I'm alone again.
I've never heardSmokeas a code name. And him talking politely, makes it even scarier.
Dmitri
I stare at the laptop screen balanced on my knees. The red dot pulses. Steady. Unmoving.
"South on Kedzie," I say. "She's stopped moving."
Yuri accelerates. The SUV's engine roars.
Nico leans forward from the back seat. "Where exactly?"
I zoom in on the map. The dot sits in an industrial area. Warehouses. Factories. Most of them abandoned.
The location looks familiar.
Too familiar.
I zoom in further. Check the coordinates against my mental map of Baganov territory.
No.
"Dmitri?" Nico's voice cuts through my thoughts. "Where is she?"
I can't speak. Can't process what I'm seeing.
The red dot sits directly on top of one of my warehouses.
"This can't be right." I refresh the page. The dot doesn't move. "It's impossible."
"What?" Yuri glances at me. "What's impossible?"
"The tracker shows her at one of my warehouses." I refresh again. Same location. "One of ours."
Silence fills the SUV.
Then Nico speaks. His voice is cold. Deadly. "Someone's trying to set you up."
"No." I shake my head. "No one knows about that warehouse. We don't even use it anymore."
"Then why would they take her there?" Nico demands.
"I don't know." My hands tighten on the laptop. "I don't fucking know."
My phone buzzes. Pietro.
"We're mobilizing," he says without preamble. "Ten SUVs heading to the location now. Lorenzo's bringing more."
"Pietro—"
"If this is a trap, Baganov, if you had anything to do with?—"
"I didn't." The words come out harsh. Furious. "Someone's playing us. Both of us."
A pause. Then: "We'll see."
He hangs up.
