Alexei replied at 4 AM.
One message.
No threats this time. No photos. No games.
Just an address in midtown and a time.
*Tomorrow. 6 PM. Come alone. Dress like you belong.*
I stared at the message for a long time.
This was not what I expected.
I expected anger. Expected him to send people to the warehouse, to Katie's building, to anywhere he thought I might be. Expected fire because that's what men do when you poke the thing they're most proud of — they burn something down to remind you who has the power.
Instead he sent a dinner invitation.
Which meant one of two things.
Either he was smarter than fire. Or he was so confident in his position that he genuinely wasn't afraid of me sitting across a table from him.
Both options were dangerous.
I put the phone down.
Looked at the override tool on the table.
Thirty seconds.
That's all Ghost's patch needed to take over after I used it. Thirty seconds where the wallet read Alexei's pulse as alive while it wasn't anymore.
But I couldn't use it at dinner. Too public. Too many variables. Too many of his people in a room I didn't control.
So tomorrow at 6 PM I would go and I would sit across from the man who ordered my father's murder and I would smile and I would listen.
And I would find out exactly how confident he really was.
Then I would use that against him.
I left the warehouse at 5 AM.
Drove to Brooklyn.
Parked outside Katie's building.
Sat there for ten minutes arguing with myself.
She was asleep. She had class in a few hours. She didn't need me knocking on her door before sunrise with war on my hands and blood on my conscience.
I got out of the car.
Walked up the steps.
Knocked soft. Three times.
Nothing.
Knocked again.
"If you're a murderer I'm calling the cops," her voice came through the door, rough with sleep.
"It's Sam."
Silence. Then the deadbolt. Then the chain. Door opened.
She stood there in an oversized t-shirt that stopped at her thighs. Hair everywhere. Half asleep. One eye fully open, one still deciding. She looked at my face and whatever she was about to say died in her throat.
She stepped back and let me in without a word.
She made coffee.
Didn't ask me anything while the machine ran. Just moved around her small kitchen in the amber dark, pulling mugs down, finding sugar, tying her hair back with the band she always kept on her wrist.
I sat at her kitchen table.
Same chair as last night.
Thai containers still on the counter. Chocolate box open on the shelf. Paintings everywhere watching us with their colors.
She set a mug in front of me. Sat across. Wrapped both hands around hers.
Looked at me.
Waited.
"I need to tell you something," I said.
"Okay."
"Not everything. I can't tell you everything yet. But enough." I looked at the mug. "Enough so you understand what the next few days look like."
She didn't move. Didn't rush me.
That was the thing about Katie. Most people fill silence because it makes them uncomfortable. She just let it sit there like it was furniture. Like silence was just another thing in the room that wasn't hurting anyone.
"The men who killed my father," I said. "They're not done. They never were. The job in Lisbon, the money, it was theirs originally. Or they think it was. And now they want it back."
"How much danger are you in?"
"A lot."
"How much danger am I in?"
I looked at her.
"They sent me a photo of you walking into this building," I said. "Two nights ago. Right after our date."
She absorbed that slowly. I watched it move through her. The understanding of it. Not panic — Katie didn't panic, I was learning that about her — just a long quiet breath and then her jaw setting in a way that made her look older than twenty-one.
"So they know about me."
"Yes."
"And you've been watching my building."
"And your subway route. And your class building." I kept my voice flat. "Three times yesterday."
She looked at her coffee.
"The burner phone in my drawer."
"Yes."
"The break-in."
"Yes."
She was quiet for a moment.
"You could have just told me," she said. Not angry. Just tired.
"I know."
"I'm not fragile, Sam. I grew up alone. I've handled hard things." She looked up. "I would have handled this."
"I know that now."
"But you didn't then."
"No. Then you were just a girl I met at a bar who I couldn't stop thinking about. I was trying to keep you outside of it. Keep you clean." I turned Richard's ring on my finger. "Didn't work."
She watched the ring.
"Is it going to be over soon?"
"Few days."
"And then?"
I looked at her.
"Then it's done. All of it. For good."
She nodded slowly. Reached across the table. Put two fingers on the back of my hand. Not holding. Just touching. The way you touch something to check if it's real.
"Come back," she said. Quiet. Like a rule. Like something she'd already decided and wasn't asking permission for.
"I will."
"Say it like you mean it."
"I will come back, Katie."
She pulled her hand back. Picked up her coffee.
"Okay." She stood up. "You should sleep. You look terrible."
"I'm fine."
"You have grey under your eyes and you've been wearing the same jacket for two days." She pointed down the small hallway. "Couch. Two hours minimum. I'll wake you up."
I looked at her.
"I don't sleep around people."
"You do now. Go."
I don't know why I listened.
Maybe because nobody had told me to sleep in fourteen years like they actually cared if I was rested.
Maybe because the couch smelled like her apartment and her apartment smelled like safety and I hadn't felt safe since I was eight years old eating Christmas cookies in race car pajamas.
