“You keep saying ‘handle.’” She meets my gaze. “What does that mean, specifically?”
“It means every path he uses to reach you gets closed before he reaches the end of it. His witnesses get briefed. His procedural shortcuts get anticipated. His personal history with you becomes the thing that contaminates the investigation instead of the thing that drives it.”
She considers that for a moment, then stands and takes her water glass back to the sink. She washes and rinses it, sets it on the drying rack, and walks back toward her room. Atthe doorway, she stops and looks at me. “Thank you for not pretending this is simple.”
I nod, and she keeps going. The guest room door closes a minute later, followed by a quiet click. She’s locked herself in, and I don’t take that personally.
I look at Viktor, who is watching me with concern. I can read his thoughts based on our years of friendship. He thinks I’m in too deep, and he’s right.
Viktor picks up his coffee, takes a slow sip, and sets it down. The pause is deliberate. “I need to ask you something, and I need an honest answer.”
I inhale and exhale slowly, bracing myself for him to call me on everything. That’s his job as my second and my friend. “Go ahead.”
“Are you still thinking clearly about her?”
I consider lying. The lie would be easy and would end this conversation before it becomes uncomfortable. Viktor would accept it because he trusts me, and we’d move on to the next problem. The temptation lasts about two seconds.
“I’m thinking clearly enough to know that she’s safer here than in a safehouse, that Eric Hayes could be a real threat that requires neutralizing if he won’t back off, and Karpov’s interest in Echelon employees makes her a target whether she stays with me or not.”
He doesn’t blink as he continues staring at me. “That’s not what I asked.”
“I know what you asked.” I set down my coffee. “I’m aware my judgment is compromised, and I’m compensating for it byrelying on yours. That’s why you’re here at four in the morning instead of sleeping.”
Viktor holds my gaze for three seconds, then nods once. The nod is acceptance more than agreement, which from him is as close to approval as I’m going to get. “Then we treat Eric Hayes as a priority.” He opens a new file on his tablet. “Grigor confirmed that Hayes volunteered for the Echelon investigation within hours. His lieutenant approved it because of his familiarity with the venue and its staff.”
“Prior familiarity.” I repeat the phrase with the contempt it deserves. “He has a prior relationship with a staff member he’s been harassing for months, and his department is treating that as a qualification instead of a conflict of interest.”
“The system protects its own.” Viktor shrugs. “Hayes will use the investigation to contact Aurora directly. Standard witness interview protocols give him legal justification to request her presence at the precinct, visit her home, and access her phone records.”
“He won’t find her at home.”
“No, but he’ll look. When he can’t find her, he’ll escalate. Her being a potential witness in a potential homicide investigation gives him expanded search authority when he realizes she’s missing, and Hayes already knows enough about Aurora’s routines to narrow the field.”
“He knows too much about her.” I try to tell myself it’s just a logistics concern, but a surge of jealousy calls me on the lie before I can try to believe it.
“She said they were together for two years. Obviously, he knows her apartment address, her work schedule, her vehicleregistration, and her known associates. His position of authority will let him learn anything he doesn’t already know through official channels. He’ll start with Marisol Cruz, who is Aurora’s closest friend and her most likely point of contact. If we don’t manage that relationship, Hayes will use Marisol to locate Aurora within a week.”
“Aurora said she needs to call Marisol.” I smile for a second, recalling Marisol also hates Eric Hayes. “She’ll block him as long as she can before he pulls legal moves.”
“Yes, so it’s important for Aurora to call her from a secure line to warn her and discuss strategy.” He taps a note into his tablet. “I’ll set up a clean device for her in the morning. In the meantime, we need Aurora’s legal exposure managed before Hayes starts pulling threads. She was an employee at the club, not a participant in anything Dominic was doing. Her work records are clean, her financial history is clean, and her only connection to the criminal activity is proximity.”
“She could be linked to me if anyone talks.”
Viktor inclines his head. “That’s why your legal team needs to establish Aurora’s departure from Echelon preceded Dominic’s disappearance by several hours, and she left Miami voluntarily for personal reasons unrelated to the club. I’d suggest we lay the groundwork now for when she’s linked to the investigation.”
“Can that hold?”
“It can hold long enough for us to handle Karpov and discredit Hayes. After that, the investigation collapses because the victim isn’t found, the evidence points to Karpov’s network, and the lead detective’s personal history with a key witness creates enough procedural contamination to bury the case.”
“Make that a priority then. Have Grigor create a digital trail that puts her on a bus or plane to somewhere else, leaving hours before Dominic’s sudden departure. Investigators and Karpov might assume she’s rendezvousing with him somewhere, but that keeps them from looking for her in Miami.”
Viktor makes notes. Then he stops writing and looks up. “There’s something else you need to know.”
I wait.
“The recordings Dominic made didn’t just capture your meetings. Grigor hasn’t fully untangled them all yet, but the recordings go back months. They capturedeverythingthat happened in those rooms…” He trails off with a pointed look.
I bite back a curse. “Everything, including our…meeting earlier tonight?”
