Page 63 of Baby for My Ex’s Dad

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THEA

I light the study fire before the sun is up. The smell of it is the only thing that settles my stomach anymore, and my stomach was a beast last night. It’s not that great this morning, either.

Maxim’s in the city. He kissed my forehead at five, already in a suit, and somewhere behind his own eyes. “Stay inside today.”

“What? Why⁠—”

“Lev is picking me up. We’re finalizing things at the pier. I’ll call at noon.”

“Why am I grounded, Max?”

He sighed. “Not grounded. But there are many trees around the fenceline. A forest near the rear of the property. Too many places for a sharpshooter to perch.”

I audibly gulped. “Oh.”

“The pier is the trickiest time of this, so I ask that you remain inside until that is settled.”

“Why wouldn’t he have done this before?” I hesitated to explain what “this” means because I couldn’t say it out loud.

“Because if I’m off my game before the pier, it does him no good. If I’m off my game during the pier⁠—”

“Then he has an easier time of fucking with you.”

He nodded. “Da.” Then he kissed my forehead again. “Inside, bratty girl.”

I nodded and watched him walk away, and now, I find myself holding my arms as a poor imitation of Maxim when he wraps his arms around me from behind. Still, it’s a comfort. I’m even wearing his house cardigan because it smells like him.

So, I’m in love. It happens.

That’s the only way I can think about him, though. It’s love. It has to be. No one has ever felt like home to me. Not the way Max does.

He’s even warmed up to Potato, who has returned the favor. My cat gave him a leg weave yesterday that perplexed Max until he understood what it meant. He’s Potato’s family now, whether he wants to be or not. I’m pretty sure he wants to be, considering the amount of petting that followed.

Back to work.

I spread everything across the desk, every manifest and intercept and note. They’re half-truths and bald-faced lies and bits of real truth hidden in code. I don’t trust a single word of any of it, but that’s why I’m going over it all again. Decoding.

Something nagged me all night, which might have had something to do with my stomach’s rumblings. The port intel. Lev’s certainty about this going down at the ribbon cutting.

It’s clean, when nothing else about this has been.

Every arrow points at that pier. The invitation list. The dais. A day ripe for a bloodbath… It all feels too easy. Too obvious.

Real information comes in fragments and whispers. Things that almost fit but don’t. It takes work to put it together.

This came gift-wrapped, with a bow on top. It rubs me the wrong way.

Maybe the real clue isn’t what it says, but why it says it. When it was said. And by whom.

I follow the sourcing through the chain that Lev relied on to build his confidence. It takes me about an hour and two cups of the decaf I don’t really enjoy. Potato moves twice. The fire dies down, so I feed it and keep going.

Then I find the routing. And the routing is wrong.

A transshipment code is embedded in the confirmation string, indicating the container’s route from one port through a hub to another terminal. However, the hub and terminal are swapped, with two fields transposed, causing the entire route to appear reversed if mapped out—even though most people don’t verify the routing code order.

I’ve fixed this error before. I corrected it twice for Klaus—once on a Rotterdam filing and once on the Antwerp reroute—saying, “You did the codes backward again.”