I want her to see her sister but safety first. We go only when the route is clean and safe.
The door opens and Alex steps in. He reads the space, noting the guards. He spots Cassandra and my posture, which tells him everything he needs to know.
He drops a thin folder and a tablet onto the table.
“We pulled the overnight,” he says. “Here’s where we are.”
He wakes the tablet; a grid of camera pulls appearing on the screen. Perimeter shots. Gate shots. A smear of headlights. He swipes to the stills. The shooter car sits charred and black. The fire stripped it. VIN was shaved. Plates stolen. It’s useless now.
“The casings from East Road were cheap aftermarket barrel. No clean signature.”
Sloppy. But sloppy does not mean weak. Sloppy means fast and cocky.
“Gate logs?” I ask.
“Service gate shows a badge two minutes before the hit. Badge was cloned.”
A print job somewhere. Someone had time with the real thing.
“Traffic cams?”
“Handoff two blocks east,” Alex says. “Driver swap in the dark. They practiced it.”
He scrolls again. I study the light at the corners of the frames. The angles. The lane choices. All clearly planned out ahead of time.
Alex looks up. “They knew which window mattered. Timing was tight.”
“So they had help,” I say.
“Looks that way.”
If it points to Ivan, will Alex handle it? He says he will. But blood is still blood. I watch his face for any hesitation. There’s none.
Cassandra stands at the side console with her notebook open, tracking every sentence. She has not said a word. I notice her fingers trembling when she lifts the glass of water. I hate that tremor. It makes me wish the men who shot at us were here now, so I could strangle them with my bare hands.
“We go three lanes,” I say. “A-team pulls all lobby and service cams within a mile radius. Junk goes to the bin. Faces and plates first. Night vision passes to clean contrast.”
“Already moving,” Alex replies.
“B-team sweeps contractors and temps for seventy-two hours back,” I say. “Every off-the-books hire. Every badge printer log, including the vendors who swear they never print.”
“On it,” he says.
“C-team is legal front,” I continue. “Freeze vendor access. C reissues security protocol across the clean companies. I want it to look like compliance, not panic.”
“Copy.” I know he’s already writing the texts in his head.
His phone buzzes. “One more,” he says after checking it. “Your Red Hook warehouse got tagged at dawn. Not a burn. Bolt cutters, quick smash, a mark on a crate. Symbol we’ve seen before with Antonov fringe.”
“So the old guard gets restless when the money goes clean,” I mutter.
“Looks like a message,” he says. “Might’ve heard about the hit and wants to test the waters.”
“Go,” I tell him. “Not by phone. Walk the floor yourself. Pull the foreman’s phone. Replace the night shift with ours. No noise. Do it personally—do not delegate.”
He nods once, then picks up the tablet and leaves.
Ivan. The name comes to mind instantly the moment Alex steps out the door.
