Viktor looked at the summary. His jaw tightened incrementally.
“The woman.”
“She has no part in it. She is a mechanism being used without her knowledge.” I held his gaze. “She is also, at present, unprotected and inside our perimeter, which makes her both a liability and an obligation.”
Viktor said nothing. He was good at waiting for the full statement before forming a response.
“I need expanded security on her,” I said. “Invisible. She is not to be aware of it. She is not to be approached, detained, or alarmed in any way.” I paused. “She dances every night. I want eyes on every entrance and exit of this casino around her schedule. I want her apartment building covered. I want to know if anyone from Petrov’s organization or Volkov’s comes within a significant radius of her.”
Viktor absorbed this before asking, “And if they do?”
“They explain themselves to you,” I said. “Once.”
He looked at me for a long moment with the particular quality of attention he reserved for situations he considered significant.
“Is there something you want to say?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“Viktor.”
“She confronted you last night.”
Of course, he knew. Security was his turf, his forte.
“Yes.”
“In the restricted corridor.”
“Yes.”
“She’s not afraid of you, brother,” he uttered, his lips curving in a smirk.
“I’m aware.”
“Most people are afraid of you.”
“Also aware.”
He stood, picked up the file, and moved toward the door with the unhurried efficiency of a 0-man who had his orders and intended to execute them. At the door, he paused.
“Volkov built this to use her against you,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Which means she becomes more dangerous to herself the more clearly she’s connected to you.”
“Yes.”
His dark eyes held mine as he pointed out what was around floating around my mind.
“Then you need a permanent solution.”
“I know,” I said.
He left.
I spent the rest of the morning thinking about permanence.
