Page 41 of Mister St. James

Security moves in at the same time, two from the bar’s rear and one from the main entrance. The choreography is seamless. The first officer takes the suspect by the upper arm, murmurs a warning, and steers him off the stool. The second blocks the woman’s escape, pivots her gently but firmly toward the exit. The third, the biggest of the three, stands directly behind me, making it clear that escalation is not an option.

Cat doesn’t move. Her body is stone, only her eyes flicking between the players.

The suspect tries to speak, something about ‘a misunderstanding’ and ‘just a conversation,’ but the officer’s grip is steel. The woman in black hisses an obscenity, but the other officer keeps his cool, ushering her out with the kind of pressure you only learn after years in private security.

It takes ninety seconds, start to finish. The whole club barely notices, a ripple at the bar, a few curious glances, then the current moves on. That’s how this place works. Nobody looks too closely, and nothing is ever as it seems.

When it’s over, I turn to Cat. She’s still perched on the stool, wine glass trembling in her hand.

I lean in close, so only she can hear: “Are you all right?”

She swallows, nods once.

I put my hand over hers, gentle but anchoring, and say, “It’s over.”

Cat finally exhales. Her voice is thin but steady. “What about the woman?”

I shake my head. “Not in the profile. Probably backup. I’ll dig on her after we debrief.”

She laughs, the sound shaky and a little broken. “You’re going to make me go through every security photo at PDI, aren’t you?”

“Every single one,” I say and don’t fight to hide my grin. “You did perfect, Cat. You played it exactly right.”

She tries to brush it off with a flip joke, “I learned from the best,” but I see the shake in her hands, and it kills me a little.

I guide her off the stool, one arm around her waist, and lead her out through the staff corridor where the lighting is soft and nobody is watching. We make it to the exit before I let myself look back. The bar is already resetting, glasses clinking, bodies weaving, nothing changed. But everything’s changed for us. Again.

She’s fine, she says. That’s the first thing out of her mouth once we’re clear of the main drag, her voice sharp, a little hoarse from adrenaline, but steady as a bridge cable. She says it again as she takes off her mask. “I’m fine, Aiden,” even as she braces herself against the brick, both hands pressed flat, knuckles white against the stone.

I take my mask off, too, and crowd into her space, one palm on the wall beside her head, the other hovering near her shoulder in case her knees give out. I scan her face for damage, because the night has me convinced she’s seconds from breaking. But she doesn’t break, not even close. Her jaw is locked, mouth set in a slash of red, eyes wide but clear. If anything, she looks more alive than she ever does in daylight.

“Don’t start with the full-body scan,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’m not the one who almost caught a shiv to the ribs.”

I want to tell her that I’d rather take a knife to the lung than see that flicker of panic on her face again, but it feels like a weak line, so I just nod and let her win the point.

She drops her hands from the brick, flexes her fingers. I reach up and brush her jaw with my thumb, just once, the way you touch something you almost lost. “I was wrong,” I say. “What I said about taking a step back. I was wrong, and I knew it when I said it.”

Before she can say anything, my phone vibrates against my chest in three sharp pulses, and everything else drops away. I fish it out, thumbprint open. The lock screen is a mess of alerts, but the newest one is from an encrypted relay I don’t recognize.

I open it. It’s a batch message, sent to the entire PDI board. No subject. Attached: six JPEGs, each a photo snapped in the club, grainy and dark but unmistakable. The first one is me, mask off, profile clear. The next is Cat, birthmark in perfect focus, wine glass in hand. The others are a blur of bodies, but the narrative is obvious, executive and executive assistant, masks off, at a sex club, timestamped and signed.

Cat watches my face. I show her the screen, and she laughs. A real laugh, sharp and bright and just this side of unhinged. “They really couldn’t wait, could they?”

I want to smash the phone against the wall, but instead I pocket it and shift closer, hand at her hip. “It doesn’t matter,” I say, but I know it’s a lie. The board will have seen it already, and by morning it’ll be in three more inboxes, minimum.

Cat leans her head back against the brick, eyes closed. “I’m not sorry,” she says. “About any of it.”

“Neither am I.” It comes out low, almost a growl

Chapter nineteen

Never Better

Catalina

We don’t speak on the drive back. The car’s cabin is silent but for the city’s smear against the glass and the low white noise of Aiden’s breathing. He keeps both hands on the wheel, his jaw set at the angle I recognize from hard drives and harder choices. My head lolls against the seat, neck loose with exhaustion and post-adrenaline comedown. I watch the skyline climb and collapse in the reflection, my face a bruised blur in the window.

I want to break the silence with something clever, but it’s like my voice has gone underground. And anyway, I think we’ve both earned the right to a few miles of nothing.