Page 27 of You, Only You

"He'll walk," Bates confirmed. "And the subordinates will take the fall while he starts the whole thing over somewhere else."

I looked at Will. His expression was carefully neutral, which I was starting to learn meant he'd known this was coming.

"There's a way to get direct evidence," he said. "Reeves has a personal assistant named Eric Mendez. Handles his private scheduling, communications, the things that don't go through corporate channels."

Bates raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"Eric has a gambling problem. Significant debts to people who don't accept payment plans." Will's voice was calm, clinical. "If we leverage those debts, not with money, but with the right kind of pressure, we can turn him. He has access to Reeves's private study. A surveillance device in that room would capture authorization conversations and payment discussions. Direct evidence."

The silence that followed was heavy.

"That's illegal surveillance," Bates said finally. "Anything obtained that way..."

"Would be inadmissible, yes. But it would tell you exactly where to look. What to subpoena. How to build an admissible case." Will held Bates's gaze. "Sometimes the system needs a nudge to see what's right in front of it."

Bates rubbed his jaw, looking deeply uncomfortable. "You're asking me to look the other way while you commit multiple felonies."

"I'm asking you to be ready when the evidence materializes through legitimate channels."

They stared at each other for a long moment, some kind of silent negotiation that had the cadence of a conversation they'd had before, in different forms, about different targets. Then Bates sighed and gathered up the copies of my financial evidence.

"I'll start building a file," he said. "Officially, based solely on Ms. Ashford's forensic work. The rest..." He shook his head. "I don't want to know."

He left. Will and I sat in the quiet cafe, the weight of what had just been discussed settling over us like fog.

"You've done this before," I said. "The nudging."

"Yes."

"And it worked?"

"It got people off the streets who would have walked otherwise." He met my eyes. "That's not a justification. It's just the truth."

We drove back to the penthouse in silence. The city slid past, all glass and steel and people living their ordinary lives, unaware of the trafficking ring operating in their midst. I watched a woman walk a golden retriever. A man argue into his phone. Two teenagers share earbuds on a bus stop bench. Normal life. The kind of life that Victor Reeves's victims didn't get to have.

"The surveillance," I said finally, still staring out the window. "The blackmail. It's a crime."

"Yes."

"It's the kind of thing my father did." The words came out before I could organize them properly. Before I could frame them in something less raw. "'Just this once.' 'It's necessary.' 'The end justifies the means.'" My voice went tight and I hated it. "That's how it starts. A line in the sand, and then you just keep moving it until you can't remember where it was."

Will didn't respond immediately. He drove in silence, and I appreciated that. The silence. Some people fill pauses because they're afraid of what the other person is thinking. Will left them open.

"Your father stole for himself," he said finally. "For money. For status. For a life he thought he deserved."

"And you're different?"

"I'm asking you to help me put a man in prison who traffics human beings." His voice was quiet. "I won't pretend the method is clean. But I won't pretend the alternative is acceptable either."

I thought of the photographs in the Reeves file. The young faces. The hollow eyes. Subject 7. Subject 12. Not numbers. I kept trying to see them as numbers because numbers werewhat I understood, but they weren't numbers. They were people. Somebody's people.

"I need to think," I said.

"Take whatever time you need."

He meant it. I could tell because he didn't follow up with an argument. Didn't lay out a case or present counterpoints or try to lead me to the conclusion he wanted. He just... let me sit with it. Which was either genuine respect or very sophisticated manipulation, and I hated that I couldn't always tell the difference, and I hated more that I was starting to trust him enough to assume the first one.

Back at the penthouse, I retreated to the guest room and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing. His jacket was still on the chair. I could smell his cologne on it, or maybe I was imagining that, or maybe the distinction didn't matter because my brain had apparently filed "the way Will Steele smells" under "essential data" without my permission.