Chapter 6: The Name on the Inside
His name was Caruso.
Petyr Caruso, twenty-six years old, three years inside Alessandro's organization, recruited out of a federal halfway house after a minor fraud conviction.
Daniel had his file on a laptop balanced on the center console by the time we stopped at a safe house in a quiet street in Towson — a narrow rowhouse with blackout curtains and a deadbolt that needed two keys.
Logan ate cereal at a small kitchen table and watched cartoons on a tablet someone had left there.
The volume was low.
I sat close enough to touch him and read over Daniel's shoulder.
"Caruso was flagged eight months ago," Daniel said.
"Small things.
Timing issues.
Twice he was near a location before it was hit.
Alessandro's security team noted it but couldn't prove anything."
"Why wasn't he removed?"
"Alessandro wanted to use him.
Feed him false information, track where it went." Daniel scrolled.
"It worked twice.
Then Caruso went quiet — stopped reporting anything useful, started making himself invisible.
Alessandro thought he'd been spooked."
"Or he was told to go quiet," I said.
"Because Reeves needed him in position for something specific."
Daniel looked at me.
"For last night," I said.
"Caruso didn't just watch Logan.
He was counting who was in the room.
Who heard what Alessandro said."
"He would have reported your name within minutes of leaving."
"Which means Reeves knew about me before the administrator filed that report."
Daniel closed the laptop.
"Forty minutes," I said.
"That's how long ago the administrator filed it.
But Reeves ran my name faster than that.
He already had it."
Logan held up his bowl.
"Mommy, can I have more?"
I poured more cereal.
My hands didn't shake.
I was proud of that.
"We need to warn David," I said.
"Right now.
Not through Alessandro's network — Caruso may have compromised those channels.
Directly."
"David doesn't have a phone I can reach.
He moves the contact point every seventy-two hours."
"Then we go to Pittsburgh."
"Catherine—"
"He's been waiting for two years." I set the cereal box down.
"He's been sitting in a city four hours away, not moving, because he was told his son would be used against him if he did.
Reeves is already moving.
If we wait for the next contact window, it's too late."
Daniel looked at Logan.
Logan was watching a cartoon about a small dog solving problems.
He laughed at something on the screen, a short bright sound that filled the kitchen.
"If we move," Daniel said quietly, "and Caruso or anyone else is still watching — we lead them directly to David."
"And if we don't move," I said, just as quietly, "Reeves gets there first and David disappears for real this time."
The silence between us had weight.
Daniel's phone buzzed on the table.
He looked at it.
He turned it toward me.
It was a photograph.
Taken from a distance, through a long lens.
A street I didn't recognize.
David was in it.
He was walking quickly, head down, a bag over one shoulder.
Behind him, maybe thirty feet back, two men were following.
They weren't trying to hide it.
The timestamp on the photograph was forty-seven minutes ago.
Below the image, one line of text from the unknown number that had messaged Daniel before.
May you like
*He's already running.
They're already behind him.*
