“Leon is meeting a buyer tonight at a private club in the Back Bay. We have eyes on three of his men. We have enoughprobable cause to move as soon as we confirm the account information and transfer documents are in the room.”
“And the children?” Maya asks.
Raven’s expression tightens. “Nothing suggests they are in Boston.”
Maya’s shoulders lower by half an inch.
I notice.
Raven notices too.
“He has been asking questions about them,” Raven continues. “Not because he wants them back. He wants to know who took them.”
“Property,” Maya says.
“We take him alive,” Raven says, looking directly at me. “That is the operation.”
I meet her stare. “You say that as if I have forgotten.”
“I say it because you have a history of improvising.”
“Only when a situation calls for it.”
“That is exactly what concerns me.”
The briefing takes place in a secure conference room inside a rented office suite near the club. Maps cover the central table: entry points, kitchen access, security cameras, service corridors, possible exits. Raven explains her team placement while Maya studies every line, arms crossed.
She is good at this.
Too good.
She asks the right questions. Which stairwell runs behind the VIP rooms? Whether Leon’s driver stays with the car. Whether the club manager is compromised. Whether the service exit has cameras or only a keypad. Raven answers without condescension, and for several minutes I watch Maya become the woman who existed before me.
Agent Reeves.
Controlled. Precise. Difficult to reach.
When the briefing ends, Raven pulls Maya aside to speak quietly with two agents. Omar takes a call near the window. The room empties in layers until Maya and I are standing alone near the door.
She checks the weapon at her lower back, then reaches for the collar of her coat.
I stop her hand.
Her eyes lift to mine.
“What are you doing?”
“Your collar is crooked.”
“It is not.”
“It is.”
The same argument from Miami.
Her breath catches when my fingers skim the side of her neck. I smooth the fabric into place, slower than necessary, my thumb resting briefly below her jaw.
“We go in,” I say. “You stay where I can see you.”
