Chapter 13
MARGOT
Icheck exits before I check the menu. The habit is automatic after running for months. I count two doors, one kitchen pass-through, and a fire exit behind the bar. Nathan mapped the first three before we arrived. I found the fourth on my own.
The restaurant smells like warm bread, old wood, and red wine heavy enough to stain tablecloths. It’s the first time I’ve been outside the compound in six weeks. The air tastes different out here, colder and less recycled, and I catch myself breathing deeper just to hold onto the difference.
Valentin’s sedan took us through three blocks of commercial district before turning onto a side street that dead-ended at a service entrance.
During the drive, he’d said, “Kirill already knows I have access to Katya’s channel.
This meeting isn’t about convincing Dmitri you’re operating alone.
It’s about convincing him Katya is alive, under Bykov protection, but valuable enough that Kirill keeps using her.
If he does, the leak inside my house has to move and will be exposed. ”
Like I don’t remember the goal of the evening, or why I’m doing this.
Somehow, my agreement to make a phone call has changed into this in-person meeting, and we never fully discussed it.
They just assumed I’d do it, and I did. I put on a green blouse and structured linen skirt from Katya’s wardrobe, slipped the small knife Nathan gave me into the garter, and went along with all of this.
I’m crazy.
I want to get Grant. I want him to pay for what he did to Mara, but the uncomfortable truth is, I’m doing this for Valentin as much as for my own reasons.
The restaurant is closed tonight specifically for this.
Kirill’s name is on a shell company that owns the reservation system, Nadia told me earlier, when I was selecting the dress to wear tonight.
The courier arrives twelve minutes after us, which is either a deliberate display of hierarchy or a traffic delay.
Nadia briefed me on Dmitri, the procedure for verifying identity through physical contact, and a warning that he may not come alone.
“He may try to touch you.” Nadia’s voice through the earpiece is clipped.
“Wrist, shoulder, or hair. Katya tolerated physical verification. You tolerate it too unless it crosses from verification into aggression. If it crosses, you signal me.”
“How do I signal?”
“Left hand to your collar. One touch. We’ll see it.”
Valentin turned in the front seat. “If anything feels wrong, don’t perform through it. Get up and walk toward me.”
“What if I can’t walk toward you?”
He’d held my gaze in the dark car. “Then I’ll walk toward you.”
We enter through the service entrance. The kitchen is dim, staffed by two people who don’t look up when we pass, and one man in a chef’s coat who stands too still for kitchen staff.
He watches us pass with the flat attention of trained security, and I mark him because I mark everything now, the way Valentin taught me, the way Grant taught me before him.
Valentin walks ahead. His posture changed when we left the sedan.
He’s carrying himself in a contained, precise way, with every movement communicating authority without wasting energy on display.
He holds the door to the private room, and I walk through it wearing Katya’s green blouse and structured linen skirt, Katya’s gold chain, and an expression I’ve been practicing in mirrors for six weeks.
The private dining room has a table set for three.
One place for me, one for the courier, and one for Valentin.
The lighting is warm and directional, designed to feel intimate and probably positioned to make facial assessment easier.
A black SUV is visible through the service-exit window, engine running, with someone in the driver’s seat who hasn’t moved since we arrived.
The restaurant is neatly elegant with personal touches.
The windows are decorative and too small to climb through.
They’re probably locked. The table is heavy enough that it wouldn’t move if someone hit it and too heavy to shove as a barrier.
The walls are paneled in dark wood that absorbs sound.
Anything that happens here stays in the room.
The earpiece clicks once, then I hear nothing.
We’re not alone in this restaurant. The courier brought people. I count three that I can identify. The man in the chef’s coat, the driver in the SUV, and a woman in a server’s uniform who walked through the kitchen three minutes ago carrying nothing and hasn’t reappeared.
Valentin noticed the third person too, tensing as he tracked her without moving his head, and his right hand settled at the small of my back.
The courier enters through a side door I didn’t see until it opens. He is mid-fifties, lean, unhurried, carrying himself easily. I recognize him from Nadia’s brief: Dmitri Carlov, one of Kirill’s men.
