Chapter 124 -
They had been planning for twenty minutes when Nia's phone rang. It was a call from another unknown number…again. She looked at the screen and something cold turned over in her stomach.
She answered.
"Nia."
She almost didn't recognize the voice. Not because it had changed exactly, but because the last time she had heard it, she had been standing in her kitchen watching the world she knew fall apart.
"Jordan?" she said.
The room went still. Leo's head lifted. Christian and Micheal both stopped what they were doing. Nobody moved toward her, but everyone was listening.
"I don't have much time," Jordan said. His voice was tight, like he was speaking carefully in a space where being heard would be a problem. "I need you to listen to me."
"You need something from me," Nia said flatly. "That's interesting."
"I know what you think of me. I know what happened with Alex. I know what role you think I played in all of this." He stopped. "But I'm not calling to explain myself. I'm calling because your friend is going to die if you go in there the way you're planning to."
Nia's hand tightened on the phone. "Where is she?"
"She's in the warehouse, the third sublevel exactly, not the ground floor where your drones are looking. Santiago moved her two hours ago. He knew you'd found the building. He's already repositioned."
The room was so still she could hear herself breathe.
"Why are you telling me this?" she asked.
"Because I'm done," Jordan said. The words came out quiet and rough, like something he had been carrying a long time. "I'm done with all of it. Santiago told me Alex was a liability. He told me we were going to deal with it and everything would be fine. And then he had him killed."
Nia said nothing.
"Alex was—" Jordan stopped. A beat of silence that carried something in it. "Alex was mine. Whatever you thought of me, whatever happened between the three of us, he was mine and Santiago took him out like he was nothing, like he was a loose end that needed tying." His voice cracked for just a second, then steadied. "I'm not dying for a man who killed the person I loved. I won't do it."
Nia pressed her free hand against the table. The grief in Jordan's voice was real. She recognized it because she had felt her own version of it. Complicated and messy and not quite what anyone would expect.
"Third sublevel," she said. "What else?"
"There are fourteen men inside. Not eleven. He brought three more in overnight through an access tunnel on the south side that your drones can't see. They're armed heavily." Jordan paused. "There's also someone inside working on your side."
"What do you mean?"
"Santiago planted someone in the DeSanto house. I don't know who. I only know it's not one of the brothers. And this person has been feeding him information from inside for months."
The room absorbed that in silence. Micheal looked at Leo. Leo looked at the table.
"Is that who sent the message this morning?" Nia asked. "About Leo and Andrea?"
Jordan's silence lasted too long. "He sent that himself," he said finally. "He doesn't need the inside source for something like that. He's trying to fracture your trust before you come in."
"Is it working?" Nia said.
"Is it?" Jordan asked.
"No," she said.
She heard him exhale. "Good. Because you're going to need every person in that room on the same page."
Leo was directly in front of her now, hand outstretched. He wanted the phone. She shook her head once. He held still.
"Jordan," she said. "What do you want in exchange for this?"
"I want out," he said. "Fully out. Out of Pearlbot. Out of the Cimmera's reach. Me and whatever's left of my life, gone. I don't want money. I don't want protection beyond getting out of this city. I just want to disappear."
Nia looked at Leo. He had heard enough to follow. He held up two fingers, then pointed at himself, signaling if he could speak to him.
She turned slightly away. "And the person inside the DeSanto house. Can you give me a name?"
"I don't have one," Jordan said. "I only know it's someone with access to your planning sessions. Someone who knows your movements in real time."
"How long have they been in place?"
"At least since before Andrea died." He paused. "Maybe longer."
That landed in the room like something dropped into still water. Everyone felt the ripple.
"I'll need to speak with the people I'm with," Nia said carefully. "I can't make an agreement like that alone."
"I know," Jordan said. "I'm not asking for an answer right now. I'm giving you the information because if you walk into that building without knowing what I just told you, you won't walk back out." He paused. "That goes for you and the Enforcer both."
"Where are you now?" she asked.
"Close enough to watch," he said. "Far enough to run if this goes wrong. One more thing, Isadora is conscious. She's hurt but not badly. She's been awake the whole time, paying attention to everything around her."
Nia's throat tightened. "Good," she managed.
"She kept asking about you," Jordan said. He sounded almost surprised by it. "Every time they came into the room, she'd ask if Nia was coming."
Nia closed her eyes for exactly one second.
"Tell her yes," she said. "If you see her before I do, you tell her I'm coming."
"I'm not going back in there," Jordan said.
"Then I'll tell her myself."
A long silence followed after.
"You've got guts," Jordan said quietly. "I'll give you that much."
"I know," she said. "I'll be in touch."
The line went dead.
Nia lowered the phone and looked at the room. Leo, Christian, and Micheal were all watching her with the same controlled expression, waiting.
"Third sublevel," she said. "Fourteen men, not eleven. South access tunnel the drones can't see." She set the phone on the table. "And someone in this house has been feeding Santiago information for months."
The silence was the loudest thing in the room. Christian's eyes went to Leo. Leo's eyes stayed on Nia.
"Jordan," Christian said. "You're trusting Jordan."
"I'm using Jordan," Nia said. "There's a difference."
Leo was quiet for a long moment. Then he looked at Christian.
"Get Matteo," he said. "Lock down every room except this one. Nobody goes in or out without my direct approval." His voice was completely steady. "We have a traitor in our walls. Find them before we move."
The room held that sentence like a held breath. Nia looked at the phone on the table. Then at the people around her, the ones she was being asked to trust with her life.
She wondered which one of them she couldn't.