Page 24

“Haven’t confirmed. My money’s on both.”

“You’ve met him before, personally.”

“Once. Shook his hand, didn’t like what came through it.” Victor’s expression didn’t move, which from Victor counted as a full-body reaction. “Cold in a way that has nothing to do with temperature. The kind of cold that plans two moves ahead and never looks satisfied about it.”

“And he’s been watching her.”

“Two years.” Victor let the number sit there and do its own damage. “The eleven days I gave you last week was the most recent spike — new personnel, new equipment, the activity that was actually easy to find. I kept pulling the thread anyway, because eleven days of that level of coordination doesn’t build itself from nothing. Once I went looking for the older infrastructure instead of the new, it was there the whole time, just quieter. Two years, start to finish. Before the commission. Before Gerri Wilder. Before you ever opened her file.”

Two years. Norden’s palm hit the desk, once, hard enough to rattle the tablet against the wood. The sound cracked through the office and neither of them acknowledged it. Two years of a stranger watching her, learning her, deciding she was worth the patience — and every one of those days had happened without him in it, without her knowing, without anyone standing where Norden stood, and the thought alone made every ancient, possessive instinct he had uncoil low in his chest.

“What does he want?”

“Every angle traces back to the glass. Not her. Not the commission.” Victor’s grip tightened on the tablet, the only crack in his usual calm. “The material itself.”

Norden circled the desk, past Victor, three steps into a decision he hadn’t finished making out loud yet.

“How exposed is she right now? Today. This hour.”

“Contained, as far as I can tell at this exact moment. Nothing’s moved on her directly — no direct contact, no approach. It’s still surveillance.” Victor rolled the tablet over on the desk, like even looking at it a second longer would jinx the assessment. “But surveillance that’s run two years without anyone noticing doesn’t stay surveillance forever. It’s a countdown. I just don’t know how much time is left on it, and I don’t like operating without that number.”

“Keep the doubled the detail. Verify there are eyes on her from sunrise to whenever she kills the lights at night. No gap in the rotation wide enough to walk a person through.” He didn’t slow down. “Invisible. She doesn’t get told.”

“She’s going to find out eventually.”

“Then eventually she can be angry about it.” He turned, and the look on his face made Victor go very still. “Right now, she stays alive to be angry about it later. That’s not a negotiation, and I’m not interested in revisiting it every time it makes someone uncomfortable.”

Victor didn’t argue. He never did once Norden’s voice dropped into that register. He pocketed the tablet and was gone inside a minute, footsteps moving at the pace of a man with eleven more things to fix before lunch.

Darius let himself in without knocking, two glasses of amber liquor already poured, and set one down on the desk hard enough that it sloshed.

“That’s a face I haven’t seen on you since the Zurich deal fell through.” He dropped into the chair, boots up on the corner of the desk uninvited, and studied Norden over the rim of his glass. “Talk.”

“Tarek.”

“Heard it in the hallway. Victor doesn’t whisper as quietly as he thinks.” Darius took a slow drink. “Two years, is what I heard.”

“Two years.”

Darius set the glass down. All the loose humor drained out of him in a single motion, replaced by an edge that had clearly been waiting underneath it the whole time.

“That’s not a coincidence. That’s a plan, executed patiently, over a very long time.” He leaned forward, boots off the desk, elbows on his knees. “You’re going to tell her she’s your mate.”

“No.”

“When.”

“Later.”

“‘Later’ was already a weak position last week. This week it’s actively dangerous.” Darius held up a hand before Norden could answer. “She doesn’t strike me as a woman who forgives finding out she should’ve had information a week before she got it. I’ve seen her twice and I already know this. You’ve watched her every day and you’re somehow less sure than I am.”

Norden was sure. That was the entire problem. He knew exactly how she’d take it — the precise, scorched-earth fury of a woman who’d spent years making certain nobody managed her without her knowledge, discovering a man had been doing precisely that since the hour they’d met.

“I know how this looks.”

“You know how it looks and you’re doing it anyway.” Darius spread his hands, nearly upending the untouched second glass, catching it without looking. “That’s not a plan. That’s a man standing in traffic because he likes the view.”

“I’m protecting her first. The rest comes after.”