Without speaking, he sits at the table and sets his phone face-down on the table. His hands are clean, his nails trimmed, and his watch is expensive but understated. He handles money for people who prefer not to be seen handling it themselves, and the understated watch confirms it.
“Join him,” says Valentin softly. He hangs back to my surprise.
I walk forward and sit down at the table across from him, meeting his gaze.
He looks at me with open scrutiny. His attention is thorough and unhurried, a professional inventory of my face, my posture, and the way I hold my hands on the table.
I let him look because Katya would let him look.
Katya didn’t flinch from attention. She used it.
He glances just once at Valentin with a grimace but doesn’t acknowledge him. “Katya.”
I don’t look away. “Dmitri.”
He picks up his water glass. “You’ve been quiet.”
“I had reasons.”
“Kirill’s people have been looking for you.”
“Kirill’s people always look for me. They’re better at looking than finding.”
He sets down the water. He’s comparing me to a version of Katya he keeps in his memory, and every second he spends looking is a second closer to passing or failing. I keep my breathing level, my hands still, and my chin at the angle Nadia drilled into me until it became muscle memory.
He tests me on the backup ledger location.
I give him the address without hesitation.
He asks about the transit timing from the port.
I give him the numbers Nadia had me memorize, delivered without embellishment, the way a woman who’s done this a hundred times would deliver information she considers routine.
“The March Fourteenth code.”
“Volga-nine.” I don’t look away. “You already know the code. You’re checking whether I hesitate.”
Dmitri tilts his head. “You’ve gotten sharp.”
“Months underground sharpens most people.”
He takes a slow drink of water and reaches into his coat. He sets a photograph on the table. It’s of a street corner in a neighborhood I don’t recognize.
“The Meridian Hotel. Thursday night. You remember.”
I’ve never seen this photograph. The Meridian Hotel doesn’t exist in any of Katya’s files. I suspect he’s planting another false memory, the same trap the video call tried.
My pulse spikes, but I keep my hands steady.
I pick up the photograph and study it, letting my expression settle into mild disinterest before I set it face-down on the table.
“The Meridian was Armen’s meeting, not mine.
If you’re asking me to account for Armen’s schedule, you’re talking to the wrong person. ”
Dmitri retrieves the photograph without comment. I assume I passed the test.
He shifts topics to the in-person exchange logistics, the secured channel delivery, and the route confirmation Kirill wants for the next shipment.
He mentions Armen Sidorov’s name in the context of a payment routing, and the mention is deliberate.
The courier dropped it on the table to see if my hands would shake.
They don’t. I mentioned Armen first, and he surely remembers. It’s just another test. “Documentation first.” I fold my hands on the table, mirroring his posture. “I’ll confirm routing once I’ve verified the numbers.”
He narrows his eyes. “You used to confirm without documentation.”
“I used to trust the channel.” I keep my voice level. “Running and hiding changes who and what you trust.” I glance briefly at Valentin. “So does being under the protection of someone you don’t know you can trust.”
Dmitri nods slowly. “Fair.” He studies me again even more thoroughly. He’s running through a behavioral checklist now, deeper than hair color and bone structure. He’s looking for a crack. “The Thirty-ninth Street warehouse contact. Give me the name.”
I let one beat pass. Two beats would be hesitation. Zero beats would be rehearsal. One beat is memory, the natural pace of someone retrieving information they haven’t needed recently. “Nikolai Petrov.” I deliver it steadily. “He manages the warehouse on Thirty-Ninth. You already know this.”
Dmitri sets both hands on the table. “Nikolai retired.”
I shake my head, sounding confident. “Nikolai relocated. Retirement is what Kirill calls it when he doesn’t want to explain where someone went.” I pick up my water glass and drink without hurrying. “If you’re testing whether I know the difference, I do.”
Dmitri’s posture changes. He leans back an inch, and the professional skepticism that’s been sitting across the table from me for twenty minutes loosens into reluctant acceptance. He finishes his water and sets the glass down with the careful deliberation of a man preparing to act.
Then he reaches across the table toward my wrist.
Nadia warned me. I knew verification was coming. Katya tolerated physical contact, and the wrist check is standard procedure for confirming identity through pulse and response. I know all of this because Nadia told me in the car and I drilled it seven times in the training room.