I sat on the couch.
Jacket still on.
Glock still at my waist.
Closed my eyes.
Was out in under a minute.
She woke me at 7:30.
Hand on my shoulder. Gentle. Said my name once.
I was upright with my hand on the Glock before I was fully awake.
She didn't flinch.
Just stood there holding a fresh coffee like a woman who had already decided nothing about me was going to scare her.
"Easy," she said. "It's just me."
I breathed.
Sat back.
Took the coffee.
She sat on the other end of the couch, legs pulled up under her, watching me come back to myself.
"You talked in your sleep," she said.
"What did I say?"
"Richard." She said it careful. "You said his name twice."
I looked at the mug.
"He visits sometimes," I said. "In sleep."
"That's not a bad thing."
"Depends what he says."
She tilted her head slightly. "What does he say?"
I thought about the dream. Richard on his knees on the marble floor. Blood on his white shirt. Looking up at me with those big loud eyes gone quiet for the first and last time.
*Live long enough to make them regret it, kid.*
"He tells me to keep going," I said.
Katie looked at me for a long moment.
Then she nodded once like that was exactly the right answer and she didn't need to say anything else about it.
I left at eight.
Stopped at the door.
"Stay off the internet today," I said. "Don't search any names. Don't look anything up connected to what I told you."
"Because they can track it?"
"Because they already have been." I looked at her. "Normal day. Class, painting, bar shift if you have one. Burner phone in your pocket the whole time. You feel anything off — anyone following, anyone watching, a car that shows up twice — you call that number."
She leaned against the door frame.
"You know what's funny," she said.
"What."
"I spent three years painting angry angels and drowning faces because I had this feeling. Like something was coming. Like the world was about to crack open and something would fall out." She looked at me steady. "Then you walked into my bar."
I didn't know what to do with that so I just looked at her.
She smiled small.
"Go save the world, pretty boy."
I went down the steps into the morning.
Cold air. City already loud. Delivery trucks and school buses and people walking fast with coffee going nowhere that mattered.
I walked to my car feeling something I didn't have a word for.
Full, maybe.
Like something that had been hollow for a very long time had something in it now.
I got in.
Drove to the warehouse.
Had ten hours before dinner with the devil.
I spent those hours preparing.
Not weapons this time. Wrong kind of war for tonight.
I showered at the warehouse. Changed. Black suit I kept in the safe room for jobs that required sitting at tables instead of running through buildings. No tie. White shirt underneath. Richard's ring on my finger. Override tool in my inside jacket pocket, small and cold against my ribs.
I looked at myself in the cracked mirror above the sink.
Thought about what Mama Liba used to say before jobs that required getting close to people.
*"Your face is a weapon, Invincible. Learn to use it."*
I practiced the smile.
The one that reached my eyes.
The one that said I'm just a man at a table, not a threat, not a ghost, not the thing that's going to end your family line.
Good enough.
The address was a restaurant in midtown called Sobol.
Private members club on the 31st floor of a building that didn't advertise what was in it. No sign outside. Just a brass number and a doorman who looked like he'd done things that would make most people's eyes water.
He saw me coming.
Didn't stop me.
Which meant Alexei had told them I was coming.
Which meant Alexei wanted me here.
Which meant I needed to be more careful than I had ever been in my life.
Elevator to 31. Dark wood walls. Soft light. The kind of restaurant that doesn't have prices on the menu because if you need to ask you shouldn't be there. Low music. The clink of crystal. Men in expensive suits talking in quiet voices about things that moved the world while the world had no idea.
A man in a dark suit met me at the elevator.
Young. Eastern European face. Hands too still at his sides.
Armed.
"Mr. Voss." Not a question.
"That's me."
"This way."
He walked me to the back of the restaurant. Through two sets of doors. Into a private room that held one table, two chairs, candles, and a view of Manhattan that would have been beautiful if I cared about beautiful things right now.
A man was already seated.
He stood when I came in.
Alexei Volkov.
Forty, maybe. Younger looking than I expected. Dark hair, sharp face, the kind of bone structure that made men look distinguished and cold at the same time. Well cut suit. No jewellery except a single watch that cost more than most houses. Eyes that were grey and flat and completely without warmth.
Eyes like a man who had made peace with every terrible thing he had ever done.
He smiled.
Extended his hand.
"Sam," he said. Like we were old friends. Like we were two businessmen meeting for the first time at a conference. "I'm very glad you came."
I shook his hand.
Firm. Dry. He held it one second longer than necessary. Measuring.
"Alexei." I sat when he sat. "Nice place."
"I find neutral ground makes conversations more honest." He poured wine without asking if I wanted any. "Do you know what I like about you already, Sam?"
"Tell me."
