5. Dmitri #2
Cara pulls one sheet closer. Her finger stops on a note near the bottom. I see the second she recognizes it. The color in her face deepens, and sweat beads near her temple despite the cold office. She reads the line again, then looks at the next page fast.
“That’s my format,” she says.
“Yes.”
Her hand lifts from the paper. “No.”
“Patrick used a security memo you wrote for him.”
“He said it was for a client portal audit,” she says, and now her voice has lost the bite. “He said his vendor kept messing up access logs, and he needed me to clean up the report so he wouldn’t look stupid.”
“He used the way you organized the report to hide what he stole,” I say. “Your format made it look like normal paperwork.”
Cara shoves the page away, then grabs it back before it slides off the table. “I didn’t give him routes. I didn’t give him names.”
“No.” I lean back and watch the truth settle where panic can’t hide it. “You gave him a clean structure. Patrick filled it with stolen information, and Morozov’s people used it to find weak spots.”
“He strong-armed me over coffee and acted helpless,” she snaps, though the anger breaks in the middle.
I place the final sheet in front of her. This one has her name typed beside Patrick’s authorization. Cara stares at it. A breath leaves her, uneven and small.
“What is this?” she asks.
I keep my voice steady. “The part where he made it official.”
I watch her closely. I look for what Patrick told her and what he hid from her. She gives me nothing.
“You’ve heard of Blacklist?”
“I’ve heard criminals love dramatic naming conventions.” She shakes her head, but her fingers have already found the edge of the chair.
“Answer me.”
Cara’s grip tightens until her knuckles pale. “Patrick mentioned it once. As a joke.”
“Patrick doesn’t joke when money is scarce.”
Her gaze drops to the page again. Cara O’Connell. She stays very still, and the paper takes all her attention. Her mouth barely moves. I let her have a few seconds. Then I speak, since silence has started pushing me toward the wrong side of the table.
“The Blacklist isn’t public,” I say. “Most soldiers never see it. Serious houses use it when money no longer settles a debt. A name entered there can be claimed, held, married off, traded for relief, used to force cooperation, or kept under guard as leverage.”
Her eyes lift to mine. “People.”
“Yes.”
“Say people.” Her voice comes out rough, and the words carry a threat she has no weapon to back it up with.
“People.”
Cara swallows once, then looks back at the page. “Patrick put me there.”
“He offered you.”
“Offered.” Her smile twists, and it looks like pain. “That’s a nice family word.”
“Volkov claimed the debt first.”
She pushes the folder back so hard, it slides an inch. “Should I be grateful for that distinction, Dmitri?”
“It keeps you alive.”
Her laugh comes out short and ugly. “Ownership with a clean shirt.”
“Yes.”
The answer makes her angrier, and I like that on her, which is another failure I have no time to examine. Color comes back into her face. Her spine straightens. One hand leaves the chair and lands flat on the table, close to the name Patrick sold.
“You don’t get to drag me across the world, show me a paper cage, and then talk to me like I should thank the better jailer.”
I lean back. “You would prefer Morozov?”
She folds her arms across her chest, and the move almost looks defensive. I know better. When she speaks again, she looks straight at me.
“Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That Patrick put me there.”
“Yes.”
“Before your men came to my apartment?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know it was me?”
I make myself hold her gaze. “Yes.”
Her face changes again, and this one cuts deeper because she understands the rest without help. I came personally. I could have sent any soldier, any handler, any man with instructions and a plane, yet I chose to stand at the end of those stairs and watch her walk down to me.
“Operationally necessary?” she asks.
Old Cara lives inside that question. The woman from Boston, using sarcasm because the alternative is letting me see the wound.
“Yes.”
Liar.
She gives a small nod. “Right. Blacklist entry. Attachments. Transfer authorization. Very tidy words for selling a person.”
Before I can answer, the door opens. Abramov steps in with a sealed packet and a younger soldier behind him. The soldier is new and he looks at Cara first. His gaze stops on her mouth before he remembers I’m in the office.
Abramov sees it and gets older in the face.
He sets the packet in front of me. “Updated pull from Patrick’s channels. Boston is messy. He scrubbed badly in two places.”
“Leave it.”
The younger soldier shifts the papers in his hands. “Do you want the authorized subject moved to the holding wing after this?”
Cara flinches when I stand.
He loses color before I take one step.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Vasin.”
“Vasin, leave the office.”
He swallows. “I only meant to ask where she goes.”
“Now.”
Abramov grabs him by the back of his jacket and hauls him out before I decide to do it myself. The door shuts behind them, and for several seconds, neither Cara nor I speaks.
“What happens to him?” she asks.
“He learns.” I pour water from the jug on the side table and set the glass near her hand.
“From your lieutenant?”
“Yes, if he’s lucky.”
She studies me. “You hate when they call me that.”
“I hate incompetence.”
A tiny smile cuts across her mouth, and there’s nothing soft in it. “No, you hate hearing your own paperwork with a pulse attached.”
I say nothing.
Cara taps the folder once. “You brought me here, put my name on a table, and told me I can be claimed, held, married, traded, used, or protected. Then your boy says the nasty part out loud, and suddenly, everyone remembers manners.”
“So which is it, Dmitri?” Cara asks. “Am I a woman when you say it and an authorized transfer when he does?”
I look at the folder instead of her face.
“You will be under my custody,” I say. “That means every guard, driver, doctor, cook, clerk, and guest in the estate will know whose permission matters before they come near you.”
Her eyes stay on mine. “That sounds a lot like belonging.”
“For now, yes.” I move toward the door and open it before she can see too much on my face. Nikolai and Herman wait outside, and both straighten when I step into the hall.
“To the car,” I say.
Nikolai moves first. Herman falls in on her other side. Cara sees the shape of the command and walks between them with her chin lifted.
“I don’t belong to you,” she says as we cross the hangar.
The wind hits us when the freight doors open, and she has to raise her voice to carry it. “Do you hear me, Dmitri? I don’t belong to you.”
“No.” I let her catch the word before I look back. “Until Patrick is found, every man who thinks you’re claimable goes through me.”
She looks at me, furious and shaken. My phone vibrates as we reach the car. Maksim. I read the message once.
Morozov channels are already asking whether the O’Connell woman has been claimed.
Cara watches my face. “What?”
I pocket the phone and open the car door for her.
“Get in,” I say. “They’ve opened the bidding.”