Page 79 of Hunt Me, Daddy

Not yet.

I could tell her Morozov. I could tell her Orlov. I could tell her the conference had been engineered and that she was in danger and that the next twenty-four hours mattered more than her pride.

I could not tell her I had been in her apartment, at least not over the phone. Not while she was alone in that same apartment with Orlov’s attention only temporarily redirected. Not when the truth would make her run from me before I could close the net around the threat. She deserved to know and she would.

But not yet.

“I found evidence of a secondary actor in Orlov infrastructure,” I said. “Someone skilled. Someone careful. Someone too personally motivated to be law enforcement. I traced it. I traced you.”

“Why not turn me over to your brother?”

“Because I knew what he would do.”

“What would he do?”

“Protect the family first.”

“And you?”

My hand closed around the pen again.

“I am protecting you.”

The words were too much truth and she heard it.

Kit always heard the thing beneath the thing.

“Ivan,” she said slowly, “you need to understand that I am not comforted by Russian mafia protection delivered at three-thirty in the morning by a man who admits he arranged a meeting under false pretenses.”

“I do understand.”

“No, I don’t think you do.”

“I understand you are angry. I understand you are already deciding which parts of this are useful and which parts you can ignore. I understand you are thinking about opening the Orlov file again the second I hang up because fear makes you want more information, and information makes you feel less helpless.”

Silence.

“Stop doing that,” she said.

“What?”

“Stop knowing things.”

I almost smiled.

“I know one more thing,” I said.

“I doubt it’s going to improve my mood.”

“No. But it may keep you alive.”

“Say it.”

“You need to trust me for the next twenty-four hours.”

“You want trust, give me proof.”

“Orlov moved a shell route through the Saint Petersburg chain at 1:12 this morning. Their Boston node lit up seven minutes later. They tied the intrusion signature to your old contract and corrected the false trail I built for them. At 2:04, they found your name. At 2:41, they found your address. I planted a false trail and redirected them to Chicago. That bought you time, but not enough.”