“We move with confidence,” I correct. “No warnings. No negotiations.”
Roman’s mouth curves into something sharp. “He won’t see it coming.”
“He doesn’t need to,” I reply. “He just needs to feel it.”
I turn back to the glass wall as they begin issuing orders behind me, voices low, efficient, lethal.
Raelyn shifts in her sleep, breathing steadily. I almost break through the glass to reach her.
I feel it before I see it. Lev’s gaze on me—steady, assessing, too perceptive. Then he asks the question I’ve been avoiding since the moment the first bullet hit reinforced glass.
“Is this about Hart,” he says, “or about your wife?”
The room stills.
I don’t blink. I don’t hesitate. I don’t soften it.
“Both.”
Something unreadable passes through his expression. Not surprise. Not judgment. Understanding, maybe. Or warning. He nods once, slowly.
Roman clears his throat. “We’ll talk to Lukin. Get the green light.”
Dimitri is already moving toward the door. Lev lingers half a second longer, eyes flicking once more to the glass wall—then to me.
“Don’t lose yourself,” he says quietly.
I don’t answer.
They leave.
The door shuts. The office falls silent again, except for the faint hum of servers and the soft, steady sound of her breathing on the other side of the glass.
I turn back to my desk.
Only one file is left open.
The one I never showed her.
Hart’s disappearance. Timeline. Surveillance gaps. Witness statements scrubbed clean by hands that knew exactly how to erase themselves. I scroll past what she already knows, past Markov’s involvement, past the money trails and intercepted chatter.
And stop where I always stop.
Two vehicles.
One confirmed—Markov’s men, sloppy in their arrogance, easy to trace once you know where to look.
The other—
Untraceable.
Government plates. Rotated twice in forty-eight hours. Logged, then erased. The kind of erasure that doesn’t happen by accident. The kind that requires authority. Clearance. Trust.
Someone her father trusted enough not to run from.
I lean back slowly, the chair barely making a sound.
Hart wasn’t just hunted.