She didn't see the Holt confrontation. She was not invited to it, and this was not, for once, because she'd been excluded by paternalism so much as because it was, by any reasonable measure, something she shouldn't witness.
What she knew: Dimitri left at ten a.m. with Anton and four other men she'd catalogued in the way she'd catalogued everything — height, build, approximate role. He came back at four p.m.
He was not bleeding. He did not look like a man who'd done violence, which she'd been faintly worried about. He looked like a man who had done something cold and decisive and was carrying it with the efficient composure of someone who had done cold and decisive things before.
"Holt?" she asked.
"In custody. He'll be handed to certain law enforcement contacts in the morning." He sat down across from her. "He talked extensively. The rival faction has been neutralised. Three individuals remain, but they've been — persuaded to redirect their ambitions."
Jane noted the careful euphemisms. "And Natasha?"
A long pause. "I spoke to her."
"How did that go?"
He looked at his hands. "She said what she said. I said what needed to be said." Another pause. "She isn't out. But she's — contained. For now. She understood the message."
Jane thought about Natasha — her brilliant, dangerous, fond cousin who had played a double game with such elegant deniability. Who had told Jane, with what might have been genuine warning, to be careful of her.
"She loves you," Jane said again. "Just so you know. She's terrible at it, but she does."
Dimitri looked at her. "I know," he said. "It doesn't change what she did."
"No," Jane agreed. "But it might change how you handle it going forward."
He looked at her for a long moment. "Is that your recommendation?"
"It's my observation. What you do with it is up to you." She paused. "You said the situation is resolved. Does that mean—"
"Yes," he said. "You can go home, Jane."
The words landed in the air between them and sat there, heavy with the weight of everything they didn't say.