Page 17 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

That's an emergency itself.

I almost laugh.

You want me to come? Kathryn types fast.

For a second, I just stare at the message. She always offers before I ask, makes room before I fall apart.

Check in the morning, first thing, I type.

I walk to the hall closet, move the towels, and touch the strap of the go-bag hidden behind them. Clothes for Mikhail. Cash. Copies of papers. Granola bars he hates and eats anyway. A burner phone I pray I’ll never need. I tell myself this is because of Patrick and his friends with money and secrets. I tell myself it has nothing to do with a Russian man who left my bed five years ago and vanished before sunrise.

I check on Mikhail before I sit down to work. His face is soft in sleep, yet his body has a stillness no four-year-old should have. I see Dmitri in it. I hate myself for knowing exactly where it came from.

A knock hits the apartment door. My heart skids, once. Patrick would text first. Kathryn just told me to call her in the morning. I haven’t ordered anything. No neighbor would knock this late unless the building were flooding or on fire.

I know before I move. The knock can only be trouble. For four years, some part of me has been waiting for this sound.

I close Mikhail’s door carefully. In the hall, I pause before the front door. The knock comes again. Whoever is outside hasn’t come to ask if I feel like opening the lock.

I cross to the door and check the peephole. Three men stand outside my apartment. They don’t belong in my hallway. No loud voices, no cheap jackets, no shifting from foot to foot. Dark coats. Clean shoes. Hands placed where weapons can be reached fast. The man in front looks straight at the peephole, as if he knows I’m there.

Volkov.

It has to be. My stomach drops, then turns cold. I know the type before I recognize any face. Patrick once told me Volkov soldiers don’t pound on doors or buzz from downstairs. They arrive with building access, dead cameras, and the confidence of men who already own the ending.

He told me that six months ago in a café near my office, hunched over a latte he didn’t drink, wearing an expensive suit and the expression of a man being followed by his own bad judgment. Patrick rarely tells me about his business misadventures. He prefers to call them “temporary liquidity issues” because fraud sounds weird even with coffee. But that day, he kept checking the windows.

“They’re hounding me,” he said.

“Who?”

He rubbed his thumb over the rim of his cup until the paper sleeve tore. “Volkov.”

Now Patrick has just left, and these men have arrived on his heels.

I glance behind me. Mikhail’s bedroom door is closed, and the thin strip of darkness under it stays still. I open the front door with the chain on.

The man in front looks at the gap, then at me. “Cara O’Connell.”

I consider pretending I’m someone else, but I’m exhausted, and this man has crossed an ocean with my name in his pocket. Lying badly would insult both of us.

“Depends who’s asking.” I block the door with my foot and keep my voice rough on purpose, though my armpits have a whole other story to tell.

“You need to come with us.”

His face doesn’t move.

“No, see, I actually don’t. I have dishes in the sink, work on the table, and a kid sleeping down the hall, so you can take whatever drama this is and move somewhere else.”

I start closing the door.

His hand comes up and catches the edge before the chain can rattle. He just holds the door in place with three fingers, and it scares me to see he doesn’t need force at all. I look past the men.

The hallway is empty. No Mrs. Alvarez peeking through her door, no elevator ding. The dog at 4B is silent. The camera over the stairwell has no red light. They’ve cleaned the floor of witnesses.

“You’re disturbing a woman with a child at this hour,” I say. “I scream once, and every door on this floor opens.”

His eyes move down to my hand. My phone is there. My thumb finds the side button without looking. One press. Two. Three. The screen doesn’t light up or make a sound. Across town, Kathryn will get the message we made after Patrick’s second surprise visit last year.