Page 41 of Hunt Me, Daddy

The others came in behind me. Sergei took the wall. Aleksei sat with elegant boredom that fooled no one. Nikolai dropped into a chair and immediately reached for the vodka.

Maxim looked at me like the banter had been indulged long enough. “Report.”

I leaned back. “Mikhail’s people are circling a digital intrusion in their financial infrastructure. They have decided it may be operationally significant.”

Aleksei arched one brow. “Is it?”

“Yes.”

Nikolai pointed at me with his glass. “That was suspiciously direct.”

“I thought I would experiment.”

“Don’t. It’s unsettling.”

Maxim’s eyes stayed on mine. “Their intrusion?”

“No. Someone else’s.”

“Who?”

I adjusted my glasses. “Unknown.”

Which was a lie.

Sergei made a soft sound from the wall. I did not look at him, but Maxim did, then his gaze slid back to me. “Unknown but important enough that you disappeared all day and ignored my calls.”

“I did not ignore them. I prioritized.”

Nikolai snorted. “That is what Ivan calls ignoring you when he wants to live.”

Aleksei swirled his vodka. “No, when he wants to live, he says the phone was compromised.”

“Only because Maxim respects compromised systems more than healthy boundaries,” I said.

Maxim’s expression remained flat. “I am about to compromise your ability to make jokes.”

“See? No respect for boundaries.”

Nikolai laughed again, delighted. Sergei’s mouth moved like he might have been suppressing something. With Sergei, that counted as a full comedy festival.

Maxim finally leaned back. “Explain what you did.”

“I redirected their trail.”

“How?”

“Carefully.”

“Ivan.”

“Fine. I contaminated the data set, introduced multiple plausible intrusion sources, and gave them one lead they will find more attractive than the real one.”

“The real one being?” Maxim asked.

I met his gaze for three full seconds.

Then I said, “Sensitive.”