Page 8 of Under Her Protection

"I assumed."

Dominique watched the two of them read the same page without speaking for a breath, and the corner of her mouth moved a fraction, not quite approval but near enough.

"This does not feel commercial," Leo said.

Dominique lifted one eyebrow, which was the Dominique version of go on.

"The Rotterdam play is an eight-figure deal at most. The Bellini collapse is bigger but not enterprise-bigger. An insider willing to burn two executive-level relationships and risk jail for two deals that do not individually kill her is not doing this for money. If you want money you take one deal and you leave. You take two, you are making a point."

"Correct."

"So this is personal."

"Correct."

"Do we know by whom?"

"No."

"Have we asked her?"

"She has not answered, which is itself an answer."

Avery spoke at last. "She knows."

Dominique looked at her. "That is my read."

"Or she suspects?”

"Close enough to matter."

Leo tapped the edge of the folder against her thumb. Her thumb registered the matte texture of the cover absently. "Why do I need to be in her house to figure that out? Why not put Avery on the intel, let her run it, and I can rotate in for the public appearances?"

"Because whoever is inside her organization is giving the attacker access to her routines, her calendar, and possibly her people. The next breach will not be a deal. The next breach will be physical."

Avery, quietly, "You are sure?”

"I am as sure as I am prepared to be in a sentence I have to answer for."

Leo sat with that.

She had taken principals in the past for reasons that ran from boredom to curiosity to the occasional moral conviction. She had never taken one because a woman like Dominique had sat across from her and told her, in so many words, that the principal was going to be shot at. She did not like the taste that left in her mouth.

"When?" she said.

"She will agree to an engagement tomorrow."

"She has not yet agreed. But you are certain she will?”

"I am certain she will not want to. She will then run the math on how much a second physical breach will cost her, and she will call me before noon."

"All right."

"All right, you accept?” Dominique’s face was intent.

"All right, I accept."

Dominique's hands unfolded. She pushed a second folder across the desk, thinner, red-tagged. "Protocols. Read on the way home. You will be at her residence at fourteen hundred tomorrow."