Page 60 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

So do I.

He looks unfair in black.

Rougher this morning, with no sleep left on his face and all his control back in place. His shirt pulls across his chest and shoulders. His sleeves are rolled up, and his forearms are bare, all muscle and veins, with those big hands resting near the chair he pulled out for me.

I stare at him for one second too long.

After yesterday, I should be thinking about Patrick and the archive. Instead, I’m thinking about his hands, and that is a terrible idea.

His eyes meet mine. Blue. Guarded. Then his control slips just enough for me to see he noticed.

My face heats. Then my neck. Then the warmth slips lower, because some part of me remembers him before I’m ready to.

I look back at the screens before my body starts making choices I can’t explain later.

A man with hard green eyes stands near the screens with his arms folded.

Dmitri talks to him. “Abramov, status on the gate feeds?”

“Clean so far,” the man says. His eyes move to me once, then back to Dmitri.

Yuri sits at a side station with a terminal ready. His hair looks worse than yesterday, which takes real commitment. A second screen waits beside his keyboard, and a notes panel sits open in one corner.

He watches me as if he hasn’t decided whether I’m here to help, break something, or make his day longer.

I stop behind the chair. “So this is the kid table.”

Yuri glances at Dmitri before answering. “You can read the files and search them. You can write notes in that box. The notes stay on this machine. I can see what you type from my screen.”

He points to the side of the terminal. “The machine isn’t connected to the internet, outside drives won’t work, and copying is locked unless I approve it.”

“So I get a pencil in a padded room.” I cast a quick look at Dmitri.

Yuri’s mouth twitches. “A very expensive pencil.”

Dmitri’s gaze cuts to him, and Yuri discovers a fresh love for his keyboard. I sit in the chair Dmitri pulled out for me and don’t argue.

Abramov steps forward with a folder in one hand. His team must have worked all night. His shirt is fresh, but his eyes look tired.

“First target is Evan Mercer.”

My fingers stop on the chair arm.

Dmitri watches me, so I make my face go blank. Blank is safer than showing him I’m thinking about Kathryn and Mikhail in Boston.

“Kathryn’s boyfriend,” Abramov says. “We found a contact pattern between Mercer and Patrick O’Connell. Mercer’s messages were wiped from his side.”

My mouth goes dry.

“Kathryn has nothing to do with this,” I say, and the words come out faster than I mean them to.

Dmitri pulls the chair beside mine and sits close enough that I feel him there without looking. “Nobody is accusing Kathryn.”

“You say that, and then you open a file anyway.”

Petrov stands near the freight map with two pages in his hand. “Files are how we follow dead men and missing money.”

I turn to him. “Lovely.”