Chapter 18
I watched Katherine sleep in the dim light filtering through the blinds. Her blonde hair spread across the pillow, one hand tucked under her cheek. Peaceful. Safe.
My ribs ached like hell, but I didn't move. Didn't want to risk waking her.
She'd taken care of me tonight. Insisted on it. Wouldn't let me minimize the injuries or play tough guy. She'd been fierce about it, protective in a way that made my chest tight for reasons that had nothing to do with cracked bones.
I'd never felt so cared for in my entire life.
My parents loved me in their distant, diplomatic way. Jase and the cousins had my back. The Army had given me purpose and brotherhood.
But Katherine? She'd looked at my broken body and refused to let me pretend I was fine. She'd made love to me like I was precious, like I mattered more than the mission or the danger or anything else.
I stroked her hair gently, careful not to wake her.
Now, I just need to figure out a way to keep her safe.
I eased off the bed, every movement sending sharp protests through my ribs. Katherine didn't stir. Exhaustion had finally won.
I pulled on my jeans and a t-shirt and opened the bedroom door. Sophie’s door was still closed. I moved to the other room where I'd set up my laptop on the dining table. The screen glowed in the darkness, already open to my tracking programs.
Fuck, how could one tech nerd, as Sophie had called him, keep slipping through my fingers?
Russell Dunlap had gone to ground. Probably paying cash for some flophouse in downtown LA, using a disposable phone and VPN so he could still monitor everything. The guy was smart, careful, and paranoid. All the qualities that made him good at his job also made him impossible to track.
I tried anyway. Ran searches on Russell's known email addresses, social media accounts, credit cards again. All dormant. Nothing in the last twenty-four hours.
My phone buzzed with a text. Thompson.
URGENT. Viktor Sokolov left Moscow 10 hours ago. Private jet manifest shows 8 additional passengers. All Russian nationals.
Jesus fucking Christ. That was all we needed.
I typed back.
ETA?
The three dots appeared, showing Thompson was typing.
2-3 hours. Direct flight to LAX.
Two hours. Maybe three if we were lucky.
I stared at the message. Viktor Sokolov was coming to Los Angeles personally. Bringing a team. That meant this was critical, worth risking exposure and international attention.
My phone buzzed again.
Hold on. More intel coming.
I waited, watching the screen.
A secure file transfer notification appeared. I opened it.
Thompson had found and hacked Russell's cloud storage.
The first document was a client list. My blood went cold reading through it.
Russell hadn't just targeted Katherine and Eddie Pope. He'd created deepfakes of five other victims. Four corporate executives from Fortune 500 companies. One US senator from a swing state.
Total blackmail demands topped two hundred million dollars.
The Senator. Jesus Christ. With that video, Russell had a sitting US senator in his pocket.
I scrolled through the technical files Thompson had pulled.
The deepfake system's architecture was sophisticated beyond anything I'd seen stateside.
Adaptive AI that learned from targets' speech patterns, facial micro-expressions, even breathing rhythms. Real-time generation capable of creating video that could fool biometric authentication.
This wasn't just blackmail material. This was a weapon.
Viktor coming personally made perfect sense now. The technology was worth billions in the wrong hands. Elections, corporate espionage, political manipulation. With this system, you could make anyone say anything and no one could prove it was fake.
And having a US senator compromised? That was leverage money couldn't buy.
My phone rang.
"You see the client list?" Thompson’s voice was tight.
"Yeah. Two hundred million in blackmail, plus a senator. Viktor's not just coming for the technology."
"He wants in on the action." Thompson paused. "What's your play?"
"We need to find Eddie Pope before Viktor does. Eddie might know where Russell is hiding. Or at least we can use Eddie as leverage."
"You think Russell cares about Eddie?" Thompson asked.
"Russell wants his twenty million from Eddie. And my guess is, he still wants Katherine to drop out of the movie. He loves his baby sister, but Eddie is the big fish, Katherine was a side project. We get Eddie, we have bait."
"What do you need from me?"
"Everything you can find on Eddie Pope's location. Properties he owns here in LA. He was searching for Russell, he’ll be here. Find friends, business partners, anywhere he might hide. And keep tracking Viktor's flight. I want to know the second that plane touches down."
"On it,” Thompson said. “Simon's in the air, should land at LAX about the same time as Viktor."
"Damn. Would have been nice if he could have arrived sooner, but I’ll take what I can get. I'll contact Krause, get weapons and gear. We're going to need firepower."
