Chapter 4: Everything She Wasn't Supposed to Know
Nora set the glass down.
"What was he carrying?"
Aleksei didn't answer immediately.
He turned the whiskey glass once on the table, watching it.
"How much do you know about what Cameron does?" he said.
"He's a detective.
Financial crimes division."
"He investigates financial crimes," Aleksei said.
"He also commits them.
Has been for about four years.
Skimming from seized asset accounts, redirecting evidence, running information to people who pay well for it." He paused.
"People like the man he was working for six months ago.
Before that arrangement ended badly."
Nora stared at him.
"How do you know this?"
"Because the man Cameron was working for was trying to move against my business." Aleksei said it the way someone might mention the weather.
"We became aware of Cameron during that process."
"Your business," Nora said carefully.
He looked at her.
"You sat on my lap in an underground club surrounded by armed men.
You already know what my business is."
She did.
She had known from the moment she crossed the velvet rope.
She had done it anyway.
"So Cameron is corrupt," she said.
"And he's been using me as — what?
A way to get to you?"
"Not to me.
Not yet." Aleksei set the glass down.
"He's been building a file on you.
Your movements, your contacts, your financial records.
If he ever needs a story that explains why evidence went missing or why a case closed wrong, a unstable ex-girlfriend who was present at key moments is very useful."
The word *unstable* landed in Nora's chest like something physical.
"He's been saying that about me for two years," she said.
"He's been building documentation for it for eight months."
Nora looked at the table.
A shaking hand holding a glass of water.
She made herself let go of it.
"Why are you telling me this?"
Aleksei was quiet for a moment.
"Because you landed in my lap," he said.
"And because Cameron Hale made a mistake tonight by showing that badge in my club and saying your name out loud in front of my people." He looked at her.
"He's made you my problem now.
I prefer to understand my problems."
"I'm not your problem."
"No," he said.
"You're not.
But he is."
One of the men near the edge of the booth murmured something in what sounded like Russian.
Aleksei answered without looking away from Nora.
The man nodded and stepped back.
"You'll stay here tonight," Aleksei said.
"There's a room upstairs.
Locked from the inside.
Viktor will be outside the door — to keep people out, not to keep you in." He paused.
"In the morning, we'll talk about what comes next."
"I don't need—"
"You have forty-two dollars and no phone." He said it without cruelty.
"You need one safe night.
Take it."
Nora looked at him for a long moment.
He wasn't kind.
She could see that clearly.
He was precise, controlled, and operating from his own set of reasons that had nothing to do with her wellbeing.
But he had stopped Cameron with two words and a look, and Cameron had walked out of this building without her.
That was more than anyone had managed in two years.
"One night," she said.
Aleksei nodded once.
He signaled Viktor.
As Nora stood to follow the guard, Aleksei's voice stopped her.
"Nora."
She turned.
"Cameron said he always finds you." His eyes were steady.
"He won't find you here."
She followed Viktor toward the back of the club.
She didn't let herself feel relieved.
Not yet.
Behind her, she heard Aleksei speak quietly to his men.
She didn't understand the language.
But she heard her name, and she heard Cameron's, and she heard a tone in Aleksei's voice that she recognized from somewhere deep and instinctive.
May you like
It was the tone of a man who had just made a decision.
She didn't know yet whether that was good or very, very bad.
