(AVA)
Damien ends the call and sets the phone down between us and the office is quiet for a moment. Outside the glass the city is doing what it always does, indifferent and continuous, and in here we are sitting with Arvid’s last words still in the room.
“I want to bring in a security detail,” he says. “Discreet. People I have worked with for years. They would stay out of your sightlines.”
“No.”
He looks at me. “Ava.”
“I said no.” I keep my voice level. “I am not going to change how I move through my own city because an organization sent a letter and placed a paper order over a year ago. We do not know what their formal move looks like yet. I am not going to react like we do.”
“The surveillance is the move,” he says. “Fourteen months of watching. We are only finding out about it now.
