A bump where there shouldn't be one, under the reinforced base panel. Taped inside, flat against the fabric like a parasite.
A small black box.
A tracker.
My fingers go cold.
Maksim limps around the truck to my side.
"How long?" he asks.
"I don't know." My voice is flat. "It could've been there before the first attempt or planted at the tower or the estate."
Maksim's jaw tightens.
"So he didn't need someone inside your circle," he says. "He just needed this."
"And I carried it for him," I say. The words taste like bile. "Right into my contingency. Like a gift."
The restaurant. The convoy. The way the net tightened at the exact wrong moments.
I crush the tracker in my fist until the plastic cracks, then throw it into the trees.
It disappears into the dead leaves.
"That explains the lake house," Maksim says. "But the tower breach—codes, authentication."
I nod.
"Insurance," I say. "If one method fails, he has another. He's been building redundancy into this."
Maksim's mouth tightens. "Which means we don't know the rest."
"No. We don't."
I shove the bag back into the truck and climb behind the wheel.
I drive again—this time with a different kind of anger in my chest. Not rage. Clarity.
By the time we reach the outskirts of a small town, the sky has shifted toward late afternoon. Gray clouds gather low.
We need a place that doesn't care about us. A place that doesn't ask.
A motel doesn't ask.
I pay cash. Room at the far end.
Inside: two beds, thin blankets, a bathroom that smells like bleach trying to mask mildew.
It's ugly. It's safe enough.
Maksim lowers himself onto the nearest bed with a controlled exhale. His bandage has bled through at one edge again.
"We can't stay long," he says.
"One night. We let your leg rest. We make a plan that isn't built on digital proof."
He watches me.
