Chapter 20 Paper Trail
TWENTY
PAPER TRAIL
TROY
Two days after the sparring session, Declan's ribs were still making him pay for it.
He hadn't said so, but I could see it in the way he moved in the morning, the careful angle he used to get out of bed, the breath he held when he thought nobody was watching.
He'd gone to the rehab center anyway. He'd gone to training anyway.
Because that was Declan, and asking him to stop moving was like asking the city to stop making noise.
I was starting to understand that about him. It didn't make it easier to watch.
Now he was gone again and I was stuck here, trapped in the house with three dangerous people planning strategy while I felt like the one person not allowed to actually do anything.
Luka had taken over the dining table completely.
His laptop was open and papers were spread across every available inch in an organized chaos that probably made perfect sense to him and looked like madness to everyone else.
Financial records, surveillance footage stills, phone logs printed out and highlighted in three different colors.
He'd been at it for six hours straight with a focused intensity that made my skull ache just watching.
Ash sat beside him, quieter but no less absorbed. He had his own tablet and was cross-referencing the data against databases I didn't have access to. Every few minutes he'd say something too low for me to catch and Luka would nod or type something new or pull up another file.
Dmitri occupied the couch with his laptop balanced on his knees and his phone perpetually at his ear.
He cycled through contacts in Russian, then Ukrainian, then back to English depending on who he was talking to.
Security updates, information requests, coordination with people whose names I didn't know and probably didn't want to.
I stood near the window drinking cold coffee and trying not to lose my fucking mind.
“The shell company was registered in Delaware three months ago,” Luka said, not to me but just speaking out loud while he worked. “Filed under a name that traces back to a PO box in Nevada. The address doesn't exist. The filing agent used a burner phone that's been inactive for two months.”
“A dead end?” Ash asked.
“Not quite. The company moved money. Significant amounts. And money always leaves traces.” Luka pulled up what looked like banking records. “Four wire transfers in the past six weeks. All to different accounts. All withdrawn as cash within seventy-two hours.”
“Payment for services rendered,” Dmitri said from the couch. “This is how professionals get paid when they don't want a paper trail.”
“Except there is a paper trail.” Luka zoomed in on one of the transfers. “The withdrawals happened at three different banks, but the surveillance footage from all three locations shows the same person making them.”
“You have the footage?” I asked. Couldn't help it. Needed to know we were getting somewhere instead of just spinning in circles.
Luka turned his laptop so I could see. Grainy security camera footage from inside a bank.
A figure approaching the teller with a hat pulled low, sunglasses on, jacket collar turned up.
Classic moves for someone who knew they were being recorded.
But the build was familiar. The breadth of the shoulders, the way they moved.
“This is from the first withdrawal,” Luka said. “Two weeks after the attacks started. The person used forged credentials and walked out with fifty thousand in cash.”
“Can you enhance the image? Get a better look at the face?”
“Already tried. The resolution won't give us more than approximate height and build.” Luka switched to another image. “But we have this.”
The new footage showed the same figure leaving the bank and walking toward the parking lot. They mounted a motorcycle. Black sport bike, expensive, and instantly recognizable.
My pulse kicked up. “That's him. The one who jumped me in the alley.”
“You're certain?” Dmitri had moved from the couch and was standing behind me, looking at the screen.
“Same bike. Same build. Same way of moving.” I pointed at the screen. “This is one of our attackers.”
“Good.” Luka made a note on his tablet. “That gives us a concrete connection between the money and the violence. Now we trace it back to the source.”
Except the connection didn't feel like progress.
It felt like proof that we were being hunted by someone with resources and planning and a patience that told me they'd been watching us for months.
Three months of preparation before the first attack.
Three months of surveillance and mapping our routines and waiting for the right moment.
The thought made my skin crawl.
“How?” I asked.
“By following the other leads.” Ash pulled up his tablet. “The clinic records I mentioned earlier. Three patients admitted with injuries consistent with professional fighting. All paid cash. All using fake names.”
“But?”
“One of them got sloppy and left a phone number on the intake form.” Ash showed me the image. Medical paperwork with a number scrawled in the margin. “It's a burner. But burners still ping cell towers, and cell towers give us location data.”
