"Did she talk?"
"She gave me pieces at the diner on the way in. A marina south of the waterfront, a boat called the Meridian Star, Tuesday and Thursday handoffs. She heard names, schedules, details about intelligence being exchanged between people embedded in both families." I let that land. "Both families, Leone. Not just Castillo. Bonaccorso too."
The room changes. Not a sound, not a movement. Alexandra's fingers stop on the keyboard. Claudio's arms loosen by an inch. Leone's eyes come up from the table and find mine, and the exhaustion burns off and leaves behind the thing that makes Leone dangerous, the focus. The absolute, unblinking focus of a man who's been handed a thread and intends to follow it until everything attached to it unravels.
"Both families," he repeats.
"That's what she said. The men she overheard used the name Kreiss. She didn't recognize it, but the way she described the conversation, it’sourKreiss."
Leone stands and walks to the map on the wall. The city spreads across it in faded color, marked with pins and circles and the accumulated intelligence of two years of war. Red for Castillo territory, blue for ours, yellow for neutral. He stares at it before releasing a long breath.
"Kreiss," he says. "Alexandra, find where he’s at right now."
"Already on it." Her fingers are moving again. "Give me an hour."
"You have thirty minutes."
She doesn't argue. She types faster. That's their thing. Leone sets the impossible bar, and Alexandra clears it and neither of them acknowledges how insane that is because that’s just how they thrive.
"More leaks.” Claudio says from the wall. "Marco Vidal. The Maryland documents confirmed him as Castillo-side. But if she's right and they've got people in both families, Vidal might not be the only one."
"Vidal is confirmed but not located," Leone says. "We've got the name, the role, the paper trail. We don't have the man. The raid gave us the evidence but not the body."
"She might have more," I say. "She's not giving everything up at once. She gave me the marina over eggs and toast and held back the rest. She's not stupid, Leone. She dealt me one card to proveshe had a hand and she's keeping the rest facedown until she knows what kind of game this is."
Leone turns from the map and looks at me. It's the look he gives soldiers before he assigns them something that will either define their year or ruin it, and I've been on the receiving end enough times to know that whatever comes next is going to eat my schedule.
Fuck…
"You're her handler," he says.
"I'm her what?"
"You extracted her. She responded to you. She talked to you in a diner when she had no reason to trust anyone in this organization. You're the point of contact. You stay with her, you keep her comfortable, and you get the rest of the intelligence."
"Leone, no. I don’t want to babysit the vixen.”
His brow raises and a smirk forms on his face. "Vixen, huh? In any case, yes you are. You're the only person in this compound who can sit across from a hostile civilian and make them want to talk. Claudio terrifies people. Carmelo hasn't said a full sentence since February. I don't have time. You're it."
Claudio's mouth twitches. The bastard is enjoying this.
"She threw a lamp at my head," I say.
"Then you're already building rapport." Leone sits back down, picks up his cold coffee, and drinks it without flinching, which is its own kind of violence. "I want everything she knows. The marina, the handoffs, the names, the schedules. I want to understand what Kreiss's operation looks like from ground level. And I want it before Kreiss figures out we pulled his witness out of that Delaware apartment."
"About that." I lean forward. "Whoever put her there is going to notice she's missing. If they haven't already."
"Which is why time matters." Leone sets the mug down. "Kreiss went dark after the Maryland raid. No communication, no movement. That's not retreat. That's preparation. He's building toward something, and she might be the only person outside his network who can help us see it coming."
"Don’t you want to talk to her? You summoned her here.”
Alexandra glances up from her laptop. Her eyes move from Leone to me and back. “No, I think you should handle this one.” He says before dismissing me with a wave.”
I find her exactly where I left her. I look at her. She looks back. A guard passes at the far end and doesn't look our way. A fewminutes later the rest of the room exits and walks down the hall, heading to wherever they’re headed, leaving us alone.
"Okay," I say. "You want direct, I'll give you direct. Leone wants me as your point of contact. I stay with you, keep you safe, and help you give us the intelligence you're carrying. In return you get protection, a room, food, and good whiskey."
"A handler." She basically spits the word at me.
