Page 85 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

Dmitri holds my stare. “Patrick already entered.”

Somewhere in Boston, Mikhail may be eating toast. Maybe he is lining cars on the floor. He’s asking Kathryn whether I’m back from my emergency trip. My brother has put his shadow over that world.

Dmitri moves one inch closer, then stops. He wants the truth from me so badly, I can feel it across the table.

“I won’t write the name down unless you tell me to,” he says.

“You expect me to believe that?”

“No.” His mouth barely moves. “I expect you to remember that I stopped.”

The space closes around us. He did stop. In the library. In the kitchenette. Here. Each time I said no, he heard it. I pull the printed summary closer. Dmitri watches the movement, then returns his attention to my face.

“The clinic is a warning,” I say.

“Yes.”

“Patrick wants me scared enough to make a mistake.”

“Then don’t give him one.”

A laugh leaves me, small and cracked. “Amazing. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“You’re thinking like someone alone.”

My hand tightens around the paper. I can’t make myself hand him that much of my life. Dmitri watches me do it. He knows that one careful question could take him straight to Boston.

19

CARA

Isit for a long time with the paper flat on the table. It’s the one I wrote Mikhail’s name on, then crumpled into a ball instead of giving it to Dmitri.

Dmitri promised he wouldn’t write the name in his files unless I told him to. He kept both hands on the table when he said it, and I noticed because part of me still expected him to take it from me anyway.

I do remember. I’ve spent four years keeping my son away from men like him. Men with guards. With money. Men who buy chocolate for a child they’ve never met and make it sound normal. Now one of those men has promised me restraint, and part of me believes him. That part scares me most.

After midnight, the north wing starts going dark. A lamp stays on near the rear stairs. Another glows down by the library. Outside, floodlights cover the trees by the fence, and guards keep moving across the grounds in the same slow pattern.

Boston is still awake. Mikhail might be home from preschool by now. He might be on Kathryn’s floor with his cars lined up by color. Red first, because red is “the boss one”. He might be eating toast cut into triangles and asking Kathryn in the same breath, between bites, when I’m coming back from my work trip.

I can picture him so clearly, it hurts. His syrup-sticky fingers. The little frown when one wheel on a toy car won’t spin right. Two weeks ago, I found a police car in my coffee mug. He stood beside me in his pajamas, eyes wide, acting offended by the accusation.

“Mama,” he said, “cars need parking.”

I laughed then. Now I’m crying. Fuck.

The suite feels wrong around me. Silk curtains, heavy rugs, fresh flowers, a bed made with corners so neat, they make lying down unwelcome.

I can’t lie down anyway. If I do, I’ll start thinking about Kathryn’s front door. The stuck lock. The hallway. The neighbor with the loud TV. The grocery store on the corner. The preschool pickup line. I’ll start counting all the ordinary places Patrick has managed to touch without saying my son’s name once.

The paper with Mikhail’s name sits on the table. I flatten it, then fold it smaller and smaller, then tuck it inside a towel bundle. Doing something doesn’t calm me down. It only gives my hands somewhere to put the fear.

My first thought is Dmitri. Wake him. Tell him.

Let him take over because that’s what he does. He stands still when everyone else starts moving too fast. He gives one order, and men listen. Problems get smaller when Dmitri looks at them. He would know what to do.

If I tell him, men go to Kathryn’s block. Cars appear near the preschool. His men watch Kathryn’s building, the clinic, and the grocery store on the corner. Mikhail becomes a job, and men like Dmitri protect a job by taking over every inch around it.