Chapter 7: The Morning She Said Yes
Mia was awake before the physician, sitting at the small table in the safe room with a cup of tea that had gone cold, looking at nothing in particular when Gabriel came in at six-thirty.
She had changed into clothes someone had brought — plain, practical, not hers.
Her hair was pulled back.
The brace on her shoulder made her hold herself slightly sideways.
She looked like someone who had made a decision in the night and was waiting to say it out loud.
Gabriel sat across from her.
"You already know what I'm going to ask," he said.
"I figured it out around four in the morning." She wrapped both hands around the cold cup.
"Sterling filed something.
Legal.
That's why you left in a hurry."
"An emergency injunction.
And a witness who claims the convoy attack was staged by my side."
She looked at him steadily.
"That's not true."
"No.
But it's filed, and there's a hearing at nine, and the only way to break the narrative cleanly is to place Sterling's man at that warehouse." He paused.
"You're the only person who can do that."
"I know."
"I'm not going to pressure you.
You've already done more than anyone had a right to ask."
"I know that too." She set the cup down.
"What does it involve?"
"A formal statement to my attorney today.
Potentially a deposition later.
If it goes further — and I don't expect it to, because Sterling will fold before it reaches that point — you might be asked to testify."
"And between now and when Sterling folds?"
"You stay somewhere safe.
With security.
Not a prison — you can work, you can move, you have privacy.
But not your apartment."
She was quiet for a moment.
"I have a cat," she said.
Gabriel blinked.
Of all the things he had prepared for her to say, that was not one of them.
"We can arrange for the cat."
"His name is Ptolemy.
He's very large and he bites people he doesn't know."
"I'll warn the security team."
Something shifted in her expression — not quite a smile, but the shape of one.
It lasted about one second.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay?"
"I'll give the statement.
I'll do whatever Hargrove needs." She met his eyes.
"I saw what I saw.
Reeves was there.
I'm not going to pretend otherwise because it's inconvenient."
Gabriel looked at her.
"You understand what this means for you," he said.
"Sterling's people already marked you as a problem.
Stepping forward makes that more complicated."
"Staying quiet doesn't make it less complicated.
It just means I'm a problem they don't have to worry about." She held his gaze.
"I'd rather be a problem they have to worry about."
Gabriel was quiet for a moment.
"Hargrove will be here at eight," he said.
"I'll have someone bring you breakfast."
He stood.
"Mr.
Romano."
He stopped.
"The injunction hearing," she said.
"Will you be there?"
"Yes."
"Good." She picked up the cold cup again.
"Make sure Hargrove knows Reeves had a scar — left side of his jaw, about two inches.
Diagonal.
Recent.
That's the detail that will make the identification hold up."
Gabriel looked at her.
"I noticed it," she said simply.
May you like
"In case it mattered later."
He left her sitting there with her cold tea and her precise, careful mind, and thought that the most dangerous thing Damian Sterling had ever done was decide that Mia Carver was nobody.
