She stilled. Her fingers hovering over the raised dots.
"My notes," she said carefully. "From the restaurant. The things I've heard."
I'd forgotten about her notes.
"Raven—"
"You said we have to find the real leak." She turned toward me. "So I've been going through everything I remember. Cataloging who said what, when. Looking for patterns. Inconsistencies."
"I can't believe you fucking wrote it down." My voice came out flat.
"In Braille. Viktor can't read it."
"But the Feds can. If they ever raid this place?—"
"They won't. Why would they?" She stood and came to me. "This is me helping, Milo. I have months and months of conversations in my head. If someone's leaking, maybe I heard something that will point us to them."
She didn't understand. Couldn't see the trap she'd built for herself.
If Viktor found this notebook, it wouldn't matter that she wasn't feeding the Feds. The fact that she'd been recording it at all would be enough. Evidence that she'd been cataloging their operations. That the blind pianist had been a spy all along.
"Burn it," I said.
"What?"
"Burn the notebook. Tonight. Now." I grabbed her shoulders. "You can't have physical evidence, Raven. If Viktor finds this?—"
"He won't?—"
"You don't know that!" The words came out too loud. Too desperate. "You can't predict when he'll decide to search your apartment. When he'll send someone to toss this place while you're at work. And if they find this—" I shook her. "They'll kill you. And I won't be able to stop them."
Silence.
Then she pulled away from me. Walked to the table, grabbed the notebook and gave it to me.
"What now?" she asked quietly.
"Now we keep looking." I pulled her against me. "And we hope we find something before Viktor's deadline."
***
Day six.
One day left.
I'd torn Viktor's organization apart from the seams looking for the real leak, and I had nothing.
I'd tailed soldiers on their routes. Sat outside warehouses in the dark, watching who came and went and when. Ran plate numbers through a contact who owed me for a cleanup I'd done pro bono. Checked for burner phones, unusual patterns, nervous habits. I'd watched every man in Viktor's crew, looking for the stain that didn't belong.
Nothing.
Not a single crack in the wall. Not one soldier making calls at odd hours. Not one too-casual deflection when Viktor brought up the intercepted shipments. Either the real leak was a ghost, or Viktor was fucking with me.
Or the leak was sitting in a dark apartment a few miles east of here, with a head full of Bratva secrets she'd been hoarding for two years.
I shoved that thought into the same locked box where I kept my father's voice and every other thing that I couldn't allow to breathe.
She wasn't the leak.
