Mikhail’s instinct has kept me alive for twelve years. I trust it.
And yet…
I check the time in the corner of the screen: 3:18 p.m. The interviews were scheduled to begin at two. Four candidates, fifteen to twenty minutes each. They should be wrapping up.
The intercom buzzes. Alexei’s voice, clipped.
“We have a problem.”
I don’t take my eyes off the screen. “Define it.”
“Warehouse seven. The one on Kedzie. Hit twenty minutes ago. Two men down. Ivan’s in surgery at Northwestern, a bullet through the shoulder. Pasha took shrapnel to the face, but he’ll keep his eyes. Inventory’s untouched.”
“They didn’t take anything?”
“Nothing. It was a message. I’ll be at the office in thirty.”
I hang up.
Half an hour later, we’re both in my office. Alexei’s face is the same flat terrain it always is, but the set of his jaw tells me the message was received clearly.
“Albanians?”
“Signature matches. Same entry pattern as the port job three weeks ago. Same surveillance blind spots. Which means?—”
“They have our security rotations.” I calmly finish. “Someone inside is still feeding them information.”
“But Viktor is dead.”
“Viktor was the courier. Not the source.” I stand and button my jacket. “He was a logistics man. He had access to manifests and schedules, not security rotations. Whoever gave theAlbanians our warehouse layout has access to operational security. That’s a shorter list.”
Alexei nods. I can see the names already cycling behind his eyes, the mental roster of people with that level of clearance. It’s a list of six.
“Pull the security logs for the past ninety days,” I command. “Every access point, every login, every camera that went down for maintenance. Cross-reference with the timeline of Albanian intelligence. And increase the perimeter rotation at every property, not just the warehouses. The estate, too.”
“The estate?”
“If they know our warehouse layouts, they know where I live. They know about Anya.”
The name changes the air in the room.
Alexei’s jaw tightens. He’s known my daughter since the day she was born. Stood outside the hospital room while Katarina bled out. Held the door while I walked out carrying a baby so small and so perfect that the world was different on the other side.
He doesn’t love many things, but he loves Anya.
“I’ll double the team tonight,” he agrees. “And Rolan, the tutor candidates. If we’re tightening security, having a new person in the house?—”
“I know, I’ll talk to Mikhail soon.”
He nods and leaves the office.
I open the security application. A custom build. Encrypted, accessible only from my device and Mikhail’s. The live feeds from the estate populate in a grid. Sixteen cameras cover almost every angle.
The camera in the waiting room, where the interview is taking place, shows an empty room. Chairs neatly arranged. Water pitcher untouched. The candidates are gone.
Good. Done.
I’m about to close the app when a movement catches myeye. Camera nine in the main living room. The feed is sharp, high-resolution, and angled from the upper corner to capture the full breadth of the room.
