Chapter 130 -
Jordan moved before Nia could warn him.
He came from behind Santiago's left shoulder, knife forward, and he was fast in the way that grief made people fast, burning through pain like it was fuel. Santiago turned. The blade punched into his shoulder instead of his throat. He grunted once, a short ugly sound, then grabbed Jordan's wrist and wrenched until the knife dropped.
Jordan went to one knee. Santiago drove his elbow into the back of his neck and he hit the ground.
"You." Santiago pressed his free hand against the shoulder wound, dark and spreading through the clean shirt. He looked down at Jordan with something close to genuine disappointment. "After everything."
"You gave the order."
Jordan pushed himself up on shaking arms.
"I was in the next room. I heard it. You told them to extract him and I didn't know what that meant until six months later when I found out Alex was already in the ground before I even knew he was missing."
"Alex made choices."
"He trusted you."
Jordan's voice broke apart at the seams.
"He thought he was protecting me by working for you. He thought you were going to get us both out of Pearlbot."
"He thought wrong."
Leo came through the east doorway. He crossed the floor at pace, weapon up, eyes already calculating angles and distance and the position of Santiago's body relative to Nia's. Santiago heard him coming and shifted, using Jordan on the ground as a shield between himself and a clean shot.
"Put it down," Leo said.
"Put what down?" Santiago spread his hands. "I don't have the knife anymore. Jordan has the knife. He's just not using it at the moment."
"Step away from him."
"Or what happens, Leonardo?"
It wasn't a question. Santiago looked genuinely curious.
"You won't shoot through him. That's not who you are. And you won't rush me because then I get my hands on you and you have a wound in your side that hasn't fully healed yet."
He tilted his head.
"So what happens?"
Micheal's voice came through the earpiece on Nia's collar.
"Teams secured. South floor is clear. Fourteen men in custody. Where are you."
Leo didn't answer out loud. He just kept his eyes on Santiago.
"Here is what I know about you."
Santiago sounded almost relaxed. The shoulder was bleeding steadily and he watched it the way someone watched a problem they had decided not to panic about.
"You are the most disciplined man in any room you walk into. You don't act on impulse. You don't make mistakes, which means you are not going to do anything right now that compromises the outcome, because the outcome is the only thing you have ever cared about."
"You're wrong," Leo said.
"About which part?"
"The part about the only thing I care about."
Santiago looked at Nia. She had not moved. She was standing six feet from Jordan with her hands at her sides and her face perfectly still, and Santiago studied her for a long moment.
"You walked in here alone," he said to her. "With trackers sewn into your jacket lining, knowing I would find at least two of them, knowing I might not find the third." A pause. "Where is the third one?"
"Wouldn't you like to know," Nia said.
Something moved through Santiago's expression. Respect was not quite the right word for it, but it was adjacent.
Micheal came through the south corridor with two men and a clean angle, and the geometry of the room changed. Santiago registered it. He looked at the angles, at Leo and Micheal and Jordan on the ground. He did the calculation and dropped his arm.
Leo covered the distance in three strides. He had the gun out of Santiago's reach and the man's back against the wall before the exhale finished. Santiago's wounded shoulder took the impact and he made that same short ugly sound.
"Down," Leo said.
Santiago slid down to the floor. He sat with his back against the wall and his legs in front of him and he looked up at Leo for a long moment.
"You know what the interesting thing is," Santiago said. "I don't regret any of it. Not Andrea, not Alex, not any piece of this. I would do it all again."
"I know," Leo said.
"Does that bother you?"
"It tells me everything I need to know about what comes next."
Micheal crouched beside Jordan and pressed two fingers to his neck, checking. "He's breathing. He's got a side wound. He needs a surgeon."
"Call ahead," Leo said without looking away from Santiago. "And get Isadora."
"Already sent men outside," Micheal said.
Santiago looked at Nia again from the floor. "He proposed to you, didn't he? Or he will, that's why you walked in here tonight, not just for your friend." He watched her face. "You're protecting something."
Nia looked at him without flinching. "You should stop talking."
"You're right," Santiago said pleasantly. "I should."
He said nothing else. It took six minutes for the men to bring Isadora up from the sublevel. Nia heard her before she saw her, the particular cadence of Isadora's footsteps on concrete stairs, familiar in a way that bypassed the brain and went straight to somewhere older.
She came through the door with a silver emergency blanket around her shoulders and a bruise along her jaw. Her wrists had marks where the ties had been. She was walking under her own power.
Their eyes met thirty feet between them. Neither of them moved for a full second, and then Isadora crossed it fast and Nia met her halfway and they held each other hard enough to feel ribs.
"You saved my life. I'll forever be grateful to you." Isadora said into her shoulder.
"It wasn't a favour." Nia said.
“But…”
“Shush now, my dear. I’m just glad you're alive.”
Isadora pulled back and held her by the shoulders and looked at her face with the precision of a woman checking for damage. She looked over Nia's shoulder at the warehouse, at Santiago on the floor with Leo standing over him, at Micheal crouched beside Jordan.
"Is it finished?”
"Not yet," Nia said. "But tonight's piece is."
Isadora looked at Leo. Leo was looking back, steady and still.
"We'll talk about him," Isadora said. A statement, not a question.
"Tomorrow," Nia said.
"Tonight."
"Isadora."
"Fine. Tomorrow." She tightened the silver blanket around her shoulders. "Get me out of this building. It smells terrible."
Outside, the night air was cold and clean and the city was starting to lighten at its edges. Nia stood on the concrete and breathed it.
Santiago was brought out in handcuffs behind her, flanked, not looking at anything in particular. Jordan came out on a stretcher, alive, jaw set against the pain.
Leo came out last. He stood beside Nia and looked at the convoy and then at her.
"Ready," he said.
"Yes," she said.