"He's threatening you. He's threateningus." Zain's voice had gone cold. Not angry-cold, operational-cold. The voice that preceded action. "He knows where the safehouse is?"
"He knows the area. Not the building, I don't think."
"That's not good enough." Zain pulled out his phone. Typed. "Ghost needs to sweep for surveillance. If Levi's been watching, there might be devices."
"Zain. "
"And we need to move up the timeline on the Southwest op. If Mercer's people know you're here... "
"Zain." Seth stood. Crossed the room. Put his hand on Zain's wrist, the one still holding the phone. "Stop planning for thirty seconds and look at me."
Zain looked at him.
"This is my problem," Seth said. "Levi is my past. My mess. I don't want it becoming Lakefront's war."
"It became our war the night we pulled you out of that warehouse." Zain's eyes were dark, intense, focused that Seth had only seen during ops. "You're not alone in this. Not anymore."
The words landed somewhere deep, below the ribs, below the armor, in the place Seth had been protecting since he was fifteen years old.
"I can handle Levi," Seth said.
"I know you can. That's not the point."
"Then what is?"
Zain's hand turned under Seth's. Their fingers interlaced. Zain looked down at their joined hands with an expression that on anyone else would be wonder, but on Zain was more like surrender.
"The point is I'm not letting you handle it alone."
CHAPTER 17
The Mercer gala was the key. Ghost had been saying it for weeks, and now, with Levi's threat hanging over them and the clock ticking, Marcus agreed.
"The gala is in four days," Ghost said, his laptop open to a spread of documents, floor plans, and social media photos that he'd been compiling for months. "Detroit Foundation for Human Rights annual fundraiser. Black tie. Five hundred guests. Mercer will be there, he's the honorary chair, he can't not show."
"Security?" Marcus asked.
"Private firm. Armed but sloppy, they're event security, not tactical. More concerned with drunk rich people than an actual breach." Ghost pulled up a floor plan. "The Westin Book Cadillac. Grand ballroom, third floor. VIP room on four."
"And we care about the VIP room because...?"
"Because that's where Mercer does his real networking. Away from the cameras, away from the donors who think they're funding legitimate anti-trafficking work. The VIP room is where he meets the people who keep his operation running."
Seth was at the table, listening with coiled stillness, calculating. Zain watched him and saw the wheels turning.
The room went quiet. Zain could feel the decision forming around the table like weather, the shift in pressure, the static charge of an idea that was dangerous and correct and that he wanted, with every cell of his being, to argue against.
Because Seth was right. The logic was flawless. Ghost needed physical access. The crew was known. Seth was invisible, a dead man, an erased person, someone Mercer's security wouldn't flag because he didn't exist in any system they monitored.
But the logic didn't account for what it would cost Seth to walk into that room. To serve drinks to the man who'd kept him in a cage. To smile and nod and play the part of the invisible worker while his body remembered the fluorescent lights and the chain-link and the sound of Tomás being kicked on the factory floor.
Zain knew what that cost looked like. He'd watched Rodriguez's betrayal eat through his own composure for years,the way certain sounds triggered it, certain silences, the quality of a handshake that felt like a lie. Trauma wasn't a thing you processed and filed away. It was a tenant. It lived in your body and surfaced without warning and turned the ordinary world into a minefield.
He wanted to sayno.He wanted to sayI just got you and I can't lose you to a room full of monsters wearing tuxedos.He wanted to cross the table and put his hands on Seth's face and sayyou've already been brave enough for a lifetime, let someone else carry this one.
He said none of it. Because Seth wasn't asking permission. Seth was stating a fact. And Zain had spent the past six weeks learning that the most important thing he could give this man wasn't protection, it was respect for his choices.
"If he goes," Zain said, "I'm in the building."
