Chapter 44: What She Knows
Amira knocked on his apartment door at 7PM on a Wednesday.
Not a message first. Not a call. Just a knock.
Xavier opened the door and looked at her. She was in her regular clothes. Nothing dressed up, nothing deliberate. Just Amira standing in his corridor with her bag on one shoulder and her glasses on and the particular expression she wore when she had decided something and was here to act on it.
"You’re going to let me in," she said. Not a question.
He stepped aside.
She came in and looked around the apartment the way she always did when she visited. Taking inventory quietly, noting what had changed, what hadn’t. She set her bag down on the chair by the desk and turned to face him.
"Tell me everything," she said.
Xavier closed the door. "Everything about what."
"The Cardinal Circle," she said. "Ashworth. Femi. All of it." She held his gaze steadily. "I’ve been piecing it together for weeks. Patricia’s name keeps coming up when I look at the legal documents connected to the integrity board filing. The security retainer payments that came through the same week the phase 2 report would have landed." She pushed her glasses up. "I’m not stupid Xavier. I just waited until I had enough of the picture before I came here."
She’s been building her own file, Xavier thought. Quietly. While I was building mine.
He looked at her for a moment.
Then walked to the desk and sat down.
"Sit," he said.
She sat on the edge of the bed across from him.
"Well I hired a security contact," he said. "Two weeks after you told me about Femi. Phase one was the background on Femi himself. Phase two was whoever sat above him." He paused. "That turned out to be Ashworth."
Amira was quiet.
"Phase three was Ashworth’s full financial and institutional profile," he said. "I used what we found to file a legal complaint through Patricia that gave the university board no choice but to open an independent investigation." He looked at her. "The rest followed from there."
Amira sat with that for a moment.
"How much did this cost," she said.
"Enough," he said.
"Xavier."
"Enough," he said again. Steady.
She looked at him for a long moment.
"You did all of this," she said slowly. "Because of me."
"I did it because Femi was a problem in my orbit," Xavier said. "You were the reason he was in my orbit."
"That’s the same thing," she said.
"Not exactly," he said.
She held his gaze. "Why does the distinction matter to you?"
"Because I don’t do things out of sentiment," he said. "I do things because they make sense to do. Femi having leverage over you made no sense. Ashworth having institutional cover that could reach into things connected to me made no sense." He paused. "I removed both. Because they didn’t make sense."
Amira looked at him for a long time without speaking.
She’s processing it, he thought. All of it. Not just what I did. What it means that I did it.
"You spent money on a security contact," she said finally. "And a law firm. And a research trust. And a hospital partnership proposal. All connected to me." She paused. "How much of your spending in the last two months has been connected to me."
More than you know, he thought. And every cent spent was worth it. Not because of the returns. The returns are just the system doing what it does. He looked at her sitting across from him. Worth it because of what it built. What it changed. What it protected.
Some things you can’t put a number on.
"Enough," he said for the third time.
She almost smiled at that despite herself.
"You’re impossible," she said quietly.
"You’ve mentioned that," he said.
She stood up. Walked to the window and looked out at the street below. The city doing its ordinary Wednesday evening thing.
"Xavier," she said from the window.
"Amira."
"When you said I was someone worth investing in." She turned around. "You meant it literally."
"Yes," he said.
"Not just the money," she said. "The time. The planning. The.." she gestured at nothing specific. "All of it."
"Yes," he said.
She looked at him with the expression that had been building since the first day she’d sat beside him in Mrs. Adeyemi’s class and peeked at his phone and decided he was worth bothering.
"Xavier, I need to say something," she said.
"Say it," he said.
"I’ve been telling myself this is complicated," she said. "That I have mixed feelings. That I don’t know what this is or what you are or what I am in relation to you." She pushed her glasses up. "But standing here right now I think I’ve just been scared to say the simple thing."
Xavier said nothing.
"I’m in love with you," she said. Flat. Direct. The way she said everything that actually mattered. "Not because of the money. Not because of Femi or Ashworth or the trust or any of it." She held his gaze. "Because you sat next to me on the first day and you were rude to me and I couldn’t stop thinking about you and everything since then has just been me being too stubborn to admit what was already true."
The apartment was quiet.
Xavier looked at her across the room.
Of course you’re at 100% favorability, he thought, looking at her across the room. Did you really think it was going to end any other way? He almost smiled. From the day you sat next to me and peeked at my phone you were already headed here. You just took the scenic route.
Honestly could’ve seen this coming from Chapter one.
He stood up.
Crossed the room.
Stopped in front of her.
She looked up at him with the glasses and the stubborn honesty and the expression of someone who had said the thing and was now waiting to see what the world did with it.