Chapter 8
The key was smaller than I expected.
Old brass.
Cold against my palm.
My mother's name was engraved across one side.
MILA.
I turned it over.
Nothing.
“No address?”
“No.”
“No number?”
“No.”
I looked at Damon.
“How do you know it opens the original file?”
“Because my father kept a record.”
“Where?”
“In his private journal.”
“Do you have it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because someone stole it.”
I closed my fingers around the key.
“Everyone keeps stealing things.”
Kirill, standing near the fireplace, gave a tired smile.
“It is apparently a family tradition.”
I looked at him.
“Do you know where the key leads?”
“No.”
“Then we need to find out.”
Damon nodded.
“Tomorrow.”
“Tonight.”
“No.”
I frowned.
“You said—”
“You have been awake almost twenty-four hours.”
“So have you.”
“I am accustomed to it.”
“That isn't a virtue.”
His mouth twitched.
“No.”
“Then tonight.”
He looked at me for several seconds.
Finally he nodded.
“All right.”
Kirill sighed.
“I regret teaching you both how to argue.”
“You didn't teach me,” I said.
“I know.”
Damon looked at him.
“Find the old property records.”
Kirill nodded.
“And Alina?”
“Yes?”
“Bring everything your mother left you.”
I thought of the box.
The letters.
The blue scarf.
The photograph.
“I have it.”
At midnight, we were in the archive.
The Volkov estate had a basement no guest ever saw.
It stretched beneath the main house in a series of rooms lined with shelves.
Documents.
Photographs.
Property records.
Boxes labeled with dates going back decades.
Damon walked ahead of me.
“This was my father's archive.”
I looked around.
“How many secrets are in here?”
“Too many.”
“That's not comforting.”
“It wasn't intended to be.”
We searched for nearly an hour.
Nothing.
Then Kirill found a ledger.
“Lake Forest.”
Damon took it.
“Property number 18.”
He turned several pages.
“Here.”
A map.
I leaned over his shoulder.
There were dozens of properties marked in red.
One was circled.
A small building near the northern edge of Lake Forest.
The address matched the one hidden inside my mother's scarf.
My pulse quickened.
“That building.”
Damon nodded.
“It belonged to my father.”
“Does it still?”
“No.”
“Who owns it now?”
Kirill checked another record.
“A private trust.”
“Whose?”
He frowned.
“Unknown.”
Damon looked at me.
“We go now.”
The building looked abandoned.
Three stories.
Brick.
Broken windows.
Snow covered the steps.
Damon parked across the street.
I stared at it through the windshield.
“My mother came here.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe Elena too.”
“Yes.”
“And Sergei?”
“Possibly.”
We got out.
The front door was locked.
Damon used a key from his pocket.
I looked at him.
“You had that?”
“I have keys to many places.”
“That sounds suspicious.”
“It is.”
Inside, the building smelled of dust and old wood.
Our footsteps echoed.
The first floor contained empty offices.
The second was dark.
The third had one door at the end of the hall.
A metal plate was attached to it.
My heart began beating faster.
Damon tried the key.
It fit.
The room beyond was surprisingly intact.
A desk.
A filing cabinet.
A chair.
A small metal safe.
And photographs covering one wall.
I moved closer.
My mother.
She was twenty-two.
Then twenty-seven.
Then thirty.
Then pregnant.
Then holding me.
There were photographs of my father too.
Always nearby.
Never posing.
Always watching.
I touched one.
My mother was laughing.
My father stood behind her with an expression of exaggerated annoyance.
I smiled.
“He loved her.”
Damon stood beside me.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because your father talked about her.”
“You met him?”
“Several times.”
“Did he love her?”
Damon looked at the photograph.
“Yes.”
I swallowed.
“Then why did he hide everything?”
“Because he thought secrecy was protection.”
I looked at him.
“And you?”
“What?”
“Do you think secrecy protects people?”
He was quiet.
“Sometimes.”
“And sometimes?”
“It only gives fear more time to grow.”
I looked at him.
That was the closest thing to an admission I had ever heard from him.
I turned toward the safe.
“The key.”
Damon nodded.
I inserted it.
The lock clicked.
Inside was a folder.
Brown.
Faded.
My mother's handwriting was across the front.
ELENA.
My hands shook.
I opened it.
The first page was a birth certificate.
Not my mother's.
Elena's.
Then a marriage certificate.
Elena Markovic.
Sergei Volkov.
My eyes moved to the date.
