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“Because it costs me nothing and it costs you everything.” His amusement sharpened into something considerably colder. “You’ve been an expensive nuisance, Camila. I find it satisfying to watch you lose the one thing you actually earned on your own, entirely because of the man you chose to marry. Consider it a professional courtesy, letting you hear it from me before you hear it from them.”

The line went dead before I could answer, leaving me standing with my hand shaking around a phone that suddenly felt heavier than it had been a minute ago.

I hadn’t even set the phone down when the intercom buzzed from downstairs, security announcing an arrival I somehow already knew before the name dropped.

“Special Agent Ethan Hayes is here to see you, Mrs. Golovin.”

The timing didn’t feel like coincidence.

Nikolai appeared in the doorway before I’d found my voice to answer, already reading the alarm on my face with the same precision he read everything else about me. “What happened?”

“Graham called.” My voice came out thinner than I wanted it to. “He told the FBI I was the anonymous source. And that I stopped publishing against you the second we married.” I swallowed hard. “Hayes is downstairs. Right now.”

Something shifted behind Nikolai’s eyes, calculation replacing concern almost instantly, though his hand found the small of my back a moment later.

“He orchestrated this deliberately,” Nikolai said quietly. “Timed. Graham never does anything by accident.”

I nodded, unable to manage words past the tightness closing around my throat. Somewhere below us, I imagined Hayes stepping into the private elevator, masking exactly how much leverage he now believed he held over both of us.

The elevator chimed a moment later, the doors sliding open to reveal Special Agent Hayes standing in the hallway.

I stepped closer to Nikolai without deciding to. Whatever fragile balance we’d built over these last weeks might be about to collapse all over again, and this time there would be no simple exposé to fix whatever came next for either of us.

Chapter Twenty

Nikolai

Camila sat beside me on the couch, spine straight, hands folded in her lap. Yuri had shown him up without incident, though I’d noticed the extra tension in the security detail’s stance the moment Hayes entered.

“I’ll be direct,” Hayes said, glancing between us. “Your reporting stopped targeting the Golovin organization after you married one. I don’t need to explain why that raises questions.”

“It raises questions for people who haven’t read her work,” I said, before Camila could answer. “Her reporting redirected toward Sylvester Graham. Four locations were raided. Eleven fighters were recovered alive. That work continues, verified by your own agency’s raids.”

“I’m aware of the raids,” Hayes said evenly, jotting something brief into a small notebook he’d pulled from his jacket pocket before looking back up at me.

“Then you’re aware her reporting produced concrete federal action against a trafficking network your agency had failed to touch in years.” I kept my voice level. “Question her objectivity if you like, Agent Hayes. The results speak considerably louder than the timing of a wedding.”

Hayes studied me for a moment, recalculating. “The raids were effective,” he admitted. “Graham’s operation took serious damage. I won’t pretend otherwise.”

“Then we agree on the substance of her work.”

“We agree the work was effective.” He turned his attention back to Camila. “That doesn’t erase the optics. You married into the family your entire career was built around exposing. Federal agencies don’t operate on results alone. They operate on how those results look to a grand jury, to oversight committees, to anyone eventually asking why your testimony should be trusted at all going forward.”

“So it doesn’t matter that I’m right. It only matters that I’m inconvenient to explain,” Camila said slowly.

“It matters that Graham clearly understands exactly how to make you look compromised,” Hayes confirmed. “He handed us documentation confirming your byline and highlighted the timing himself. That’s not incidental. That’s a strategy. Whatever trust you’ve built with my office, he’s spent the last week actively working to burn it down.” He leaned forward slightly, some of the professional distance dropping from his voice. “For what it’s worth, I don’t personally think you’re compromised. I think you got played by a man who’s very good at playing people. That distinction won’t help you much upstairs, though.”

I watched her absorb that. Graham had accomplished what he’d set out to accomplish—discredit her, isolate her from federal support, force her further into dependence on resources only I could provide. It was elegant, in its own ugly way.

“He’s playing us against each other,” Camila said quietly, more to herself than to either of us. “The FBI distrusts me. Graham stays free. That’s the whole play.”

“That’s the whole play,” Hayes agreed.

He stood, buttoning his jacket with the same unhurried care he’d shown the first time he’d left my office. “Federal pressure isn’t slowing down,” he said at the door. “If anything, it’s accelerating. Several witnesses connected to Graham’s trafficking network have gone quiet in the last two weeks. Not relocated. Not uncooperative. Gone. Whatever you’re both planning, I’d move faster than you think you have time for.”

“Is that a warning or an offer, Agent Hayes?” I asked.

“Call it a professional courtesy.” He almost smiled at that. “I’d rather see Graham in a cell than see anyone else disappear because we all moved too slowly while arguing about jurisdiction.”