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“No.”

The word is flat, final. She’s made a decision, and she’s not going to change her mind. I can see it in the set of her jaw, the steadiness of her voice, the way she’s meeting my eyes without flinching.

I could push harder. I could threaten her, intimidate her, make her understand exactly how much power I have over her situation. Something stops me.

She’s not going to break. Not from fear, not from pressure, not from the kind of intimidation that works on most people. She’s going to resist until she finds a way out, and every moment she spends resisting is a moment she’s not giving me what I want.

More than that… she’s not what I expected.

I expected a professional. A mercenary, maybe, or a trained operative working for a rival organization. Someone I could understand, categorize, and deal with accordingly. What I have is a twenty-three-year-old CEO who hacks systems for a living and refuses to tell me who hired her, even though she’s sitting in a room she can’t escape, facing a man she should be terrified of.

That kind of loyalty is rare. That kind of courage is rarer.

I step back.

“You’ll stay here for now,” I say. “The room is comfortable, and you’ll be provided with whatever you need. Food, water, a change of clothes. You’re not a prisoner, Ms. White, but you’re not free to leave.”

I turn and walk toward the door. Behind me, I hear her shift on the couch, but she doesn’t call out, doesn’t ask another question, doesn’t try to stop me. She’s watching me leave, probably trying to figure out what just happened and what it means for her.

I don’t have an answer for her. I don’t have an answer for myself.

All I know is that Davina White has surprised me, and that makes her more dangerous than any operative I’ve ever faced.

I can’t predict what she’ll do next.

I close the door behind me and stand in the hallway for a moment, processing. Andrei is waiting nearby, his expression neutral.

“Well?” he asks.

“She’s… unexpected.”

“In what way?”

I consider how to answer. The truth is, I’m not sure. She’s younger than I thought, softer, less hardened. There’s something underneath that softness, a core of steel that I didn’t anticipate. She’s afraid, but she’s not broken. She’s cornered, but she’s not surrendering.

“Keep her under observation,” I say. “I want to know everything she does, everything she says, everything she reacts to. Find out who hired her. There’s someone behind this, and I want to know who.”

Chapter Seven - Davina

I don’t sleep. Not for lack of trying. I lie on the couch in the dim room, staring at the ceiling, counting the faint lines in the plaster overhead. My body is exhausted, but my mind won’t stop.

Every time I close my eyes, I see the men stepping out of the SUVs. I feel the grip on my arm, the way they moved me from my car to theirs without a single wasted motion. I hear the engine starting, the turn of the corner, the disappearance of everything familiar.

Then, when that image fades, I see his face.

Maxim Gromov.

The hours stretch. The light in the corner doesn’t change. There’s no window, no way to track the passage of time except by the ache in my muscles and the dryness in my throat. At some point, someone brings food—a sandwich on a plain plate and a bottle of water—but I can’t eat. I take a few sips of water and set it aside.

I try the door. Locked, as expected. I check the walls for seams, for hidden panels, for anything that might indicate a way out. Nothing. The room is clean, bare, designed for exactly what it’s being used for.

The camera in the corner watches me with its unblinking eye. I can’t see who’s on the other end, but I know someone is there. Someone is always watching.

I pace. I sit. I lie down again. I stare at the ceiling and try to remember everything I can about the system I accessed.

I should have known. I should have seen the signs, understood what I was walking into. But I was so focused on the challenge, so caught up in the complexity of the architecture, that I didn’t stop to consider what kind of organization would need that level of financial infrastructure.

Now I know.