Page 97 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

“Mama?” he says, wet and angry and scared.

I make my voice soft, the same voice I use for fevers and nightmares and monsters under the bed. Tears run freely down my face.

“Hi, baby.”

“Are you still on your work trip?” Mikhail sniffs hard.

I press my nails into my palm. “Yes. Kathryn is taking care of you for me.”

“Bad guys coming?” Mikhail asks, and his little voice drops on the last word.

“No, baby.” I keep my voice normal, and Dmitri goes still across the table. “Grown-ups are handling a grown-up problem. You hold your red car and listen to Kathryn.”

Mikhail cries once. “When are you coming back?”

My chest hurts so badly, I almost fold over it. “Soon.”

Dmitri doesn’t interrupt or ask for the phone. That restraint cuts deeper than any claim he could make.

Kathryn takes the phone back when Mikhail starts crying again. “Cara, where do I take him?”

“You stay with the men until I call again,” I tell her, wiping my face with the back of my wrist. “Keep him close. Don’t let anyone separate you.”

The call ends when the vehicle pulls into an underground garage. For a few seconds, only the monitors speak.

Then Dmitri turns to me.

“When did you find out?”

The question goes exactly where I knew it would.

I look at the Boston clock. “After you left.”

Dmitri’s voice drops. “Why didn’t you contact me?”

A laugh breaks out of me, small and wrong. “With what?”

His face stills.

“You left no note, no number, no promise,” I say, and the words come easier once they start cutting. “I woke up alone in that hotel room. And I had no idea if I’d ever see you again.”

Dmitri turns as if he’s about to say something, then stops. His shirt pulls at his side, and the black wolf over his ribs flashes into view. I know that body. I know how careful he can be with it, and I know how much damage he could do if he stopped holding back.

“I could maybe have reached you through Patrick,” I say, looking straight at him. “Patrick was already the wrong man to trust, even before I knew how wrong. I wasn’t handing my baby to a brother who smiled while asking for favors.”

Dmitri says nothing.

The Boston lead comes back through the speakers. “Temporary safehouse reached. Walsh refuses to let the child leave her sight. Child won’t answer male staff. Keeps asking to go home.”

Dmitri turns at once. “Men stay back from the door. Weapons hidden. Food where he can see it, no one hovering.”

He looks at me.

“Toast,” I say, forcing my voice to stay steady. “Banana slices. Plain yogurt if you have it. Water in a small cup. No glass.”

Abramov’s deputy types fast.

I add, “And pancakes if someone can make them. Small ones. No syrup unless Kathryn says yes.”