Page 30 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

“I know.”

I cup the phone closer. “Tell him I’m handling a very boring adult problem.”

“You and boring don’t make a rendezvous.”

“That’s fair.”

Kathryn breathes through her nose. “Can he talk to you?”

Hope comes so fast, it hurts. I look at Dmitri. He shakes his head once. The suite narrows to him, the phone. My child is safe, but I can’t hear his voice because the man who left me is deciding which pieces of my life I get to touch.

“Cara?” Kathryn says.

Dmitri’s face stays set.

I cover the phone. “There's a child on the line,” I tell Dmitri. “He’s four.”

“No.” His voice stays flat. “A child’s voice gives men a target. Age, routine, attachment. One wrong word, and someone knows where to press.”

“You don’t get to decide this.”

“I do.”

He’s right. The cruelty almost drops me. I hate him so much, I can feel it in my teeth.

I uncover the phone. “Not now.”

Kathryn goes silent.

“I’m sorry,” I add, and the words are for her, for Mikhail, and for the mother in me who should have outrun this before it reached his bed.

“I’ve got him,” Kathryn says. “You hear me? I’ve got him.”

“I know.”

“Come back.”

I look at Dmitri. “I’m working on it.”

The call ends when Dmitri takes the phone with finality.

For a few seconds, I can’t speak. My body wants to fold while my mind stays upright with a clipboard and starts making lists. Kathryn safe. Mikhail fed. Patrick missing. Dmitri armed. Phone controlled. Laptop gone. Son hidden. That’s the only piece of victory I have, and it’s so small, I could crush it in my fist.

Dmitri sets the phone on the desk. “You understand why I refused.”

“I understand that you can make anything sound reasonable if you drain enough humanity out of it.”

His eyes harden. “Humanity won’t protect him.”

The word slams between us.

Him.

Every muscle locks. Did I say anything wrong? Did Kathryn? Did he guess? No. No, he means a child. Kathryn’s child, maybe. A general him. A civilian risk. I force my face back into place.

“You don’t know anything about him,” I say.

“No,” Dmitri says. “I know men like Patrick.”