Dmitri appeared at my elbow. “Very impressive. Both of you.”
“Thanks.” I grabbed my water bottle and finished half of it.
In the locker room, Troy grabbed my arm and pulled me aside while Dmitri made a point of being busy elsewhere.
“That was the hottest thing I've ever experienced,” Troy said, low enough that it was just for me.
“Sparring?”
“Fighting you. Seeing what you can actually do. Feeling you push back.” His eyes were dark and focused in the way they got when he'd made a decision. “I want to do that again.”
“Yeah.” I pulled him in and kissed him despite the fact that we were both sweat-soaked and probably disgusting. “Me too.”
When we pulled apart, Dmitri was watching us from across the room with undisguised amusement and not even pretending he hadn't been.
TWENTY
PAPER TRAIL
TROY
Two days after the sparring session, Declan's ribs were still making him pay for it. He hadn't said so, but I could see it in the way he moved in the morning, the careful angle he used to get out of bed, the breath he held when he thought nobody was watching. He'd gone to the rehab center anyway. He'd gone to training anyway. Because that was Declan, and asking him to stop moving was like asking the city to stop making noise.
I was starting to understand that about him. It didn't make it easier to watch.
Now he was gone again and I was stuck here, trapped in the house with three dangerous people planning strategy while I felt like the one person not allowed to actually do anything.
Luka had taken over the dining table completely. His laptop was open and papers were spread across every available inch in an organized chaos that probably made perfect sense to him and looked like madness to everyone else. Financial records, surveillance footage stills, phone logs printed out and highlighted in three different colors. He'd been at it for six hours straight with a focused intensity that made my skull ache just watching.
Ash sat beside him, quieter but no less absorbed. He had his own tablet and was cross-referencing the data against databases I didn't have access to. Every few minutes he'd say something too low for me to catch and Luka would nod or type something new or pull up another file.
Dmitri occupied the couch with his laptop balanced on his knees and his phone perpetually at his ear. He cycled through contacts in Russian, then Ukrainian, then back to English depending on who he was talking to. Security updates, information requests, coordination with people whose names I didn't know and probably didn't want to.
I stood near the window drinking cold coffee and trying not to lose my fucking mind.
“The shell company was registered in Delaware three months ago,” Luka said, not to me but just speaking out loud while he worked. “Filed under a name that traces back to a PO box in Nevada. The address doesn't exist. The filing agent used a burner phone that's been inactive for two months.”
“A dead end?” Ash asked.
“Not quite. The company moved money. Significant amounts. And money always leaves traces.” Luka pulled up what looked like banking records. “Four wire transfers in the past six weeks. All to different accounts. All withdrawn as cash within seventy-two hours.”
“Payment for services rendered,” Dmitri said from the couch. “This is how professionals get paid when they don't want a paper trail.”
“Except there is a paper trail.” Luka zoomed in on one of the transfers. “The withdrawals happened at three different banks, but the surveillance footage from all three locations shows the same person making them.”
“You have the footage?” I asked. Couldn't help it. Needed to know we were getting somewhere instead of just spinning in circles.
Luka turned his laptop so I could see. Grainy security camera footage from inside a bank. A figure approaching the teller with a hat pulled low, sunglasses on, jacket collar turned up. Classic moves for someone who knew they were being recorded. But the build was familiar. The breadth of the shoulders, the way they moved.
“This is from the first withdrawal,” Luka said. “Two weeks after the attacks started. The person used forged credentials and walked out with fifty thousand in cash.”
“Can you enhance the image? Get a better look at the face?”
“Already tried. The resolution won't give us more than approximate height and build.” Luka switched to another image. “But we have this.”
The new footage showed the same figure leaving the bank and walking toward the parking lot. They mounted a motorcycle. Black sport bike, expensive, and instantly recognizable.
My pulse kicked up. “That's him. The one who jumped me in the alley.”
