Page 24 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

“Did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That Patrick put me there.”

“Yes.”

“Before your men came to my apartment?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know it was me?”

I make myself hold her gaze. “Yes.”

Her face changes again, and this one cuts deeper because she understands the rest without help. I came personally. I could have sent any soldier, any handler, any man with instructions and a plane, yet I chose to stand at the end of those stairs and watch her walk down to me.

“Operationally necessary?” she asks.

Old Cara lives inside that question. The woman from Boston, using sarcasm because the alternative is letting me see the wound.

“Yes.”

Liar.

She gives a small nod. “Right. Blacklist entry. Attachments. Transfer authorization. Very tidy words for selling a person.”

Before I can answer, the door opens. Abramov steps in with a sealed packet and a younger soldier behind him. The soldier is new and he looks at Cara first. His gaze stops on her mouth before he remembers I’m in the office.

Abramov sees it and gets older in the face.

He sets the packet in front of me. “Updated pull from Patrick’s channels. Boston is messy. He scrubbed badly in two places.”

“Leave it.”

The younger soldier shifts the papers in his hands. “Do you want the authorized subject moved to the holding wing after this?”

Cara flinches when I stand.

He loses color before I take one step.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Vasin.”

“Vasin, leave the office.”

He swallows. “I only meant to ask where she goes.”

“Now.”

Abramov grabs him by the back of his jacket and hauls him out before I decide to do it myself. The door shuts behind them, and for several seconds, neither Cara nor I speaks.

“What happens to him?” she asks.

“He learns.” I pour water from the jug on the side table and set the glass near her hand.

“From your lieutenant?”