Page 99 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

“I don’t want him stepping out of a car into a firing line.”

Across the control center, Elena lifts her head from the tablet in her lap. She has been sitting with Maksim for the last hour, wrapped in a pale robe, hair tied back, face tired from last night in the control center and the baby’s broken sleep.

“You’re making the fortress look less like one,” she says, setting the tablet aside.

I look at her. “I’m reducing visible pressure.”

Her mouth curves, but she doesn’t smile fully. “That’s a very serious way to say you don’t want to scare him.”

Maksim leans against the table and watches me over the rim of his cup. “You reorganized part of my estate overnight for a four-year-old.”

“I addressed security concerns.”

Maksim lowers the cup. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Elena stands before I can answer. “Enough,” she says, touching Maksim’s sleeve as she passes him. “Mikhail has lost his home, his schedule, school, and every familiar sound around him. He doesn’t need another commander waiting at the door. He needs calm.”

I look back at the map. Calm is not something I have ever been asked to give a child. I have given men orders, fear, pain, exits, and warnings. Calm feels hopelessly ridiculous and even dangerous.

Elena steps beside me. “The small sitting area in the north wing can be made ready for now. Not a full playroom. That would feel staged. A low table, a few chairs, paper, crayons, books, water, food. Somewhere Cara and he can sit and play.”

I nod once.

Elena studies me. “Stand back when he arrives.”

My hand closes on the table edge. “I won’t touch him unless he asks.”

“That isn’t all I mean.” Elena glances at the aircraft icon. “Don’t make your fear his job.”

The words go deeper than expected. I say nothing.

Elena accepts that as the best answer I can give. She turns toward the door. “I’ll find Mrs. Wentworth.”

I leave the control center long enough to check the north-wing entrance, the family corridor, and the sitting area Elena chose. Cara stays behind with the screens. She hasn’t been out of the control room for longer than five minutes since the flight left Boston.

By seven, the estate has changed. Breakable vases disappear from the receiving hall. Hard-cornered tables are moved back. A thick rug covers the polished floor near the north-wing entrance. The guards are still there, but none of them stand where Mikhail will see them first.

Mrs. Wentworth directs all of it without raising her voice.

“Not that chair,” she says, pointing with two fingers while a footman moves quickly. “Children climb. Put it against the wall.”

Lidiya comes out of the kitchenette with folded blankets in her arms and nearly runs into me.

“Pancakes?” she asks, breathless.

I frown. “What?”

“For child,” Lidiya says, clutching the blankets. “American pancakes? Russian blini? Both?”

For a second, I think of Cara and how she’d hear the question.

“Both,” I reply, shaking my head.

Lidiya nods as if I have passed some test and hurries away.

When I return to the control center, another transport update comes in, and Cara stands before anyone finishes speaking. The aircraft is close enough to land now, and every delay feels personal. Then Moscow holds the landing clearance for twenty minutes, and her hand closes around the back of a chair until her knuckles pale.

When the final airfield transfer confirms, she crosses the control center twice, then stops, looking blank. I watch without speaking.