Chương 4 - LOCKER 317
Eastport Central Station never truly slept.
At three in the morning, commuters drifted beneath fluorescent lights while janitors pushed yellow carts across polished floors. A coffee kiosk remained open beside the ticket machines. Somewhere above them, a train groaned into the terminal.
Lena wore Anton’s oversized jacket and a baseball cap pulled low.
Nikolai walked several steps behind her.
They had argued about the plan for fifteen minutes.
Nikolai wanted one of his people to open the locker.
Lena refused.
“If my father designed this for me, I open it.”
“You have an impressive habit of walking toward danger.”
“You have an impressive habit of thinking you own every room.”
“Usually I do.”
“Not this one.”
Anton had hidden a smile.
Locker 317 stood at the end of an old corridor near Platform Six.
Lena stopped in front of it.
There was no digital keypad.
Just an old brass keyhole.
Her hope collapsed.
“We need a key.”
Nikolai studied the door.
“Maybe not.”
Lena suddenly remembered the music box.
When she was ten, the winding key had broken. Her father replaced it with a strange little brass key from his desk.
After he died, Lena wore it on a chain for years.
She still had it.
Her hand went instinctively to her neck.
Nothing.
Her uniform.
The necklace was beneath her shirt when she left the Ember Lounge.
She touched her collar.
Then relief hit.
She had moved the chain into her shoe during the drive because the clasp had broken.
Lena removed the tiny brass key.
It fit.
The lock clicked.
Inside was a metal case.
No money.
No weapon.
Only documents, an old cassette recorder, and a small black ledger.
Nikolai stared at the ledger.
“That's it.”
“What?”
“The evidence Viktor spent seventeen years trying to find.”
Lena opened it.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
Companies.
Politicians, police officers, shipping executives.
Some names had crosses beside them.
Others had numbers.
Nikolai turned pages rapidly.
Then stopped.
His face hardened.
Lena looked.
One name appeared repeatedly.
ALEKSANDR DRAGUNOV.
“Who is Aleksandr?”
Nikolai closed the book.
“My brother.”
Lena stared at him.
“You told me Viktor killed my father.”
“He ordered it.”
“But your brother was involved.”
“I didn't know.”
The answer came too quickly.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
“Nikolai.”
“I said no.”
For the first time, anger cracked his composure.
Then his expression changed.
Not anger at her.
Pain.
His older brother Aleksandr had died twelve years ago in what everyone believed was a car accident.
If the ledger was genuine, Aleksandr had secretly transferred money to Viktor for years.
Nikolai had spent more than a decade believing his brother died loyal to him.
The book suggested otherwise.
Lena found her father's initials beside several transactions.
G.M.
One page contained a handwritten note.
A.D. knows. Afraid N. will discover everything.
Lena looked at Nikolai.
“What did your brother know?”
“I don't know.”
A noise came from the corridor.
Anton appeared.
“We have company.”
“How many?”
“Enough.”
Nikolai took the ledger.
Lena grabbed the recorder.
“Platform?”
“Six.”
They ran.
Behind them came footsteps.
Passengers shouted as several men pushed through the station.
Nikolai caught Lena's hand.
“Don't stop.”
They reached the platform as a train began closing its doors.
Anton forced one open.
Lena jumped aboard.
Nikolai followed.
The doors shut.
One of their pursuers reached the train a second too late.
He slammed his palm against the glass.
Lena stared at him as the train pulled away.
Then she recognized him.
Marcus.
He was alive.
And furious.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Lena laughed.
It was not amusement.
It was adrenaline breaking loose.
Nikolai looked at her.
“You find this funny?”
“I've been shot at, my apartment was destroyed, my dead father left me evidence against half the city, and now I'm escaping a poisoner on public transportation.”
She leaned against the wall.
“I think I'm having a nervous breakdown.”
To her surprise, Nikolai almost smiled.
The expression transformed him.
For half a second he looked less like the Wolf of Eastport and more like an exhausted man who had forgotten how to laugh.
Then the moment disappeared.
They got off three stations later and switched vehicles.
At the safe house, Lena placed the cassette recorder on a desk.
Inside was already a tape.
She pressed PLAY.
Static filled the room.
Then her father's voice.
Lena covered her mouth.
“If you're hearing this,” Gabriel said, “then I failed to finish what I started.”
She closed her eyes.
Nikolai stood motionless.
“I discovered Viktor Soren's network eighteen months ago. But Viktor isn't working alone. Someone inside Dragunov's organization has been protecting him.”
Nikolai's face tightened.
“I originally suspected Aleksandr Dragunov. I was wrong.”
Nikolai stepped closer.
The tape hissed.
“Aleksandr discovered the same betrayal I did. The payments under his name were made to create a false trail. He tried to warn Nikolai.”
Nikolai whispered, “God.”
Lena looked at him.
The recording continued.
“If Viktor survives, it is because he has someone close enough to Nikolai to know every move before Nikolai makes it.”
Gabriel paused.
“The traitor's name is—”
The tape distorted.
Then stopped.
“No,” Lena whispered.
She pressed PLAY again.
Nothing.
Anton removed the cassette.
“The tape's damaged.”
“Can you recover it?”
“Maybe.”
Nikolai stared through the window.
Lena watched him.
“If Aleksandr wasn't the traitor, somebody framed your brother.”
“Yes.”
“And killed my father.”
“Yes.”
“And that person could still be close to you.”
Nikolai turned.
“Yes.”
A phone rang.
Not Nikolai’s.
Not Anton’s.
The sound came from inside the metal case.
Lena stared at it.
Anton found a cheap burner phone hidden beneath the documents.
It was ringing.
Nikolai answered on speaker.
A man's voice came through.
“Hello, Wolf.”
Nikolai became rigid.
Lena knew immediately.
Viktor.
“You should have died tonight,” the voice said.
“You always were difficult.”
“Where is Elena Marquez?” Nikolai asked.
Lena's heart stopped.
Viktor laughed.
“Safe. For now.”
Her mother.
“Let me hear her.”
“Soon.”
“What do you want?”
“The ledger.”
“You spent seventeen years looking for it. Why should I make your life easier?”
“Because tomorrow at noon, Lena will bring it to Pier Nine.”
Nikolai looked at her.
“No.”
Viktor laughed again.
“Oh, she will.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I have something more valuable than her mother.”
Lena stepped toward the phone.
“What?”
There was silence.
Then another voice came through.
Weak.
Terrified.
But unmistakable.
“Lena?”
She stopped breathing.
Her knees buckled.
May you like
Because the voice belonged to the one person she had mourned for seventeen years.
Her father.
