Her voice came out steadier than she felt.
Adrian Cole stopped walking. He looked down at her with the expression of a man who was very busy and had just encountered something he hadn't scheduled: not unkind, just measured.
"Excuse me?"
Two security men were already there, one reaching for her shoulder. "Hey, hey, let go—"
"Don't get in that car," she said again. And this time, she looked directly at Adrian, not at the men trying to move her. "Those two men by the door, they were speaking Russian. They said, 'Once you're inside, it happens fast.'"
The security man had her by the upper arm now, firmly but not roughly, already steering her away. "Okay, come on, kid—"
"Wait."
Adrian's voice was quiet, but it stopped the security man cold. He crouched slightly so he was closer to eye level with her—not all the way down, but enough that it wasn't condescending.
"What did you say? Repeat it."
She repeated the phrase in Russian, as close as she could remember it, the sounds fitting in her mouth the way her father had taught her to place them.
Something changed in Adrian Cole's face. It wasn't dramatic; it wasn't a gasp or a flinch. It was more like a small door closing, a very deliberate shutting down of expression that told her—in the way that only people who pay attention can read—that he understood exactly what she had just said, and that it had landed somewhere serious.
He straightened up. He turned to the man on his left, the older one with the silver tie. "Thomas."
He said it quietly—just the name. Thomas was already moving.
Zuri looked back toward the two men near the car. One of them was watching her now: not the distracted glance of someone curious, but the fixed, alert look of someone recalculating. His hand moved toward his ear, toward the earpiece—a small and careful gesture, not panicked, controlled, but she saw it.
Adrian didn't get in the car. He stood for a moment on the sidewalk while Thomas moved close to him and spoke in a low voice. She watched Adrian nod once, very slightly. Two of the other security men had moved to positions near the car: casual enough to look routine, deliberate enough to block the doors.
One of the two men near the car, the one who had looked at her, said something to the other. Then they both began to walk away, unhurried—the way people walk when they're trying not to look like they're leaving.