Page 128 of Hunt Me, Daddy

“Kit Calloway.”

“Yes.”

“I am Maxim Morozov.”

“I know who you are.”

That earned a faint lift of his brow. “Do you?”

“I know what matters right now.”

Nikolai made a low sound that was almost a laugh.

Maxim ignored him. “And what matters today?”

“That Mikhail Orlov is moving assets because the timed release scared him, but not enough to make him stand down.”

Maxim’s expression flickered the tiniest bit. He had expected fear, perhaps. Anger. A civilian’s demand for justice dressed up as strategy. Kit gave him her courage instead.

Good girl.

I kept that thought off my face with a maximum amount of effort.

Maxim took one step closer to the desk. “I have three questions.”

Kit nodded once. “Ask them.”

Maxim looked at the center monitor. “What is the highest-value Orlov exposure in the release?”

“The authorization chain ties Mikhail to a historical murder through an operational structure he still uses. That makes it reputational, criminal, and political exposure at once.”

Maxim’s gaze stayed on Kit. “Second. If Mikhail wants to collapse the evidence before the first seventy-two-hour cycle matures, what does he target?”

“The people before the paper trail.”

Nikolai’s grin faded.

Kit reached for her coffee, took a sip, and set it down carefully. “The paper trail is already duplicated. He knows that. If he is competent, he will assume the release packet has more than one copy and that killing me no longer solves it for him. So he targets anyone who can confirm context before they’re protected. The port services signatory. The old bartender if he’s still alive. Thenotary tied to the warehouse sublease. Anyone whose memory turns documents into a story.”

Maxim remained silent. Sergei, still near the wall, unfolded his arms.

Maxim said, “Third. What does he move first?”

“Not cash.”

This time Maxim’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Kit leaned forward and tapped one open document with two fingers. “Cash movement is visible, and he knows Ivan is watching. He’ll remove access. He’ll use lower-value assets to create noise and shift the thing that proves continuity between Seaport Meridian and Meridian Harbor Services.” She paused. Then said, “Specifically, he’ll move the warehouse trust.”

There was a silence.

I had known that answer, but I had not told her. She had found it between the lines sometime in the last hour, while sleep-starved, grieving, and furious with me.

Watching her do it was the most attractive thing I had ever seen, and I had the self-control to keep that entirely off my face.

Maxim looked at me then.

I did not hide my satisfaction.