Page 155 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

Morozov doesn’t run.

Dima grabs him by the back of the coat and drives him against the gallery rail. “Hands.”

I raise my voice. “Hood him. Strip every device.”

Morozov gives Dima a faint smile. “You have become clerks.”

Dima slams his face into the metal. The smile disappears.

For one second, I want the fast answer. I want him dead.

“Hands,” Dima says again.

Maksim comes through the earpiece. “Bag every phone. Take every laptop.”

Gunfire cracks over the line. His voice breaks, then comes clean again. “Seize the hotel servers. Mark every Oak and Tron badge.”

“I want the whole building stripped clean,” he adds. “Pull every camera feed.”

Abramov repeats the orders on the ground. Men with Volkov badges move through offices. An Oak guard tries to argue near the reception doors until one of Ilya’s men turns him, takes his weapon, and puts him on his knees beside two Tron guards already wearing zip ties.

At the loading bay, Ilya’s people cut through the first row of clinic crates. Lids come off. Foam shifts. A man crouches beside the open wood and reads serial numbers into his phone while another photographs the labels before anyone can touch them.

The tech Roman shoved behind the half-built counter is already on his knees, tablet in one hand, cable pack open beside him. “I’ve got the lobby feed, side corridor feed, and lift camera mirrored,” he says, breath ripping through the words. “Give me thirty seconds, and I’ll pull the local recorder too.”

“Take twenty,” Abramov snaps.

Roman shoves a laptop bag across the floor to him. “Use this.”

The tech catches it against his knee and unzips it with shaking hands.

Roman looks him over. “You hit?”

“No,” the tech says, plugging in the first cable. “Your people told me to keep the camera alive, not die heroically in a hallway.”

“Good answer.” Roman grunts. “Don’t do heroic.”

“I do useful,” the tech says and keeps working.

I look toward the gallery. Morozov is on his knees now, one hand pressed to his shoulder, two Volkov guns trained on his head.

“Move him,” I say into the comms. “Service lane. No talking. Four men on him until he reaches the van.”

Dima answers at once. “Done.”

Morozov can’t be questioned here. Police can arrive. His people can start another cleanup. Every answer worth taking from him needs Volkov walls and doors that open only when we allow it.

I kneel beside Cara.

She’s crouched behind the admin counter, half shielded by the counter wall and a fallen stack of wrapped chair backs. Vera stands close to her with a gun in both hands, body angled toward the corridor and eyes moving between Cara, the lobby, and the service door.

Cara tries to stand before I touch her.

“I’m fine,” she says, then her heel slides on broken plastic.

I catch her by the elbow. “You’re shaking.”

“I said I’m fine,” she says, and her voice cracks on the last word. Her coat has fallen open. I pull it around her shoulders, and my fingers brush her hand. Mikhail’s blue car is clenched in her palm.