Page 182 of Sexting the Pakhan

“It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“That sentence has never improved anything in my life.”

“It belonged to my mother’s brother. He died years ago. No staff. No cameras. No paper trail back to me now unless someone goes through family records from fifteen years ago.”

“Who else knows about it?” she asks.

“My mother. Me.” I pause. “Possibly one dead property lawyer.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be.”

She drives another block before asking, “And if your people do know?”

“Then we leave again before nightfall.”

“You say that like moving children around armed threats is an inconvenience.”

I look at the back seat. Mila has leaned her head against the window. Nadia is still alert, too alert for her age.

“I know exactly what it is,” I say.

That gets Zoya to look at me, just for a second. Then she looks back at the road.

I take out my phone and send three messages from three different routes, all short, all bait.

One goes to Pavel, one to a man who answers to Stepan, and one to a number only Lenkov should have had through a closedchain. Three false locations. Three different stories. If any one of them leaks, I’ll know which branch is rotten.

Zoya notices the screen glow. “What are you doing?”

“Tightening the net,” I say simply. The quicker I find the traitor, the quicker this ends.

She exhales through her nose. “I hate that this means something to you.”

“It’s survival.”

“For you.”

“For all of us now.”

By the time we hit the outer road, the girls have both drifted into that strange half sleep children fall into when the day has scared them more than tiredness can fix. Zoya drives slower. The anger is still in her, but the panic has narrowed into planning.

I can work with planning.

I tell her where to turn. A narrow road, then a longer one through trees, then a gravel drive hidden behind an old stone wall that looks like it belongs to no one.

When the cottage finally comes into view, it is dark, quiet, and forgettable in exactly the way I need. Small. One floor. Shutters closed. No neighboring lights.

Zoya pulls to a stop and doesn’t get out. “This is the place?”

“Yes.”

She studies it like she expects armed men to step out of the trees. I do the same.

Nothing moves.

I get out first, pain ripping through my leg, and sweep what I can from the porch. Old lock. Dust. No forced entry. No footprints recent enough to worry me in the dirt by the side wall.