“Except Sebastian,” Drew added with dark amusement.
“Especially Sebastian.” I pulled up more footage, more data, more pieces of the puzzle that were finally coming together. “He’s been staying mobile. Different hotels. Different safe houses. Never in one place more than forty-eight hours. But he’s getting sloppy. Making mistakes. The Zetas are closing in from the south. We’re closing in from the north. He’s running out of room.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I almost ignored it—we were in the middle of a critical phase, tracking required focus, and I’d told Barbara I’d be home later. But something made me check anyway. Some instinct that had kept me alive this long.
Barbara’s name flashed on the screen.
My heart rate spiked immediately. She wouldn’t call during a planning session unless something was wrong. Wouldn’t interrupt unless it was important.
Unless it was Sebastian.
I answered, already standing, already moving away from the console toward a quieter corner of the room. “Barbara? Is everything okay? I thought you were having coffee with the girls.”
“I am. They’re here.” Her voice was shaking. Barely controlled. “But something happened. Something you need to know about.”
Every muscle in my body went rigid. “What happened?”
“Sebastian contacted me.” The words hit like bullets. “He sent me a message. A threat.”
The room around me disappeared. Timur, Drew, the screens—all of it faded into background noise as my entire focus narrowed to Barbara’s voice, to the fear I could hear beneath her attempt at control.
“What kind of threat?” I kept my voice deceptively calm, but my free hand had already clenched into a fist hard enough to make my knuckles white.
“He says I have forty-eight hours.” She took a shaky breath. “Forty-eight hours before he releases the video. Before he sends it to everyone—my father, your Bratva contacts, the media. Everyone.”
Forty-eight hours. Two days. The timeline snapped into sharp focus. The same timeline we’d been tracking. The same window before Sebastian made his next move.
He was escalating. Getting desperate. Which made him even more dangerous.
“I’m coming home. Right now.” The words came out as an order, not a suggestion. I was already heading for the exit, already calculating drive time. “Don’t go anywhere. Don’t respond to any more messages. Just stay there with the girls until I get back.”
“Kirill—”
“This time, Sebastian faces me.” I let the fury I’d been controlling seep into my voice. Let her hear the promise, the certainty, the absolute determination. “Not you. Me. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. We’re ending this. Today.”
I ended the call and turned back to find both Timur and Drew watching me with expressions of grim understanding.
“Sebastian?” Timur asked, already knowing the answer.
“He threatened Barbara. Forty-eight hours until he releases the video.” I moved back to the console, my mind shifting into combat mode. “We need to move now. Today. No more waiting for the Zetas to find him.”
“What do you need?” Drew was already reaching for his phone, ready to mobilize whatever resources I required.
“Everything.” I pulled up the map again, staring at the marked locations. “I want surveillance on every place he’s been. I want his burner phone numbers traced. I want facial recognition running on every security camera in a five-mile radius of his last known location.”
“Done.” Timur was already making calls, his voice dropping into that command tone that made people move faster.
I stared at the screens, at the digital trail Sebastian had left, at the net that was slowly tightening around him. He thought he was clever. Thought he could threaten Barbara, and I’d just accept it.
He’d forgotten one critical detail.
She wasn’t alone anymore. Wasn’t unprotected. Wasn’t facing him with nothing but fear and desperation.