"You came alone." He set the bottle down. "I told you to and you did. Most men in your position would have brought people. Hidden them in the building. Parked them outside." He picked up his glass. "You walked in alone because you understood that I already had people everywhere and backup would only complicate things." He tilted his glass slightly. "That's intelligence. Real intelligence. Not bravado."
I picked up my glass.
"Or it means I don't need backup," I said.
He looked at me over the rim.
Then he smiled again. This time it touched his eyes slightly. Like something genuinely amused him.
"Your father was the same way," he said. "Richard Moretti walked into rooms like he already owned them." He sipped. Set the glass down. Smoothed the napkin on his lap. "I respected him. Even when we had to remove him."
*Remove him.*
Like Richard was a piece of furniture that didn't fit the room anymore.
I kept my face completely still.
"That's a clean way to put it," I said.
"It was business," Alexei said. Simply. Finally. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Richard had something we needed. He refused to give it. We took it." He opened his hands. "You understand this. You've done the same thing many times."
"I've never killed a man in front of his eight year old son."
The table went very quiet.
Alexei looked at me.
For the first time since I sat down something moved behind those flat grey eyes. Not guilt. Not shame. Something more complicated than either of those things.
"No," he said finally. "That was regrettable."
"Regrettable."
"Viktor enjoyed it," he said. "My brother had appetites that went beyond what was necessary. I did not approve. But he ran the operation at that time. It was his call." He looked at his wine. "Viktor is no longer with us. His appetites eventually became his problem."
So Viktor was dead.
Filed that away.
"The wallet," I said. Steering us back because I needed information more than I needed to sit in my anger right now. "You put a kill switch on it."
"A precaution."
"Tied to your pulse."
He smiled thin. "You've done your homework."
"I had help." I leaned back slightly. "Here's my question. You're a smart man. You know I know about the switch. You know I have people who can work around systems like that." I held his gaze. "So why invite me to dinner instead of just waiting me out? The clock was yours. Sixty something hours. I'd have had to come to you eventually."
Alexei was quiet for a moment.
He turned his wine glass slowly on the white tablecloth.
"Because," he said, "I read your message."
*Dead men don't hold contracts.*
"And?" I said.
"And you were right." He said it without blinking. "Legally, commercially, on paper, you were completely right. There is no living entity with a valid claim to that wallet." He picked up the glass. "Which tells me you're not just a killer with a stolen prize. You think. You argue. You understand the architecture of power beyond just who holds the gun." He looked at me directly. "I don't want an enemy like that, Sam. I want a partner like that."
The candle between us flickered.
I looked at him.
At the flat grey eyes. The sharp face. The hand resting easy on the table six feet away from me with a transmitter under the skin of his chest keeping 2.7 billion dollars locked and safe.
"You want to make a deal," I said.
"I want to make a deal," he confirmed.
"With the man who killed your people in Lisbon. Who killed Scar Man. Who took your money."
"With the man who is clearly the most capable person to have touched that wallet in its entire existence." He tilted his head. "The money is significant. But it is not the only significant thing I have. What I need is someone with your particular skills working with me rather than against me." He paused. "The wallet comes back. You come on board. What you earn going forward makes 2.7 billion look modest."
I let the silence run for five full seconds.
Looked at the candle.
Then at him.
"I'll need to think about it," I said.
"Of course." He reached into his jacket. Slid a card across the table. Plain white. Just a number. "Twenty-four hours. After that my patience has a different shape."
I picked up the card.
"One question," I said.
"Ask."
"The girl. In the photo you sent." I kept my voice completely empty. "She's off the table. Whatever happens between us. Deal or no deal. She doesn't get touched. That's not negotiable."
Alexei looked at me for a long moment.
"You care about her."
"I care about the terms."
He nodded slowly.
"The girl is of no interest to me," he said. "She was a message. Message was received." He lifted his glass. "She's already forgotten."
I nodded once.
Stood up.
Buttoned my jacket.
Looked down at him.
"Twenty-four hours," I said.
"Twenty-four hours," he agreed.
I walked out through the dark wood restaurant and the brass elevator and the doorman with the dead eyes and out into the cold Manhattan night.
Stood on the sidewalk for a second.
Thirty-one floors up, Alexei Volkov was sitting at a table thinking he'd just recruited the most dangerous man he'd ever met.
He had no idea he'd just shown me exactly where he ate dinner.
Exactly how close he let people get.
Exactly how much he trusted his own system.
The override tool pressed cold against my ribs through the jacket.
I pulled out my phone.
Texted Ghost.
*Sam: I need everything you have on Sobol restaurant. Security, layout, staff, camera positions. Tonight.*
Three minutes.
*Ghost: on it. You good?*
I looked up at the building.
Thirty-one floors of glass and light and a man who thought patience was power.
*Sam: Getting better.*
I walked to the car.
Twenty-four hours.
He thought I was deciding whether to take his deal.
I was deciding where exactly I wanted to be standing when the thirty seconds ran out.