“Where did this phone spend most of its time?” Luka asked.
“South Loop. The warehouse district. And—” Ash highlighted a cluster on a map. “Near Declan's rehab center. Multiple pings over the past month. Always after hours. Always when the building should've been empty.”
My stomach dropped. “They've been watching the center.”
“It appears that way.” Luka's expression was grim. “The question is why. Is it because you've been spending time there? Because Declan works there? Or because the location gives them useful sight lines?”
“All three, probably.” Dmitri had pulled up his own map. “The building has good approach routes. Easy to watch without being seen. A smart tactical position.”
“And Declan goes there every day,” I said, my voice tighter than I wanted it to be. “Which makes him predictable. Makes him vulnerable.”
“Yes.” Luka closed his laptop. “Which is why we need to move on this. The phone is still active and still pinging the towers. If we can locate the person carrying it, we can start unraveling who's behind this.”
It should have felt like progress. It felt like we were walking into a trap instead, like every piece of information we'd found had been left there deliberately, like someone was steering the investigation the same way they'd steered everything else from the beginning.
“So what's the plan?” I asked.
“We track the phone, see where it leads, and follow carefully to get eyes on whoever's carrying it.” Luka stood and started gathering his equipment. “Dmitri and I will handle the primary surveillance. Ash coordinates from here with the backup team. You—”
“I'm coming with you,” I said.
“Troy—”
“I'm not sitting here while you handle this. I'm the one they're after. I'm the one who's been attacked three times. I deserve to be part of taking these fuckers down.”
Luka studied me for a long moment. “If you come, you follow my lead. No breaking formation, no freelancing, no heroics.”
“Fine.”
“I'm serious, Troy. You follow the rules or you stay here.”
“I said fine.” I grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair. “When do we leave?”
“As soon as the phone moves. Right now it's been stationary for the past hour.” Luka checked his tablet. “Based on the pattern, they'll move soon. Probably after dark.”
“So we wait.”
“We wait.”
I hated waiting. Hated standing here while Luka and Ash and Dmitri worked the problem like it was just another operation. Hated feeling useless. Hated knowing that Declan was out there somewhere and I was stuck in this house trying not to put my fist through the wall.
My phone buzzed.
Declan
Training ran long. Mara's making me do an extra session tomorrow to make up for the days I missed. Home by seven.
Troy
Okay. Be careful.
Declan
Always am.
I shoved the phone back in my pocket and tried to focus on the map Dmitri was showing Luka.
Declan came home at six-thirty. I heard the truck pull into the driveway and felt the tightness in my chest ease in a way I hadn't noticed it was there.
He looked tired. His eyes found mine across the room and some of the tension in his face went with it.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” I crossed to him and pulled him into a kiss that tasted like coffee and the mint gum he'd been chewing. “How was the center?”
“Long. Mara's pissed about the schedule changes. Sarah's worried about client retention. And I'm trying to convince everyone that everything's fine when clearly nothing is fine.” He dropped his bag by the door. “How's the investigation?”
“We've got leads. Good ones.”
“Good enough to end this?”
“Maybe.”
His jaw tightened. “That's not exactly reassuring.”
“It's the best I've got right now.” I took his hand and led him toward the kitchen, away from the others. “Luka and I are going out tonight. Following a lead.”
He went still. “Tonight.”
“The phone's moving. We move with it.” I kept my voice level. “Ash stays here coordinating backup. Dmitri's driving. We surveil the location, get eyes on whoever's carrying the burner, and pull back. We don't engage unless we have to.”
“And if you have to?”
“Then we've got two extraction routes mapped, a backup team twelve minutes out, and Luka on comms the whole time.” I held his gaze. “I've done this before, Declan. A lot.”
He was quiet for a moment, working through it, not looking for holes in the plan but sitting with the part that had nothing to do with tactics.
“I know you have,” he said finally. “That's not the issue.”
“Then what is?”
He looked at me. Just looked, long enough that I felt it land. “You came back,” he said. “That's the issue. You came back and now I have to stand here and watch you walk out that door toward people who want you dead, and I don't get a say in it.”
That hit differently than an argument would have.