Page 32

“It’s the accurate one.”

“No. It’s the one that lets you pretend you’re still in control.” I crossed the room until there were only a few feet between us, close enough that I had to look up at him. “Let me be straight with you, since you appreciate precision. Your people failed. Not because they lacked authority. Not because they lacked power. They failed because they lacked me. Harold Lyle doesn’t want a packet. He wants the person who knows them inside and out and we both know that person is me. You can’t manufacture that, Cain. You can’t acquire it. You bought a company and discovered the only thing of value was walking out the door with the woman you locked in a guest room.”

When he didn’t say a word, I decided to try again. “You need me more than I need you,” I said. “Say it.”

“I need your cooperation,” he repeated, but the words came slower this time, and we both heard how thin they sounded.

“That distinction is nonsense and you know it.” I held his gaze. “You can’t do this. Nobody in your building can handle this, or you wouldn’t be standing in my doorway in the middle of the day, personally, when you’d rather be spending your time making someone else’s life a living hell.” I let myself smile, just slightly. “You came here yourself because you couldn’t delegate it. Because you couldn’t admit, even to your own people, that the firm runs through me.”

Cain’s eyes studied me for what felt like an eternity. He didn’t step back, but he didn’t step closer either. For a man who weaponized proximity the way other people weaponized words, him not moving told me everything.

“You’re enjoying this,” he said.

“I’m watching you understand something. That’s different from enjoyment.”

“There will be conditions,” he said.

“Of course there will.”

“The call happens here. In this building, in a room I choose. I’ll be present. So will members of the transition team.” He listed them the way he listed his rules that first night, each one clipped and final. “You receive only the briefing necessary. You don’t contact Lyle independently before or after. You don’t use the call to signal distress. If you deviate from the purpose, I end it. And when it’s finished, your access ends with it.”

I let him get all the way to the end before I laughed again.

“No,” I said.

“That wasn’t a negotiation.”

“Everything’s a negotiation. You taught me that, in a roundabout way.” I crossed my arms, mostly because I needed somewhere to put my hands so that I didn’t end up reaching for the necklace he put around my neck that suddenly felt tighter. “You want me to save the relationship. Fine. But you can’t hand me a leash and a script and expect me to perform stability on command. Harold Lyle has spent thirty years learning to hear the difference between a person and a recording. The second he senses I’m reading from cards your lawyers wrote, he’s gone. And he’ll take other people and companies with him, and I won’t have to lift a finger because you’ll have done it for me.”

“You think I’ll give you unrestricted access.”

“I think you’re the one standing in my doorway knowing I’m the only one who can save my company and your ass from getting handed to you publicly.”

That stopped him. Not all the way because I wasn’t sure anything ever could, but enough that I could see him recalibrating in real time. He didn’t like being cornered, and he liked even less that I’d been the one to do it.

“I’ll give you supervised access,” he said finally. “A room. A team in it. But you handle the call. I don’t script you. I don’t interrupt you unless you breach something that matters to me.”

“And what matters to you?”

“That you don’t use Harold Lyle to get a message out. That you don’t tell him where you are.”

I considered that. It was more than I’d expected him to surrender, which meant he understood the math better than he wanted to. “I won’t tell him where I am,” I said. “I won’t need to. The second I sound like myself, he’ll relax. That’s the entire point. You can’t fake the thing he’s listening for, and neither can I if you’ve got me reciting lines.”

“You’ll get the files you need for the call. Nothing more.”

“I’ll get the files I need to do the job, which I’ll determine, not you, because you don’t know what the job requires.” I watched that land. “You’ve never sat across from a man like Harold Lyle. You’ve sat across from men who want things you can buy. He wants the thing you can’t, and he’s spent thirty years learning to smell bullshit. But there are other things I want as well.”

His brow lifted a fraction as he stared me down. “Other things?”

“I want to talk to Cassie and I want to go back to working for Prescott Vantage. If I can’t negotiate my release right now, then I at least want to be able to work from here.” I thought that sounded reasonable, but who knows what Cain would think about that proposal.

“That’s not part of this,” Cain said.

“Then make it part of this.” I uncrossed my arms. “You want me to save Wiles and Co. You want me to walk into a room and be Sutton Prescott again, the version of me who built the thing you bought. You can’t have that version on a timer. You can’t switch her on for one call and back off when she’s done being useful. If I’m working, I’m working. That means access, having my people, and I get to do my actual job instead of being summoned like a contractor you hired for an afternoon.”

“You’re not in a position to make demands.”

“I’m in the only position that matters. You need me in that room. I’m telling you what the room costs.”