Ray’s voice crackles through the burner on speaker, sharp and efficient like he’s reading off a police blotter.
“Guy matching Viktor’s description checked into a motel off Tropicana. Security footage puts him there around 4 AM. He hasn’t come out since. Looks like he’s sitting tight.”
Of course he is. Rat hole like that, he thinks he’s invisible.
Ray keeps talking: front desk clerk paid in cash, plates on the car traced to some fake ID, room rented under a name that doesn’t exist. It’s fast work, even for him. Means Viktor’s slipping. Means we can actually catch this son of a bitch before he vanishes into the desert.
I should be strategizing. I should be sketching the entry points in my head, counting the access points, figuring out how many men it’ll take to box Viktor in so he doesn’t wriggle back into Timofey’s pocket.
Instead, my phone buzzes.
Screen lights up. One message.
Bank Girl:Going to get cat food. Back soon.
I stare at the words like they’re written in a language I don’t understand.
What the fuck?
She’s supposed to be upstairs. Safe. Breathing my air, not out there where Timofey’s rats or Caleb’s thugs could get lucky and end her before I can stop it.
I set the phone face down on my thigh, make myself look back at the windshield. Dima’s driving, eyes locked forward. Across the median, Lev rolls in on the bike, kills the engine, and props it on the curb, helmet hanging off one wrist like the street belongs to him. Boris is in the passenger seat ahead of me, hunched over two phones, thumbs moving, scanning plates, cameras, whatever backdoor feed he’s bribed open today.
I should say something. Orders. Focus. Anything.
But all I can see is Mary, walking out the door, sunlight on her hair, head tilted the way she does when she’s second-guessing herself. Alone.
My jaw aches. I unclench it only to feel it tighten again.
Ray keeps talking. “If we move quick, we can hit him before sundown. But if he smells us coming, he’ll bolt. You’ve got one clean shot at this, Anton. One.”
I don’t answer.
Because I’m thinking about the bracelet on her wrist. The watch I made her wear. She texted, which means she knows I can hear her if I want to. Knows I can track her.
Chert,a flicker in my chest. Sharp. Irritating. Like someone put a match too close to a fuse I didn’t authorize.
“Boss?” Dima’s voice. Careful. “You with us?”
“I’m listening.”
I should be locked in. Viktor Kozlov is three hundred yards away, the ghost we’ve been chasing for weeks, the one I need to drag back bleeding if I want Igor off my neck.
My hand presses hard against my knee, like pain will keep me honest.
She’s bait, Anton. Just bait. Not the girl you keep thinking about when you should be hunting Kozlov.
Not mine.
Not my problem.
Except her laugh won’t leave my head. The way she tilted her chin at lunch, soft teeth catching her lip like she was surprised at herself. The sound of it—unguarded, quick, and gone before I could decide what the hell it did to me.
And my gut… my gut says if I leave her alone, I’ll regret it. The same gut that’s kept me alive for nineteen years in this business.
“Give me the tablet,” I tell Boris suddenly.
He hands it over, confusion creasing his forehead. I swipe to the GPS tracking app and enter Mary’s bracelet code. The map loads slowly, showing a blue dot in the middle of Vegas.
