“Cassandra has been taken. Mount Sinai east garage. We have video. We also have Raquel leaving the same structure minutes later.”
A delicate inhale. “Ah.”
“I want private eyes on Raquel’s travel grid, including all of her usual hotels.”
“They already are,” Mina confirms. “I will also post someone at the garage she uses when she wants to be seen and the one she uses when she doesn’t. You know which one.”
“I do.” It’s the one under the building her sponsor owns, the sponsor who is not smart enough to know when a favor stops being free.
“And Ivan?” she asks.
“He is part of this. We will treat him as such unless proven otherwise.”
“Alex,” she says firmly. I know what she’s thinking.
“I already asked him,” I tell her. “He chose a side. We’ll keep him working with people in pairs. No solo assignments that smell like family.”
“Good,” she says. “I’ll have Orlov build a bubble around Clara’s floor from our end. Two guards you sign off on. Put a nurse onour payroll if needed. I prefer the kind who knows when to look away.”
“Do it. And pull a file on every contract Raquel has taken in the last month. If any of them touch a Koretsky warehouse, I want names.”
“Already in motion,” she says. “Bring her home.”
“I will,” I say, and hang up.
I go back upstairs and stop outside Clara’s door. I don’t go in. She needs rest, not noise. I stand there long enough to make sure the guard recognizes my face and then step away.
When I hit the street again, the winter air takes a bite out of my lungs. The city is in its quiet week, the soft space between holidays, when even cab horns sound like they are trying to be polite. It won’t stay that way. Not for long.
I get in the car, the plan stacking itself in my head with the easy weight of habit. Raquel first. Her friends. Her phone. The tracker she didn’t know was in her wheel well. Then Ivan. His pride. His men. The ratholes they think I don’t know about. And underneath it all is a line back to Cassandra. Because every road I take today is for her.
I set the drive next to me on the seat and watch the city slide by. I keep my hands open on my knees so I don’t clench them into the shape of a throat I can’t reach yet. I let the rage breathe. It will be useful when it is time. Not before.
At a light, my phone buzzes. It’s Alex.
Pulling more traffic cams. Possible sighting toward the river. Working it.
Good.
The light turns green. We move.
I picture Cassandra’s face when she told me about the baby in that hallway. I think of the ribbon on her wrist. I think of a tiny spark that may not even know it is a life yet, and I think of the men who chose to make my family a target.
They made a mistake.
I will correct it.
For now, we hunt.
CHAPTER 39
DAMIEN
Ipush the door to the Iron Gull Bar open, letting it rebound hard off the stopper so the sound echoes.
Alex rides my right shoulder, coat open, badge tucked deep enough that only the trained will see it. Orlov and two more stack behind us, quiet, heavy, attentive. The Iron Gull is narrow and long, all hard surfaces and bad decisions.
The sound of our arrival causes the room to hush—conversations loosen and fall, a slot machine dings once, and the music quiets.
