"Victor," she says.
"I know," I say.
"This doesn't solve anything," she says.
"I know that too," I say, and I lean down, and she tilts her chin up, and we are two seconds away from the thing we keep arriving at and then leaving, and then her eyes go past my shoulder to the window, and everything in her face changes.
I feel it before she says anything — present to alert in a single breath, the shift from the warmth of the last thirty seconds to something cold and focused and operational. I turn.
The window of the apartment looks out onto the street below. The angle is partial — the building's position and the window's placement give a limited sightline to the sidewalk on the far side — but it is enough. It is enough to see the man in the dark coat on the corner across the street, the one who is not doing anything that would draw attention, who is simply standing with his phone in his hand and his face turned a specific degree toward the building's entrance.
He is not the same man as last time. He is not the man in the blue coat from the café. He is someone different, someone new, which means the rotation has changed or expanded, which means they are not holding at two, which means the third man David couldn't place is across the street from my building right now, looking at the front door.
"That's not the same one," Alex says. Her voice has gone completely flat, completely operational, the voice of someone who has moved from the room we were just in to a different room entirely and closed the door behind her. "From the café. That's a different man."
She steps back from me, not from the moment — the moment is already gone, already somewhere else — but from the window, moving out of the sightline.
"Victor." She looks at me, and her eyes are clear and cold and certain. "They are going to make a move. Something's changed."
She's right. The rotation changes, the new man, the position directly across from the entrance — these are not the movements of people holding a position. These are the movements of people preparing to change their instructions. Pavel's recalculation has already happened, or Nikita has gotten impatient, or both, and the timeline that was weeks has become something considerably shorter.
"Get Evie," I say.
"She's at school for another hour," Alex says.
"Call her," I say. "Tell her to wait inside. Don't come out for anyone except you."
I am already at the door, already pulling my phone out, already calling David with the other hand. "Do not go to the window again. Stay in the center of the apartment."
Alex is already on her phone, already doing it, already in the specific efficient mode of someone who has run this calculation before and knows exactly which steps come in which order, and I look at her for one second before I go into the hallway, and I think aboutty ne odnaand whether she believes it yet.
The door closes, and I call David.
"I just confirmed it. There is a third man," I say, the moment he picks up. "He's at the front entrance. Southwest corner, dark coat, phone in his left hand. I need him identified in the next ten minutes and I need to know if there are more I haven't found yet."
"Already running it," David says. "Victor — the frequency of communications has spiked in the last two hours. Something is happening. Whatever Pavel was waiting for, I don’t think it’s going to last much longer."
I glance back at the door of 4C. Behind it is everything I have decided is mine to protect. Pavel is going to find out exactly what being on the receiving end of my protection entails.
"Find him," I say to David. "All of them. Tonight."
Chapter Sixteen
Alex
The school receptionist picks up on the second ring, and I’m already moving for the door. I grab my jacket off the hook before she finishes saying her greeting.
“This is Alex Riggs,” I say. “Evie’s mother. I need you to pull her from class, I want her to wait for me in the office. I’m on my way to pick her up right now.”
It takes effort to keep my voice level while my anxiety skyrockets. “Do not let her leave with anyone else. Not a teacher, not another relative, no one who says they know me or knows her. She stays inside the building until I am there. Do you understand me?”
There’s a pause on the other end as she recalibrates. “Of course, Ms. Riggs. I’ll let her teacher know immediately.”
“Thank you,” I say, as I hang up before she can ask any questions that I don’t have time to answer.
When I swing the door open, Victor is waiting for me in the hallway. He is leaning against the wall across from my door with his phone in one hand, his jacket on, and a set of keys in the other hand.
“I’ll drive,” he says, pushing off the wall.
