maya exhales once.
“Miami has ruined me,” she mutters.
“You will survive the weather.”
“I have survived worse.”
The words are light.
They do not feel light.
Raven’s gaze lands on Maya first, then shifts to me.
“Savarese.”
“Raven.”
“You brought the mafia.”
“You brought the FBI.”
Her eyes narrow. “You were not invited.”
“And yet here I am.”
Maya steps between us before Raven can decide whether this is a useful argument. “What do we have?”
Raven turns to her immediately. Professional. Focused.
