"Stay exactly where you are. Don't move."
"Okay."
Hartley's voice cuts through the earpiece, "Connor. I wanted to personally assure you that the shipment's secure. After everything with Morrison, I know trust needs rebuilding."
Connor's voice comes carefully. "You drove here to tell me something you could've said over the phone?"
"In the past, Morrison dealt with you directly while I handled the background work. After his passing, meeting at the docks felt crucial. And today, coming here in person, it's about rebuilding that same foundation. Trust requires presence, not phone calls."
Face-to-face contact creates psychological bonds that encrypted communications can never match. It's how criminal networks survived before technology made everyone lazy and traceable.
"Just me," Hartley continues. "No intermediaries. No buffers. I want you to know I can be trusted, and I'll take all responsibility if something happens to the shipment."
I catch Fee's sharp inhale through the comm.
"Appreciate that," Connor says, his voice slower now, testing him. "Though showing up at a hospital's an odd choice for trust building."
"I heard about Mrs. Carlucci." Hartley doesn't miss a beat.
Forty-five minutes suddenly feels like forty-five years.
Silence.
"Moira's stable," Connor's voice says. "They're monitoring her."
"Thank God," Hartley answers.
The speedometer climbs past ninety as Alexei weaves through traffic. Every lane change is calculated, every gap exploited.
My phone vibrates against my thigh.
Dimitri.
"Anton, I got some information."
I straighten in my seat. Dimitri doesn't call unless the information is crucial.
"Go on."
"Girl named Tasha. High-end escort. Says Hartley used to call her three, sometimes four times a week. Same pattern for eight months. Then nothing."
"When did the calls stop?"
"Three weeks ago. Exactly." Dimitri pauses, and I hear traffic behind him. He's mobile. Still hunting.
Three weeks. Right when Morrison got snatched. Right when this whole operation started accelerating.
"She waited," Dimitri continues. "Gave him space. But after three weeks, curiosity won. She stopped by his brownstone yesterday afternoon."
My hand tightens around the phone.
"And?"
"He answered the door. Looked at her like she was a stranger trying to sell him religion." Dimitri's voice drops lower. "Didn't recognize her. Not her face, not her name, nothing. Told her he had company and shut the door."
"She's sure it was him?"
"She said it was him." Dimitri exhales hard. "But she swears something was off. She thought maybe he found a girlfriend."