I looked at Damon.
“You said they were married less than three years.”
“Yes.”
“They had Irina.”
“Yes.”
“And then Elena disappeared.”
“Yes.”
I turned the page.
A letter.
Sergei's handwriting.
I recognized it from another document.
The letter was addressed to someone named Viktor.
If Elena leaves, Irina stays.
I read the sentence again.
Then again.
Damon's face changed.
“What?”
I handed it to him.
He read it.
His jaw tightened.
“This isn't what I thought.”
“What did you think?”
“That Viktor was responsible.”
“Wasn't he?”
“No.”
He read the next page.
A list of payments.
Several names.
Dates.
Amounts.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Anton Petrov.
I looked at Damon.
“Anton?”
He nodded slowly.
“That was his father.”
“What?”
“He was my father's lawyer.”
“Then why was he being paid?”
Damon kept reading.
“Protection.”
“From whom?”
“I don't know.”
The answer came too quickly.
I looked at him.
“You do.”
He sighed.
“I suspect my father paid Anton's father to protect Elena.”
“But if Sergei wanted Elena gone—”
“He may have wanted her gone publicly.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“Disappear from his life. Not disappear from the world.”
I looked at the documents.
Another page.
A hospital record.
Irina Volkov.
Cause of death: smoke inhalation.
Location: Volkov residence.
Date.
Then something else.
A handwritten note.
Fire started at 2:14 a.m.
Damon looked at it.
“Impossible.”
“What?”
“My father always said the fire started at midnight.”
I stared.
“Then someone changed the record.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Damon's eyes lifted to mine.
“To hide the fact that someone entered the house after the fire began.”
I felt cold.
“Who?”
“We don't know.”
A sound came from downstairs.
Footsteps.
Damon immediately closed the folder.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Alina.”
“I am done staying behind doors.”
He looked at me.
Then nodded.
We moved silently toward the stairs.
Kirill appeared.
“Someone's outside.”
“How many?”
“Two.”
Damon looked at the folder.
“Take it.”
I held it against my chest.
“What about you?”
“I'll handle it.”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Alina.”
“You said this is my family's story.”
“Yes.”
“Then I'm not leaving without you.”
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then Damon reached out.
His fingers touched my cheek.
The gesture was so unexpected that I forgot to breathe.
“You have no idea what you do to my ability to remain reasonable.”
My heart stumbled.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don't want you in danger.”
“And?”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“And I don't know how to stop caring.”
The world seemed to pause.
Then the glass downstairs shattered.
Damon pulled me behind him.
“Later.”
I nodded.
“Later.”
We escaped through a back stairwell.
Kirill drove.
Damon sat beside me.
The folder rested on my lap.
Neither of us spoke for ten minutes.
Finally I asked,
“Did you mean it?”
He looked at me.
“Yes.”
I looked out the window.
“I don't know what to do with that.”
“You don't have to do anything.”
“That's not very romantic.”
“I am not experienced at romance.”
I laughed despite myself.
“I noticed.”
His mouth curved slightly.
Then his expression became serious.
“Alina.”
“Yes?”
“If this becomes too dangerous, you leave.”
“No.”
“You don't know what you're agreeing to.”
“I know enough.”
He looked away.
“I wish you didn't.”
I studied his profile.
“You spent two years pretending I didn't matter.”
“I spent two years trying to make sure you didn't.”
“Why?”
“Because you were innocent.”
“And now?”
“Now I know innocence doesn't protect anyone.”
I looked down at the folder.
“Maybe truth does.”
He turned toward me.
“Sometimes.”
The car slowed.
Kirill looked in the rearview mirror.
“We have company.”
A black SUV appeared behind us.
Then another.
Damon's expression changed.
“Drive.”
Kirill accelerated.
The SUVs followed.
I held the folder tighter.
“What is inside that folder?”
Damon looked at me.
“Enough to make someone kill for it.”
I swallowed.
“And if they catch us?”
His hand closed around mine.
“They won't.”
The SUVs came closer.
Kirill turned sharply.
We left the main road.
Snow flew beneath the tires.
I looked at Damon.
He was watching the road.
Calm.
Focused.
But his hand remained around mine.
For the first time, I understood something.
The danger was real.
The secrets were real.
But so was the choice I had made.
I was no longer searching for my family because someone told me to.
I was searching because I wanted the truth.
May you like
And Damon Volkov was no longer simply the man who had hidden it from me.
He was standing beside me while the truth came for both of us.
