Page 84 of Bought for Blood

“Viktor, if she’s in there—”

“If she’s in there and we move before we’re ready, she’ll be in a car and gone before we reach the gate. You know that.” He doesn’t raise his voice. “We’ve moved too early once before. I’m not doing it again.”

Decker puts his hand over hers on the table.

“He’s right, sweetheart,” he says. “Sit.”

She sits.

Rain has started against something above us, a vent or a shaft, and for a moment it’s all I can hear.

She has her sister’s mouth. She has the same way of lifting her chin when she’s determined.

I could end this for her right now.

I pull the map toward me instead and turn it around. I put my finger on the north track and talk about approach angles until my voice sounds the way it usually does.

Faine watches me do it.

“The audit,” Viktor says, when the map talk runs out. “Tell the room what you told Crowe.”

“The compound’s books get checked every quarter by a woman who comes down from above the manager. Vasile has spent months telling her about the client who spends more in his house than all of his client list put together. Last week I asked him to introduce me to the people above him, and he made the call while I watched.” I keep my eyes level. “Two days later a letter came to my house. Heavy paper, no letterhead. She’ll see me on the last night of the month, while she’s there auditing the quarter. Her name is Ecaterina.”

“Why would she agree to meet you?” Viktor says.

“Because I’m a privileged client. And I told Vasile I want to see more of their stock. Get introduced to some of the other sellers. Those are decisions for higher up.”

“Anything else?” Faine says.

The room is quiet. Jericho has stopped typing.

The last line of the letter asked for a private conversation after the audit. Just the two of us, somewhere quiet. If I read that line out at this table, Crowe kills the operation inside a minute, and Viktor backs him. They send in one of their own, who never gets past the front desk, and that building keeps running for who knows how long.

“She confirmed the date,” I say.

Crowe comes off the wall.

He walks the length of the room and stops at the end of the table. He waits me out. He’s been reading liars in this city for thirty years, and he doesn’t hurry it.

“Before this goes any further,” he says, “I want everyone here to hear my objection.”

“Go on,” Viktor says.

“He’s exposed. There’s talk going around the trade that Val-Serein has a taste for magic blood and can’t manage it. That talk started out as his cover, and it’s stopped being useful.” He puts one hand on the back of the nearest chair. “Five nightsago, somebody above the manager logged an inquiry. They’re checking up on him. And now, the same week, they’ve invited him in.”

“Then say the rest of it,” Viktor says.

“He shouldn’t go. Send someone else instead, and give it six months.”

“What does six months buy us?”

“Someone inside that they’ve never had a reason to suspect.”

“It also puts more people through that ward,” Nadia says. “Not to mention what would happen to those already in there.”

“Yes,” Crowe says. “That’s true.”

Viktor turns to me. “Seigneur.”