"Code." Thompson's voice got serious. "You're walking into a war. Don't be a hero."
"Just find me Eddie Pope."
I disconnected and immediately called Krause. He answered on the second ring.
"Tell me you've got good news."
"Viktor Sokolov is flying into LAX in two or three hours with eight Russian operatives."
Krause whistled low. "That's a shit-ton of firepower for one tech nerd."
"Viktor's desperate. Russell's blackmailing five other targets for two hundred million total. One of them is a US senator. Viktor doesn't want just the technology back. He wants in on the game."
"Senator in his pocket would be a nice bonus," Krause said.
"Exactly. Can you get weapons and intel on Russian operations in LA?"
"Yeah. I know a guy who knows things. The Russian Bratva has operations all over the city. If they grab Eddie, I can think of a few places they'd take him for wet work."
"I'll need that list," I told him.
"Meet me in two hours. I'll have firepower and intel."
"Make it body armor too."
"Consider it done." Krause disconnected.
I started searching for Eddie Pope's possible hiding places. The guy lived in Silicon Valley but he'd come to LA to find Russell.
I pulled up property records, cross-referenced business connections, dug through shell companies.
Thompson's message popped up twenty minutes later.
Found three properties Eddie has access to. Not in his name. Shell company holdings and business partner arrangements.
He sent addresses. A girlfriend's house in Manhattan Beach. Office building in Culver City owned by a business partner. Vacation property in Malibu under a shell corporation Eddie co-owned.
All of them in LA. All of them places Eddie could hide without his name appearing on any paperwork.
I checked the time. Four-thirty in the morning. Katherine had been asleep for three hours.
I hated to wake her. She needed rest.
But Viktor would be on the ground in two hours. We had to move.
I went into the bedroom and sat down carefully on the edge of the bed. Touched her shoulder.
"Katherine."
She stirred, mumbled something.
"Katherine, wake up. We need to go."
Her eyes opened, unfocused at first, then sharpening as she saw my face.
"What's wrong?"
"Viktor Sokolov left Moscow six hours ago. He's flying to Los Angeles with eight operatives. He'll be here in two hours."
She sat up fast, all traces of sleep gone. "Two hours?"
"Maybe three if we're lucky, but probably two. Thompson hacked Russell's cloud. Russell's not just blackmailing you and Eddie. He's got five other targets. Two hundred million in total demands."
"Jesus." She pushed hair out of her face. "What do we do?"
"We find Eddie Pope before Viktor does. Eddie might know where Russell is hiding, or we can use him as leverage to draw Russell out."
"And if Viktor finds Eddie first?"
"Then Viktor gets to Russell, gets the technology, and we're loose ends to be eliminated."
Katherine stood and started pulling on clothes. No hesitation, no panic. Just immediate action.
"I’ll go in and wake Sophie. I hope she’s not too out of it.” She paused and actually smiled. “Then again, I hope she was out enough not to hear us.”
I grinned back. The same thought had crossed my mind.
“Where are we going?" she asked.
"Different location. It’s best we stay on the move.”
“Okay.”
“I'm meeting Krause for weapons, then picking up Simon from LAX. We're going to split up and search three locations where Eddie might be hiding."
"What do you need me to do?"
The question hit me in the chest. She wasn't asking to come along. Wasn't demanding to be part of the action. She was asking how she could help.
"I need you to stay safe. Stay at the new location with Sophie. Don't answer the door for anyone except me. Keep the burner phone on you."
"Code."
"I know you want to help. I know you hate sitting on the sidelines." I crossed to her and cupped her face. "But if something happens to you while I'm out hunting Eddie, I won't be able to function. I need to know you're safe. Can you give me that?"
Her jaw tightened. Then she nodded.
"Okay. But you come back to me. No heroics, no stupid risks. You come back."
"I will."
Katherine went to Sophie’s room to wake her. We packed quickly. Everything we had fit into the laptop bag and Katherine's and Sophie’s purses. The life of people running from Russian mobsters.
I drove us to a cash-only motel in San Fernando Valley, paid for two rooms for three days upfront with bills from my emergency stash. The clerk didn't blink, didn't ask questions. This was that kind of place.
The room was awful. Stained carpet, questionable bedspread, bathroom that smelled like industrial cleaner trying to hide something worse.
Katherine looked around and laughed. "Well, this is romantic."
"Yeah, I really know how to show a girl a good time."
She turned to me, expression serious. "Code, I don't care about the room. I care about you coming back alive."