Page 126 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

Around us, everyone finds a screen, a file, or a phone worth looking at.

I hold her gaze. “Go upstairs, Cara. I promise, if anything happens, I’ll call you.”

Her eyes search my face, and the fight in her starts to falter.

No command leaves my mouth, and no cage gets built around her. The truth is all I give her, and I let her decide what to do with it.

Cara rubs one hand over her wrist. “You’ll tell me what he gives you.”

“Yes,” I say and let the answer sit between us.

She waits for a long second, then tips her head a fraction. “Fine.”

I walk her to the corridor, and a guard steps forward, ready to escort her.

I look at him. “Give her space.”

The guard moves back at once.

Cara glances at me, her mouth curving. “A firewall with footfalls.”

“Try not to insult him before breakfast,” I say, falling back.

“He’ll survive,” she says and starts down the corridor.

She turns toward the north wing with the guard several steps behind her. She doesn’t look back. That earns the smallest smile from me. Then I return to the annex and become the man Oleg Baranov should have feared from the beginning.

Abramov stands beside the central console with his phone in one hand. “We start?”

I look at Oleg’s screen. “Make him feel watched.”

Yuri sends the first piece. A routine audit request goes through logistics, asking for supporting paperwork on the Sable Crown delivery order and the municipal records pass. It doesn’t mention Oleg.

Kirill routes an old Sable Crown correction file near Oleg’s station. Another clerk opens it, and Oleg can see the batch number from his desk.

Dima walks through the clerk corridor with a sealed evidence sleeve marked with New Harbor’s batch code. He doesn’t look at Oleg.

Oleg only sees pieces moving around him. On the feed, he reads the audit request and loses color. His hands stop over the keyboard. He makes one wrong entry, deletes it, wipes his palms on his trousers, and checks the nearest camera once, then again.

When Dima passes with the evidence sleeve, Oleg looks down so fast he nearly knocks over his coffee. Dima keeps walking.

Abramov watches him through the internal feed. “He knows.”

“He suspects,” I say, keeping my eyes on the screen. “Suspicion travels faster.”

“Heart rate would be useful,” Yuri mutters, leaning toward the camera feed.

Abramov looks at him. “His face is doing enough.”

Kirill marks Oleg’s next keystroke. “He opened the same clearance menu three times and closed it without saving.”

“He wants to know what we found,” I say, watching Oleg’s shoulder jerk.

Dima returns to the annex with empty hands. “He looked ready to throw up.”

“Not enough,” I say.

Abramov glances at me. “Lunch?”