Chapter 122 -
Two hours later, a second message came in. This time around, it was shorter than the first, but it hit harder.
Make a move.
Nia read it twice. Her hands weren't shaking anymore. They had gone past shaking into something cold and very still.
She looked up. Leo was still across the room with Christian, bent over the map, his finger tracing lines between the red pins. Micheal was at the laptop. The three techs in the corner murmured between themselves. Santiago had just reached into it through her phone like none of that mattered.
She walked to Leo. He glanced at her face first, then at the phone she held out to him. He straightened immediately.
He read both messages. His expression didn't change, but his jaw tightened by a degree that only she could probably read by now.
Christian leaned in and looked at the screen. Something hard and furious moved behind his eyes.
"He's in our heads," Christian said. "That's what this is. He wants us to be reactive."
"I know," Leo said. He handed the phone back to Nia, his hand brushing hers. "He's trying to force a move we haven't planned yet."
"Is it working?" Micheal called from the laptop without looking up.
Nobody answered which was its own answer.
"The trace," Nia said. "What did we get?"
Micheal turned the laptop screen so the room could see. A map. Pearlbot's industrial district shaded grey, with a red circle marking the narrowed radius. "Call bounced three towers and cut clean. But the last relay ping hit a two-block radius here. Between the old textile building and the grain warehouse on Solari Street."
"Two buildings," Leo said.
"Two buildings," Micheal confirmed. "I can't narrow it further without another signal from inside."
Leo looked at the map. "Then we get another signal."
"The rumour," Christian said.
"Yes." Leo moved to the table. "We feed the double agents tonight. Make it look like a leak. Nia is being moved out of the city before dawn. We're pulling her to the northern estate because the exchange has become too dangerous."
Micheal was already pulling up contact files. "I can get it to one of them within the hour. Make it look like a careless text sent to the wrong number."
"Both of them," Leo said. "Not together. Separately. If Santiago gets two reports that match, he believes it faster. He won't question two independent sources telling him the same thing."
Christian crossed his arms. "And if he decides to move Isadora immediately instead of waiting to intercept?"
"He won't," Leo said. "He needs the exchange. He wants Nia in that room. He wants her to look Isadora in the eyes before he does what he's planning to do. He's not going to rush that satisfaction."
Christian's jaw flexed. He didn't argue further.
"Then let's move fast," Nia said.
Micheal looked at her. "You're sure about this? If Santiago buys the story, the next step is you walking in there alone."
"I know what the next step is," she said.
He held her gaze a beat, then turned back to the screen. "Alright. Give me forty minutes."
The room settled back into motion. Christian returned to the drone feeds. The techs resumed their trace programs. Leo stayed at the map, quiet, calculating.
Nia sat down. She put her phone face-down on the table so she didn't have to see the screen. So she didn't have to keep circling back to the word Santiago had chosen.
She forced herself to breathe. She forced herself to hold onto what Micheal had said. Isadora had called. She had said Nia's name. That wasn't a dead woman. That was a woman holding on with everything she had left.
Leo sat beside her. Not across the table. Beside her.
"You're not hiding anything from me," she said. It wasn't a question.
"No," he said.
"If this plan fails—"
"It won't."
"Leo." Her voice was quiet but firm.
He turned to look at her fully. His face was tired in a way that sleep wasn't going to fix. The bruising along his jaw had deepened overnight, gone from purple to something closer to green at the edges. The bandage under his shirt pressed against the fabric when he breathed.
"If it fails," he said, low and measured, "I won't let it end there. I will not stop. That's what I can give you right now."
She held his gaze. It wasn't the answer she wanted. But it was honest, and from Leonardo DeSanto, honest was everything.
"Okay," she said quietly.
He didn't move away.
Thirty-two minutes later, Micheal leaned back from the laptop. "Both messages sent. One to Reyes. One to Salazar. Different wording, same information." He stretched his neck. "Now we wait."
"How long?" Christian asked.
"Twenty minutes. Maybe thirty. If either of them passes it up the chain, their signal will hit a tower in that district. Then we know which building she's in."
The room went quiet. Not the nervous quiet from before. The particular stillness of people who have committed to a plan and can only watch now.
Nia stared at the map. Solari Street. Two buildings. One of them holding her best friend.
Eighteen minutes passed.
Micheal sat forward suddenly. "Reyes just sent a text to an encrypted line." His fingers flew. "Tower hit." He looked up, voice steady. "Solari Street. Northeast corner. It's the grain warehouse."
Leo was already moving.
"Christian," he said.
"I heard." Christian reached for his vest.
"Drone over that building tonight. No movement from us. No contact. Just eyes on the structure until morning."
"And Salazar?" Micheal asked.
"Hasn't moved yet," a tech reported. "But Reyes is pinging from inside the structure. He went in." A brief pause. The tech looked up slowly. "He's not alone. Thermal imaging is picking up eleven bodies inside that building."
Eleven.
Leo stopped walking.
The room stopped.
"Santiago's not just hiding," Nia said. "He's already staged. He's been sitting there this whole time."
Leo's expression went very still. The kind of still that came just before something irreversible.
"He was never waiting for us to act," Christian said.
"No," Leo said. His eyes stayed fixed on the red pin over Solari Street. "He already made his move."
Micheal turned. "Then Isadora has been in that building since the beginning."
Nia was already on her feet. "How quickly can we get eyes inside?"
"We can't," Leo said. "Not tonight. Not without tipping him." His hand pressed flat on the table. "We go in tomorrow. We do it right."
Nia nodded.
But across the room, one of the techs cleared his throat. His face was pale.
"Sir."
Leo looked at him.
"Salazar just moved." The tech turned his screen around. The signal dot was blinking, heading east, far away from the warehouse. "He's not heading toward the industrial district."
Christian frowned. "Then where?"
"The northern estate," the tech said.
The room went cold.
Leo looked at Nia. She looked back at him.
Salazar wasn't warning Santiago about the rescue plan, he was warning him that the entire rumour was a setup.