Chương 3 - THE SECRET HER FATHER LEFT BEHIND
The SUV traveled through Eastport without headlights for the first two blocks.
Lena sat between Nikolai and the door, her pulse refusing to slow.
Every instinct told her she had made a terrible mistake.
She had gotten into a car with the most feared man in the city because somebody even more dangerous apparently wanted them both dead.
It was not exactly reassuring.
“Start talking,” she said.
Nikolai looked out the window.
“Your father worked for Viktor Soren.”
Lena knew the name.
Everyone in Eastport over thirty knew it.
Viktor Soren had been a shipping magnate whose empire collapsed after a federal investigation fifteen years earlier. Newspapers described him as a brilliant businessman destroyed by corruption accusations.
“He died,” Lena said.
“That is what he wanted people to believe.”
She stared at Nikolai.
“My father never mentioned him.”
“He wouldn't.”
Nikolai explained that Gabriel Marquez had been hired as a forensic accountant by several Eastport shipping companies. What began as ordinary bookkeeping eventually exposed a network of shell corporations used to steal money from businesses throughout the harbor.
Some belonged to Nikolai.
Others belonged to legitimate companies.
All of the stolen money led back to Viktor.
Gabriel copied the records.
Then he tried to leave.
“He came to me,” Nikolai said.
“Why you?”
“Because I was young enough to believe I could protect him.”
“And could you?”
Nikolai looked at her.
“No.”
The answer hurt more because he did not defend himself.
Gabriel had provided Nikolai with enough information to destroy part of Viktor’s organization. In retaliation, Viktor arranged what authorities called a fatal cardiac event.
Lena remembered the hospital.
Her father's gray face.
The doctors saying his heart had simply stopped.
Her mother crying in the hallway.
“You knew he was murdered?”
“I suspected.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I had no proof.”
“You had enough proof to start a war.”
“Yes.”
“But not enough to tell his daughter?”
Nikolai's jaw tightened.
“I was twenty-nine years old. Angry. Arrogant. I thought revenge would fix what I had failed to prevent.”
“Did it?”
“No.”
The SUV entered an underground garage beneath an anonymous office building.
Anton opened Lena’s door.
She remained seated.
“Where are we?”
“A place Marcus doesn't know about,” Nikolai said.
Lena followed them upstairs.
The building looked less like a criminal hideout than a private law firm. Clean hallways. Security doors. Glass offices.
A gray-haired woman waited in a conference room.
“This is Evelyn Shaw,” Nikolai said.
Evelyn extended her hand.
“Attorney.”
“For him?”
“For people who need one.”
Lena did not shake it.
“I need my phone.”
“You need a new phone,” Evelyn replied. “Your old one is probably being tracked.”
Wonderful.
Evelyn placed a sealed envelope on the table.
Nikolai looked surprised.
“You kept it?”
“For seventeen years.”
Lena stared at them.
“What is that?”
Evelyn pushed the envelope toward her.
Written across the front was one name.
LENA.
She recognized the handwriting immediately.
Her father's.
Her knees nearly gave way.
“Where did you get this?”
“Nikolai gave it to me,” Evelyn said.
Lena turned on him.
“You've had a letter from my father for seventeen years?”
“He told me to protect it until the danger passed.”
“The danger obviously never passed.”
“No.”
“Then why show me now?”
“Because tonight Viktor Soren announced he's back.”
Lena tore open the envelope.
Inside was a single handwritten page.
My little Lena,
If you are reading this, then something I hoped would never happen has happened.
You may hear terrible things about me. Some will be true. I worked for men I should not have worked for because I thought providing for my family excused the company I kept.
It did not.
But there is one thing I need you to know.
I kept evidence.
Not because I wanted revenge.
Because someday someone might need the truth.
If that day comes, remember the song I used to play when you couldn't sleep.
The truth is where the music ends.
I love you more than every mistake I ever made.
Dad.
Lena read it twice.
Then a third time.
Tears blurred the words.
She remembered a battered upright piano in their apartment.
Her father playing badly.
One song every night.
Moonlight Over Harbor Street.
After he died, her mother sold the piano.
But Lena had kept something else.
The music box.
She looked up.
Nikolai had already understood.
“Where is it?”
“My apartment.”
Anton swore.
Nikolai stood.
“We go now.”
“No.”
Lena folded the letter.
“I go.”
“Someone just shot through a nightclub window trying to kill you.”
“And whatever my father hid belongs to me.”
Nikolai stepped closer.
“It belongs to whoever survives long enough to use it.”
“Then keep me alive.”
Their eyes met.
For the first time, something almost like approval appeared in his expression.
Twenty minutes later they reached Lena's apartment building.
The front door was open.
Lena's stomach dropped.
She ran upstairs.
Her apartment door had been smashed inward.
Everything was destroyed.
Couch cushions ripped open.
Drawers dumped.
Photographs broken.
Her father's belongings scattered across the floor.
Lena rushed to the bedroom.
The music box was gone.
She stood motionless.
Nikolai entered behind her.
“I'm sorry.”
Then Lena noticed something.
Her father's photograph had been moved.
Behind it, carved faintly into the wooden frame, were three numbers.
She touched them.
“What is it?” Nikolai asked.
“I don't know.”
Anton called from the living room.
“Someone left something.”
They found an envelope pinned to the wall.
Inside was a photograph.
Lena recognized the woman immediately.
Her mother.
She was sitting at an outdoor café.
The photograph had been taken that morning.
Across the bottom, someone had written:
BRING THE KEY, OR SHE LEARNS WHAT HER HUSBAND DIED FOR.
Lena's hands shook.
Nikolai took the photograph.
“I'll put protection on her.”
“You don't understand.”
“What?”
“My mother isn't in Eastport.”
Nikolai frowned.
“She moved to Florida six years ago.”
The room became silent.
Whoever had sent the photograph had found her anyway.
Lena looked again at the number scratched into the frame.
Then she remembered.
Her father had taken her to Eastport Central Station every Sunday when she was a child.
They always rented the same storage locker for his briefcase while they walked through the market.
Locker 317.
“The music box isn't the key,” Lena whispered.
Nikolai turned.
“What?”
She looked at him.
May you like
“It was the clue.”
And suddenly, seventeen years after Gabriel Marquez died, his daughter knew exactly where he had hidden his secret.
