Page 38 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

Her free hand hits my chest. For one second, I think she means to shove me away. Then her fingers twist in my shirt, and she drags me down. The kiss is all teeth and anger at first. Cara kisses as if she wants to punish me with every year I left behind, and I take it. Some part of me has wanted her anger since the morning I left Boston.

My hand leaves her wrist and comes to her face. I hold her there. She makes a sound against my mouth, half protest, half demand, and the last disciplined part of me fractures. I turn her, backing her into the wall beside the door.

My body covers hers without pinning her, close enough to feel the tremor she hates me for noticing. Cara bites my lower lip.

Boston returns in pieces—her laugh in the elevator, her thighs around my hips, her mouth saying my name before the world caught fire. I tear myself back before memory becomes action.

Cara stays against the wall, breathing hard, eyes bright.

She looks at my mouth. “Still running?”

The question almost brings me back to her.

I walk to the door before I answer with something I can’t take back. “You don’t know what you’re asking me to explain.”

“No,” she says. “I know exactly what I asked. You’re the one running.”

I leave while she is still standing there, and the lock closes between us. Steel is easier to manage than her questions.

My quarters sit at the end of the north wing. The space is plain by Volkov standards. One window faces the inner courtyard, and across it, lights burn in the guest wing where Cara has been placed.

I remove my jacket, then my shoulder holster, and set both on the chair. My hands move through familiar tasks while my mind returns to Boston against my will. Patrick had been at the party that night, smiling hard, introducing his sister to men who could buy his life twice over. He didn’t watch Cara leave. At least, that was what he let me think. He looked busy, distracted, drunk on attention and proximity to power.

Was he?

I remember his eyes when she laughed with me, the way his smile held after she turned away. I remember my mother’s goodnight text, the choice to delay my flight, and the house in Moscow burning while I stood barefoot in a hotel kitchen with Cara asleep behind me.

A knock comes at my door. No guard announces it, which means one person. I open it, and Maksim walks in without waiting. He wears no coat now, only a dark shirt and trousers, and his face tells me he isn’t here for courtesy.

“Pakhan,” I say.

He moves past me and takes the chair near the desk.

“I don’t have long,” he says. “Elena is awake, and our son has decided night is for political protest.”

I almost smile.

Maksim sees it. “Morozov has always attacked pressure points.”

The smile dies.

“Years ago, he used fire and family,” Maksim says. “He wanted you emotional, fast, and stupid. He wanted you chasing smoke while he watched the routes.”

My hands stay flat on my knees.

For five years, I have followed ash through bank records, dead couriers, burned phones, altered manifests. Every trail ended the same way. A dead man. A missing signature. Another name wiped clean. The answers kept leading to paid silence. The proof always stopped short of Morozov’s hands.

“Patrick delivers Cara into the Blacklist, and Morozov’s channels start moving before she even reaches the estate,” Maksim says. “He’s asking you the same question again.”

“Whether I’ll move angrily,” I say.

Maksim’s eyes hold mine. “Whether you’ll move blindly.”

He gets up from the chair and stands before the window.

Cara’s lights are still on.

Maksim follows my gaze, then returns to me. “A fool would let him try the same door again.”