They put him in a room that smells like boiled coffee and old files, the kind of place that keeps secrets warm so they stay soft, and a single bulb hummed like a wasp, bright and patient, "Mr Kavanagh," a voice said, polite as a tax bill, "we just want to understand the sequence of events"
"Where is she," he said first, which is how men are when the map of their life is ripped and the only direction left is to find the person they love, the interrogator smiled like someone reading a menu and said, "procedure, you know that word, it covers a lot"
"Procedure doesn't kidnap people," Jace said, and the man across the table folded his hands like an offering, "we have reports she was involved in a suspicious transfer, a witness requested anonymity, and for her protection we moved her to a secure location"
"Protection," Jace repeated, tasting the word, "your protection looks like a van with no plates and men who don't speak names"
"We do not comment on logistics," the man said, and then the door opened and another voice filled the corridor, smoother, the kind that wears authority like a tailored jacket, "Mr Kavanagh, I'm Dean" the man said, and the name landed like a soft stone in a shallow pool, it sent ripples through memories Jace didn't want stirred
Dean smiled without teeth, "You're making a lot of noise in small places, unwanted noise, and some people prefer their quiet bought in wedges"
"You sent her away," Jace said, the sentence sharp, "you did it"
"Sometimes we move people so they can think and not speak under pressure," Dean said, and his cuff showed a tiny mark when he leaned forward, the same neat symbol Jace had seen three times now like a coin stamped by an old mint, "you should be grateful, people like publicity rarely survive contact with the weather"
"You're not police and this isn't a weather report," Jace said, and Dean's eyes pinched like someone who enjoyed the grammar of power, "who do you work for, Dean"
Dean's laugh was small, "We work for order, Mr Kavanagh, and sometimes order requires theatre, if you keep insisting on being the hero then you must expect us to adjust the script"
"Who paid Argos" Jace asked, and the room went thin like someone had pulled a thread, the interrogator said, "Argos answers to many, we don't get into the ledger" and Dean smiled at that, like a man who enjoys the sound of conspiracy as if it were a foreign currency
They showed him footage, grainy and glossy, Maya in a white room, hands folded, a strip-light halo making her cheekbones sharp as coin edges, she looked tired but not broken, the camera lingered on her fingers tapping a rhythm, her thumb rubbing a small leather tag, and Jace felt his stomach become a stone, "Is she okay" he asked, because men always ask the practical when the mind wants anything but facts, "she's coherent" Dean said, "coherent enough to tell us she didn't take money, coherent enough to answer questions, but there are legal processes, Mr Kavanagh, and we can't let rumours become actions"
"You're holding her hostage with a legal bow," Jace said, and the interrogator's face did something like sympathy, "do you understand what this looks like"
"It looks like due process," Dean corrected, "and the public likes stories with neat endings, we are simply editing for clarity" and Jace wanted to throw the table across the room because the words were polite as nails
They asked about the confession he uploaded, about the names he'd hinted at, and every answer he gave was measured like a man in a minefield, he gave enough to show remorse but not enough to hand them fresh rope, "if you want to help her you need to stop the broadcasts" Dean said suddenly, "go private, withdraw your accusations quietly and we can broker a solution"
"Broker," Jace repeated, the word curdling, "you want me to buy silence with the currency of my shame?"
"It's not silence we are buying," Dean said, leaning back like he had a view of a garden he'd never show, "it's stability, and Mr Kavanagh we can arrange stability if you play along"
"Play along with who," Jace asked, but the corridor laughed like a radio with a skipped track and when he looked up the wall TV blinked with feeds, the very rooftop clip, the studio clip, a looping of his confession chopped into a headline and a single flash — PHASE SEVEN INITIATED — a clinical caption scrolling like a bad ticker tape
"Phase seven," Dean said, almost bored, "they like their theatre in acts, and you are a popular actor, unfortunate but useful"
"Who is they," Jace said, and Dean's eyes softened like someone recalling a familiar song, "they are collectors, Mr Kavanagh, of leverage, of favored outcomes, sometimes men who were hurt once and never forgot, sometimes men who like the smell of panic"
"Is Ethan behind this," Jace asked, because a rival is an expected enemy and expected enemies are easier to take down with boardroom manoeuvres, Dean smiled, "Ethan is a boy with a very loud mouth and clever hands, but this is older, deeper" and Jace heard in that the name of a family he thought he'd closed the door on, the ledger of deals that tasted like ash
They let him go with a warning and a thin paper stamped like a prayer, "cooperate and you keep your dignity, resist and you lose more than you think" and when he stepped out the air hit him like a slap, the city felt too bright and he tasted copper and rain, Leo grabbed him, hands like a child's clutch, "You're free" he said, but Jace knew he was on a leash as long as someone could pull the line in public
They made a plan or pretended to, mainly they moved in circles louder than their feet, they checked feeds, they begged favours, they sent messages into databases like flares, and at midnight something small and horrifying happened, his phone lit with an unknown number and there was a video attached, no sound at first, just a hand turning a page, the paper looked old, the handwriting cramped and meticulous, Jace's name written at the top in his father's script and the words under it, like a ledger come to life, LIST OF ASSETS, and his stomach folded
He pressed play and the camera panned to a corner where Maya sat across from a man at a table and the man's face was turned away but his posture told Jace more than any headline, the man wore a suit that had known better decades and his shoulders were those of someone who'd made choices and kept them tidy, Maya's fingers tapped the table and when she looked up the camera caught her eyes and she mouthed, without sound, "remember" and then she pushed a small leather folder across and the camera zoomed in and Jace saw, for a single heartbeat, the cover stamped with his company crest and a symbol beneath that matched the tattoo he'd memorised like a mark on a coin
Then the video cut and a message scrolled across the screen, clinical and patient, "phase eight initiated, auction begins in ninety minutes" and Jace threw the phone against the wall like a man trying to shatter a mirror, the glass didn't break but his hands did, and the door opened and Dean was there again, slippers instead of shoes as if he'd been waiting in the hall for a happiness he could never own, "We gave you options," he said softly, "now you have to choose, you can fight in public or you can fight in ways people don't applaud"
"Where is she," Jace said, and Dean's smile didn't change, "where you least expect, and where the cameras can't reach unless you point them there, Mr Kavanagh," and the chapter closed on Jace hearing once more that lullaby he'd heard since he was a child, that wrong nursery tune, hummed on a loop in his head as countdown numbers filled his phone screen and the city outside clicked like a metronome, ninety minutes to auction, and the cliff went black.