Chapter 88 THE JOURNALIST

Chapter 88 THE JOURNALIST
Adrian's POV

I went down alone.

Dominic offered to come and I said no because a woman asking for me by name meant she wanted me specifically and showing up with backup would either spook her or confirm what she already suspected about our operation.

The lobby café was quiet at that hour and I saw her immediately, sitting at a corner table with a coffee and a notebook and her phone face down, and she looked up the moment I walked in, not scanning the room first the way most people did, just straight to me, which told me she'd been watching the elevator.

I walked over and stood at the table and she looked up at me and said, "Adrian Vale. Sit down, I'm not dangerous."

"Everyone says that," I said, and sat.

Her name was Zara, no last name offered, just Zara, and she pushed a business card across the table with a publication name and an email and nothing else. She was maybe late twenties, dark eyes, hair pulled back but loosely, like she'd done it fast that morning and hadn't thought about it since. There was a quality about her that was hard to categorise, not soft, not aggressive, just very present, the full weight of her attention sitting across from me without any performance behind it.

"How do you know my name," I said.

"I've been investigating Kade's network for eight months," she said. "Your name appears in it. Not as a member. As a target. Kade has been trying to compromise you specifically since London."

I said nothing and let her continue.

"He built a file on you," she said, opening the notebook. "Your sister, your history with Dominic Hayes, the things you care about, the things you'd move for. He's been mapping leverage points." She turned the notebook toward me and I looked at the page and the information was accurate, names I knew, dates I recognised, connections that would have taken months to build.

I looked at it for a moment and then at her.

"Why bring this to me," I said.

"Because you're the one most likely to act on it," she said. "Dominic Hayes is the central target but the bond changes his risk profile. You're the one running without that kind of protection. You're the most exposed person in that group."

"What do you want in exchange," I said.

"Access," she said. "Confirmation of what I already have. I need someone inside to verify the operational details before I publish. In exchange you get everything in this notebook, names, locations, Kade's current structure, his next planned move."

"And the story runs when," I said.

"When this is over," she said. "Not before. I'm not publishing anything that puts people at risk while they're still in it."

I looked at her face and tried to find the calculation behind it and couldn't, which was unusual. Most people who sat across from me with an angle had a tells, a slight performance quality, something that wasn't quite level. She was level in a way that was either genuine or very well trained and I couldn't tell which yet.

"I'll think about it," I said.

"I'll be here tomorrow morning," she said. "Same table."

I stood and she looked up at me and there was a moment where neither of us moved, just that direct attention sitting between us, and I held it for a second longer than necessary before I walked away.

Back upstairs Dominic and Ava were both waiting and I sat down and went through everything she'd said and Dominic listened with his hands flat on the table and said, "she could be Kade's."

"She could be," I said.

"But you don't think so," Ava said.

I looked at Ava. "I don't know yet."

"You went quiet when you walked back in," Ava said. "Three seconds before you sat down. You don't do that."

Dominic looked at me.

"She has accurate information," I said. "That's what it was."

"What did she look like," Ava asked, and her voice was even and careful.

"Dark eyes," I said. "Late twenties. Focused."

Ava looked at me for a moment and then looked back at her phone and said, "okay," and that was it.

But something had settled in the room differently and all three of us felt it and nobody named it.

Later, after Dominic went to call Elias and Ava went to check on her mother, I sat alone in the sitting room and thought about Zara's notebook and her eyes and the fact that I had noticed both in equal measure, which was not something I usually did.

Nadia appeared from the corridor, she'd come back while I was downstairs, and she looked at my face and sat next to me and said, "who was she."

"A journalist," I said.

"You have a tell," Nadia said, "when something surprises you. Your right hand goes flat on the nearest surface. You did it just now saying journalist."

I looked at my hand flat on the armrest and said nothing.

"I'm just saying," Nadia said, and stood up and went to the kitchen.

I sat there and thought about tomorrow morning, same table, same time, and felt something in my chest that I hadn't felt in a long time and wasn't sure what to do with.

Then Ava came back into the room and stood in the doorway and said, "who was that woman, Adrian, and please don't say journalist again because I want the actual answer.”