“We have new intel,” I respond. “Sokolov operations in Seattle are active. Ray is not hiding in a hole. He is moving. Moving leaves a trace.”
Anya narrows her eyes a little. “What kind of trace?”
“The docks. Storage yards near the freight line. A shell company that went dormant years ago is suddenly alive again. We have eyes on three locations already. My men are following up on every lead.”
“Have you told her that?”
“Not yet.”
“Why?” she asks quietly.
Because I refuse to walk into that room and tell Sage we are close unless close means I can put her sister in front of her, alive and breathing. Because hope is a double-edged weapon, and I have seen it cut deeper than despair when it is offered and then ripped away.
Instead of saying any of that, I say the only thing I can. “Because I need more than scraps before I ask her to believe me.”
“Scraps are better than nothing,” Anya replies. “Especially when nothing is all she has had for days.”
Her words land exactly where she wants them to. I feel them lodge under my ribs.
“Pakhan.”
We both turn at the sound of Misha’s voice. He approaches from the far end of the corridor, phone in hand, and expression tight. He inclines his head to my sister, then to me.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he says. “I need a word. Privately.”
Anya lifts the tray slightly in his direction. “Bring him back in one piece. I need him to face Sage at some point today.”
Misha huffs a humorless sound. “I will do my best.”
She moves away toward the staircase, and I follow Misha in the opposite direction. Vega rises and pads silently at my heel.
We cut through a sitting room, past a wall of glass that looks out over the water, and into Isaak’s study. The room smells faintly of old paper, whisky, and memories I am not in the mood to examine. Heavy shelves line the walls, and Isaak’s desk waits near the windows, polished to a shine that reflects the light from the overcast sky.
Misha closes the door behind us. Vega curls up near it with his head on his paws.
“What is it,” I ask.
“We got something back from Colorado,” Misha says. He moves to the desk and sets his phone down. “From the cabin.”
My shoulders go rigid. “And?”
Misha exhales, the kind of breath he only uses when something is off. “Someone accessed your laptop,” he says. Not through a network. On-site, in the cabin. They plugged in, broke through the surface layer, and downloaded a set of archived folders.”
A cold pulse moves through me. That machine is mine alone. “What did they take?” The question scrapes out harsher than I mean it to. I want to trust my men, every one of them, but trust is a fragile thing in our world, and any man can fail when pressure tilts the ground beneath him.
“That’s the problem,” Misha answers. “The files taken weren’t useful. Old routes. Old contacts. Irrelevant scraps. Whoever did it knew how to get in, but what they pulled doesn’t line up with motive.”
My jaw clenches. “Dig further,” I tell him. “Someone touched what they should not have. Find out who, and why.”
“That is not all,” Misha goes on. “There is movement on the other side.”
He reaches for his phone, swipes the screen, then turns it toward me. It shows a live map of Seattle. Pinpoints of red are scattered along the waterfront and up near the freight line.
Misha explains, “Kolya has teams watching every Sokolov-linked property. One of their old shell companies just came back online. It is not a main pipeline. It looks like a small, throwaway operation they would use for short-term holding. The kind of place you would move people you do not want seen.”
My gaze tracks one of the brighter red dots pulsing near the edge of an industrial yard. “Tell me where.”
“South Dock 32,” he says. “Perimeter cameras picked up a dark van arriving just after midnight last night. Covered plates. Two men. They unload something from the back. Two people, actually. Small. One walking under their own power. One carried.”
