Page 78 of Single Mom's Daddies
“Ruger’s escalating,” I say. “So we de-escalate. We keep our heads down. We don’t give him anything.”
“Unless he takes it,” Nikolai says.
I meet his eyes. “Then we make sure there’s nothing worth taking.”
No one argues.
We’ve been playing this long game for years. The art. The auctions. The money laundering with clean hands and manicured fronts. Ruger’s just another agent trying to make his name and maybe get a little revenge against the people he holds responsible for his partner’s death. But this is the first time he’s come to the door with ink and a signature.
I don’t know what tipped the balance. Not yet. But I’m going to find out.
19
VICTOR
Ruger’snot looking at us directly anymore. That’s what bothers me.
When he was banging down doors, standing in front of the gallery with his smug little smirk, that I could handle. A direct threat I can control. But now?
He’s asking around the buyer network, like a man digging sideways, trying to find the soft spot under a foundation. And that means someone’s been talking. He wouldn’t have a signed warrant otherwise.
I don’t believe it’s betrayal. Not the way people imagine it—no one’s taking money to spill secrets. We’re too tight for that. Too disciplined. Too loyal. But that doesn’t mean they’re notsaying too much.
Sometimes, all it takes is a conversation in the wrong bar. A dropped name. A careless comment about where that expensive painting came from or what happened after it was bought. Most people don’t realize what they’re giving away until someone’s already written it down.
So I start with the usual suspects.
Not the clients. The runners. The people who handle paperwork, transport, confirmation. I sit with each of them. One-on-one. Casual at first, over drinks. Questions wrapped in compliments.
Everyone swears they’ve said nothing. They seem believable. But believable isn’t good enough anymore.
I implement protocol. All new sales need secondary verification, retroactive client data is moved offline, and anything resembling a favor is now verbal-only, never attached to an invoice. It takes two days to shore up our system. We’re cleaning house while pretending the house was never dirty.
Still, something itches at the back of my neck. Because I don’t have answers. That’s what eats at me. By mid-afternoon the next day, I’ve gone through everyone I trust, and I’ve found nothing concrete. Just tight faces and nervous reassurances.
So I start wondering if the leak isn’t a person. Maybe it’s a pattern.
Maybe we’ve gotten too confident that our system is good, and it’s drawn the wrong kind of attention. Our perfection looks rehearsed. Artificial.
And agents like Ruger? They’re trained to see polish as a sign of fraud. They’re not wrong. Which means we’re being hunted because we’re doing ittoowell.
I don’t know how to fix that. Not without burning everything down.
By nightfall, I’ve spoken to everyone I need to speak to. I’ve tightened every bolt, locked every cabinet, shifted every document into cold storage. I’ve done my job.
But my hands are still shaking. And that means I need my violin. The first note slips out into the October air like a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
I play it slow at first—just open strings, then long, drawn-out tones that don’t go anywhere, don’t build into anything. Just sound. Just vibration. Letting them flutter through my senses.
The cool night air slides over my skin. I don’t wear gloves. I like the bite of it on my fingers as I move. Leaves crunch under my boots as I walk the outer path of the estate. We have acres—woods, gravel trails, old sugar maples and dense pines, a shallow creek that runs the southern edge like a forgotten boundary. We rarely use most of it. But I like knowing it’s here. I like knowing I can disappear inside our own land if I need to think.
I play without a plan. Snippets of Bach. Something from a movie soundtrack. One of the pieces Mila likes me to play before bedtime. I don’t care what I’m playing—I just care that Iam.
Music has always calmed me. It clears the static. And right now, my head is nothingbutstatic.
Every person I’ve questioned today gave the same answer. No leaks. No slips. No contact with anyone they shouldn’t be speaking to. Their stories all hold. Their timelines match. There’s no panic in their voices, no guilt in their eyes. Mostly, they’re mildly surprised that I’m asking anything at all, because nothing has changed.
So either Ruger has someone or something outside my reach—or I’ve missed something. That’s the part that burns. I don’t miss things. If someone’s talking, then I should’ve seen it coming.
