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He stood, buttoning his jacket, and paused at the door with the look of a man delivering the one line he’d actually come to say. “Someone close to you is working against you. Whoever it is knew exactly where to look. That kind of access doesn’t come from outside.”

Then he left without waiting for a response.

Now that I was alone, the composure I’d worn the entire morning finally cracked, quietly and totally. I sat at my desk and let myself feel the full weight of what she’d done.

I did not lash out. That was Yuri’s instinct, and Dimitri’s before he’d learned better. I had never once solved a problem that way, and I wasn’t going to start with the one problem that mattered most. Rage handled carelessly left evidence. Rage handled patiently left nothing behind but results.

I would dismantle her instead, piece by piece, the way I dismantled anyone foolish enough to move against this family. I would learn exactly who she worked for, exactly what remained of her plan, exactly how far the damage would spread before I closed every door she’d left open. And when I understood the entire form of what she’d built against me, I would take it apart with the same precision I brought to everything else in my life.

Camila Alvarez had crossed a line no one survived. I intended to make sure she understood that as thoroughly as I did when the moment finally came for her to learn it.

I stood at the office window as the sun went down over the Strip. Somewhere out there she was still waiting to learn what came next—and some traitorous part of me still wanted to know exactly what she was doing and where she was.

I was annoyed at that part of myself more than I was at her.

I made myself a quiet promise. She would pay for what she’d done. Every part of it, in full, on my timeline rather than hers.

And even now, some small and furious corner of me still wanted her exactly as badly as it wanted her ruined.

Chapter Eleven

Camila

I spent the morning pacing between my window and my front door, checking the street below every few minutes like counting would somehow change what I saw. Nothing moved out there except the usual traffic and a woman walking her dog too slowly for the heat. I told myself that meant something but also didn’t believe it.

I ran through every version of leaving I could think of—a bus out of state, a cash withdrawal before anyone could flag the account, a name I could disappear behind long enough to figure out what came next. I even pulled a duffel bag from the closet at one point, held it in my hands for a minute, then put it back exactly where I’d found it because I had nowhere in mind to actually pack for.

Every plan collapsed under the same weight. Vegas belonged to men like Nikolai in ways I’d spent time documenting and still hadn’t fully understood until his silence in my apartment made it real. Surveillance networks, corrupt officials, alliances that stretched into police departments and city council chambers. If he wanted to find me, a bus ticket wasn’t going to stop him.

A part of me wanted to disappear before he came for me, but a larger, colder part knew there was nowhere in this city that qualified.

Underneath all of it was something I hated admitting even to myself—the memory of his face in that last second before he left, a hurt so tightly controlled it had almost looked like nothing at all. I kept turning that image over, looking for a version of it that made what I’d done feel less like a betrayal and more like justice. I didn’t find one.

It was after 1:00 pm when I heard a knock on my door.

I froze in the middle of my living room, certain it was him, that this was the moment I’d spent all morning bracing for. I moved toward the door anyway, since hiding in the apartment wouldn’t change whatever waited on the other side of it. My hand hovered over the deadbolt a second longer than it needed to before I finally turned it.

It wasn’t Nikolai.

It was another man in a gray suit.

“Camila Alvarez? Special Agent Ethan Hayes, FBI,” he said, pulling out a badge. He said it like he’d said it a hundred times before, practiced enough to sound casual.

Every instinct Mateo had ever drilled into me came awake all at once. He’d never trusted federal agents, said they show up after the damage is done and leave the second the cameras stop rolling, more interested in headlines than the people they claim to protect. I’d absorbed that suspicion without questioning it, and it sat in my chest now as I looked at this man’s easy smile.

“I don’t know what this is about,” I said.

“I think you do.” He just waited there. “Ten minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”

I opened the door further and nodded him in. He sat on my couch like he’d been invited and set a thin folder on the table without opening it. He looked around my apartment once before settling his attention back on me.

“We know you’re the reporter behind the Golovin exposés,” he said. “Months of anonymous submissions, verified through a freelance portal, traced back through IP logs you probably thought were untraceable. Well, they weren’t, not to us.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’re good. Better than most informants I deal with.” He said it almost admiringly, unbothered by my denial. “That’s actually why I came myself instead of sending two agents to intimidate or force you. I respect competence.”

“I work at a casino. I serve drinks. I don’t know anything about reporters or exposés.” I kept my voice flat and steady. It was the same tone I’d used on Nikolai in that hallway, though it felt harder to use now.