Chapter 128 -
"Come closer," Santiago said. "I want to see your face properly."
Nia didn't move an inch. "I can see you fine from here."
He tilted his head. He was dressed well, which was strange. Dark trousers, a clean shirt, and cufflinks that caught the light from above. Like he was at a dinner rather than a warehouse at midnight. He looked rested. That was the most unsettling thing about him, the thing that made the back of Nia's neck prickle. He looked like a man who had been sleeping fine. While Isadora was in a chair and Leo was bleeding and Nia hadn't had a proper night in weeks, Santiago looked like he'd had eight hours and a good meal.
"You're counting the men," he said. "Don't bother. You already know there are fourteen of them."
Nia's stomach dropped, but she kept her face still.
Santiago smiled. "Jordan is thorough. I'll give him that." He started walking toward her slowly. "I also know about the trackers. I knew about the south tunnel team three minutes before you arrived. And I know Leo is standing one block east right now, trying very hard not to come through that door."
"Then you know this is already over," Nia said.
"Over?" He stopped about eight feet from her, tilting his head again. "Nia, I've been planning this particular evening for a long time. It's just getting started."
She looked past him at Isadora.
Isadora's jaw was set. Her eyes were bright with fear, but underneath the fear was something else, something pointed and watchful. Nia knew that look. She had seen it on her best friend's face at every difficult thing they had been through since they were teenagers. Isadora was paying attention. She was doing exactly what she had always done. Watching for the moment to act.
"Let her go," Nia said to Santiago. "You have me here. That's what you wanted."
"I have you here," Santiago agreed. "He's very devoted, Leonardo. It's one of his better qualities. And his worst." He rolled his neck slowly. "But I don't want you the way you're thinking. I want Leo."
"Leo isn't going to walk into a room full of your men just because you ask nicely."
"No," Santiago said. "But he'll walk in if you're screaming."
Nia let the words land, then she took a deep breath.
"He'll also walk in," she said, "if I give him a reason to think the plan is working. Which it is, by the way. Your men are already being flanked from the south tunnel. The team on your roof went in five minutes before I came through that door."
"Did they," Santiago said.
"Check your comms," she said.
He looked at her for a moment. Then he said something in Spanish to the man nearest him. The man touched his earpiece, listened, and his face changed.
Santiago turned back to Nia. "Impressive timing," he said. "But you know what's interesting about having fourteen armed men in a building?" He spread his hands. "Even with teams coming in from two directions, someone in this room dies before it's over. The question is who."
He walked toward Isadora.
"Don't," Nia said. Her voice was sharp before she could stop it.
Santiago stopped, turning to look at her with clear delight. "There it is," he said. "That's the face I wanted." He was watching her carefully now. "You know, for someone with no connection to the Cimmera, no blood in this game, you've been in the center of it for a very long time."
"That's what happens when you kidnap someone," Nia said.
"Leo kidnapped you," Santiago said pleasantly. "I simply elevated your importance."
Footsteps behind her. Nia turned sharply.
It was Jordan.
He came through a door she hadn't noticed on her left side, a narrow gap in the wall that had looked like a shadow from a distance. He had his hands visible, no weapon in sight. His face was tight and controlled and he was wearing the expression of a man who had made a decision and was now living with it in real time.
Santiago's eyes moved to him. The smile stayed, but something in his eyes went flat and cold.
"Jordan," he said. "You're late."
"Traffic," Jordan said. He came to stand slightly to Nia's right. He didn't look at her.
"You went to the DeSanto house," Santiago said. The smile hadn't moved but his voice had gone very quiet, the way very cold water was quiet. "You spoke to her directly."
"I confirmed she was coming in," Jordan said. "As agreed. She's here, isn't she?"
"As agreed," Santiago repeated slowly. He looked at Jordan the way someone looks at a thing they've already decided they're done with. "And what else did you tell them, Jordan?"
Jordan didn't answer.
"What else," Santiago said again, soft and exact, the words barely leaving his mouth.
"Nothing that changes tonight," Jordan said. "She's here. That's what you wanted."
Santiago stared at him for a long moment. The room was very still. Nia could feel the weight of fourteen men and all their weapons pressing in from the edges of it.
"You know what I appreciate about you, Jordan," Santiago said eventually. "You always believed the lie you were telling yourself. Even right now, you believe that walking in here was some kind of choice."
Jordan's jaw moved.
"Take her phone," Santiago said to one of his men.
Two of them came for Nia. She didn't fight. The phone was out of her jacket pocket before she could do anything, and she watched them check it, turn it off, and put it in a bag. The trackers in her jacket were still there. The panic button was still there. She had not pressed it yet. Fifteen minutes for the extraction teams to get into position, Leo had said. She needed to keep Santiago talking.
"You said you wanted Leo," she said. "So call him in."
"Soon," Santiago said, turning back to her. "First I want to talk. We never really had the chance. All this time and we've been at opposite ends of the same story." He gestured loosely at the room around them. "It would be a shame to skip the conversation."
Isadora's voice came from across the room, small but steady. "Nia."
Nia looked at her. The bruise on her jaw was worse up close. There was dried blood on the side of her neck from something Nia didn't want to think too hard about, but her back was straight and her eyes were clear.
"I'm okay," Isadora said. Her voice shook, but her chin was up. "I'm okay. I knew you'd come."
"Of course I came," Nia said.
"Of course," Santiago echoed, looking between them with something like fondness. "And now here we all are." He spread his hands.
"Touching," he said. "Really. I mean that."
And then all the lights in the warehouse went out at once.
In the sudden and total darkness, Nia pressed the panic button and held it for three full seconds.