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The logic is clean. Brutal. Exactly him.

If Zane passes the file and an attempt happens at the fake hour, Zane is theirs. If nothing happens, he is only a greedy middleman who wanted club lists and driver plates.

Either way, the USB I am about to hand over is bait.

“And if they come?” I ask.

“Then they walk into something I have already prepared.” His eyes cut to me. “You cannot have emotion for him, Elias. Zane is a hired gun at best. He sent you into my club to harvest it. If consequences come, he faces them. That is the arrangement. Do you understand?”

I think of Zane’s messages. The friend-zone joke. The way he got me the trial at Keller’s and then put a price on it. I think of the way he will smile when I hand him the drive. And I also think of his increasingly sleazy and controlling moves.

Screw Zane.

“I understand,” I say. “I agree.”

Dmitri studies my face for a second longer than is comfortable. Then he nods once, as if a box has been ticked, and leaves me with the laptop and the city and the bruise on my neck.

I know I’m about to take a bigger step than I’ve ever taken before.

There’s no backing out now.

Running just ceased to be an option.

Later the park is a white machine. Paths scraped and salted. Trees black. The south gate where nannies and dogwalkers pretend the city is gentle.

I get there first on purpose.

My coat buttoned. USB in my pocket like a live wire.

I do not look for Dmitri. I know he is here at a remove. Somewhere with a sightline and a reason to be standing still. The knowledge sits under my ribs and steadies me.

And for all I know, I might have other eyes on me already, eyes that want to see if I have come alone or whether I am working with someone else.

Danger is everywhere. On every corner and behind every bush.

Zane arrives on time, which is unlike him. He’s wearing that smile he uses when he thinks he is the smartest man in a two-hundred-meter radius.

He sits on the bench like he owns the slats.

“Well,” Zane says. “Look at you. All grown up and delivering.”

I take the USB out and put it in his gloved palm. His fingers close on it. For a moment I wonder whether he knows something is off—whether the transaction is too neat, whether my face is too still, whether the boy who used to run tabs and skip cities has bitten off more than he can chew this time.

Then Zane leans in.

His hand finds my knee through the coat. Not a joke. A claim he has been waiting to make since he decided I was in the friend zone only because he had not pushed yet.

“Don’t,” I say. Polite. Firm. I lift his hand off me and set it back on his own thigh. “Not here. Not like that.”

Irritation flickers across his face, quick and ugly.

“You should remember how this works,” Zane says. “I am the reason you get through doors. I am the reason you make money instead of waiting tables until someone notices you. You don’t get to play ice queen now that you’ve got a taste of something bigger.”

I hate this man more with each interaction. I see him for who he is now. A total scumbag.

And yet…

I need him on side. For now.