Page 121 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

“Fear,” Cara says, arms folded tight. “He checked the money before he moved.”

Mikhail is asleep, Kathryn is with him, and Cara has every reason to be upstairs behind a closed door. She stands here instead, exhausted and pale, with fear riding her shoulders and Patrick’s pattern already moving behind her eyes. I could send her away, but my attention keeps coming back to the space beside me.

Oleg doesn’t go to a mistress, a safe apartment, or a bar. He walks four blocks in the wrong direction, waits under an awning, then gets into a car ordered by someone else. We know because Yuri finds the ride account two minutes later under a false name tied to an old logistics temp.

“Sloppy,” Dima says, watching the car move.

Abramov shakes his head. “Careful for a clerk. Bad for a professional.”

The car drops Oleg near a twenty-four-hour pharmacy. He goes inside and walks past medicine, baby formula, bandages, and cold remedies without buying anything. Inside, Oleg speaks to the night pharmacist. The man doesn’t ring up a sale. He passes Oleg a folded receipt instead. Five minutes later, a delivery truck blocks the alley camera.

Cara leans in. “Back exit.”

Yuri curses and pulls another feed. “I have him.”

Oleg keeps something in his wallet that looks like the folded receipt and comes out through the rear alley, his shoulders hunched and his head low.

“Is he running?” I ask.

Abramov studies the feed. “No. He’s looking for reassurance.”

Maksim, who has said nothing for ten minutes, sets his glass down. “Good. Follow the comfort.”

He pushes away from the table and looks at Cara. “You should rest.”

Cara turns to him. “With respect, no.”

Maksim’s mouth tilts a fraction. “That sounded like no respect.”

“My name is in the files,” she says, one hand tightening around the edge of the table. “My son was in the warning. I’m not leaving while the men look after the job.”

Maksim studies her, then looks at me. He gives a short nod and leaves. I say nothing because the decision was already made before she refused.

Oleg turns toward the old medical logistics district. He reaches a small freight office. The office handles medical forms, delivery notes, and customs fixes for companies that want to stay hidden. A man waits near the side entrance with a bag and an unlit cigarette.

Yuri freezes the image and enlarges the man’s face. “Document runner. Pavel Sidorin.”

Kirill checks the old notes. “Pavel Sidorin appears twice with New Harbor. First with the shipment. Now with the dinner delivery. Low level. He carries envelopes, small drives, and changed forms.”

Cara looks from one screen to the next. “Patrick still needs paper.”

Dima turns toward her. “For what?”

Cara rubs one hand over her wrist. “To keep the lie looking real. If Patrick moved money through New Harbor, Oleg, and the renovation shells, he needs papers that make every part look normal.”

Lena carried one of those parts without knowing it. Without those papers, New Harbor stops looking like charity work and starts looking like theft.

Kirill nods slowly. “And Morozov’s people need Patrick because he knows where the money went.”

Every man in the room turns to look at him.

Patrick is still alive because Morozov’s people need what he knows. He knows how to make Volkov look weak in public if we grab him first.

Morozov burned my family home to kill my parents. I was in Boston with Cara. Patrick saw enough, and later, he learned how to use Cara against me.

Morozov used my grief, my anger, and my need to punish someone. He wanted me to act fast and stupid, and he wanted Volkov weaker because of it.

My hand grips the edge of the table.