Chapter 9
We lost the SUVs near the old highway.
Kirill took three turns through residential streets, then pulled into an underground parking garage.
The engine stopped.
No one moved.
For several seconds, there was only the sound of our breathing.
Finally Kirill looked at Damon.
“They're gone.”
Damon nodded.
“Good.”
I looked at the folder.
“Where are we?”
“Safe.”
“That isn't a location.”
Kirill smiled.
“Technically, it is.”
Damon ignored him.
“We have another property nearby.”
“Yours?”
“Yes.”
“Do you own half of Chicago?”
“Not half.”
“Comforting.”
We went upstairs.
The apartment was small compared with the estate.
Almost empty.
A couch.
A kitchen.
A desk.
No photographs.
No personal objects.
It looked like somewhere someone stayed when they didn't want to leave evidence they had ever been there.
Damon noticed me looking around.
“I don't use it often.”
“I can tell.”
Kirill disappeared to check the exits.
I placed the folder on the table.
Damon stood opposite me.
“Open it.”
“You don't want to?”
“I already know some of what's inside.”
I opened the first section.
More letters.
More records.
Then I found something unexpected.
A photograph of my father.
He was standing beside Elena.
She looked younger.
Perhaps thirty.
My father looked terrified.
Not frightened.
Terrified.
On the back was written:
If anything happens to me, take Mila and go.
I stared.
“Mila.”
“My mother.”
“Yes.”
“Who was she running from?”
Damon didn't answer.
I turned another page.
A letter from Elena.
Michael,
Sergei knows about the child.
My hands went cold.
Which child?
I read on.
He believes Irina is the only one who can expose him. He does not know Mila exists.
I looked up.
“Mila was a secret.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Sergei believed your mother could be used against Elena.”
I continued reading.
If I disappear, do not trust Sergei. Do not trust Viktor. And do not trust the man who comes after Viktor.
I frowned.
“The man who comes after Viktor?”
Damon leaned closer.
“That's new.”
The next page was missing.
I looked through the folder.
Nothing.
“Someone removed it.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“We need the original archive.”
“You mean the missing file.”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
Damon looked at the key.
“We have one place left.”
“Where?”
He hesitated.
“My father's grave.”
I stared.
“You hid documents in a grave?”
“No.”
“Then why go there?”
“Because my father had a habit.”
“What habit?”
“He believed no one searched beneath a man's name.”
I didn't understand.
Damon picked up his coat.
“Come with me.”
The cemetery was nearly empty.
Snow covered the graves.
Damon walked toward a large black stone bearing the name Sergei Volkov.
I stood beside him.
“I never thought I'd visit your father's grave.”
“Neither did I.”
He knelt.
There was a small metal plate at the base.
He pressed it.
Nothing happened.
Then he tried another section.
A hidden compartment opened.
Inside was a cassette tape.
And a folded document.
I stared.
“That's it?”
“I don't know.”
Damon picked up the tape.
There was a date written on it.
October 14, 1998.
My mother's birthday.
I looked at him.
“That's not coincidence.”
“No.”
We returned to the apartment.
Kirill found an old tape player in storage.
The cassette clicked.
Static.
Then a man's voice.
Sergei.
I had never heard him before.
His voice sounded older than I expected.
Cold.
Controlled.
“If you're hearing this, then I failed.”
Damon went still.
The recording continued.
“Elena was right.”
I looked at Damon.
“My father knew.”
“Apparently.”
Sergei's voice continued.
“I thought I could protect my children by controlling everything around them.”
A pause.
“I was wrong.”
The tape crackled.
“Irina's death was not an accident.”
My heart stopped.
Damon closed his eyes.
“Someone in my organization ordered the fire.”
The room seemed to hold its breath.
“I blamed Elena because I needed someone to blame.”
A pause.
“Damon was never the target.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
Sergei continued.
“The target was Mila.”
My entire body went cold.
My mother.
“She was the child who could expose everything.”
The tape stopped.
Silence.
I couldn't speak.
Damon stared at the machine.
“Play it again.”
Kirill rewound.
The recording continued from the beginning.
This time, we listened carefully.
There was something beneath Sergei's words.
A faint sound.
Paper moving.
Then another voice.
A woman.
“Elena?”
The recording was unclear.
But the voice was unmistakably female.
Sergei answered.
“You shouldn't have come.”
The woman said something.
Then Sergei whispered,
“She is my granddaughter.”
My breath caught.
My granddaughter.
Damon looked at me.
The tape continued.
“You promised she would be safe.”
“I lied.”
A crash.
Then the recording ended.
No explanation.
No name.
No answer.
Just one sentence.
I lied.
I stared at the tape player.
“My mother.”
Damon nodded.
“She was the target.”
“But why?”
“Because she was proof Elena existed.”
“And because Elena knew about Sergei's organization.”
“Yes.”
I stood.
“So my father spent his life protecting my mother.”
“Yes.”
“And you spent seven years protecting me.”
Damon looked at me.
“Yes.”
The realization hurt.
Not because he had lied.
Because he had carried something that belonged to my family for so long that I suddenly understood how lonely it must have been.
I walked toward him.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because your father asked me not to.”
“He was dead.”
“I promised.”
I shook my head.
“You always have a reason.”
“I know.”
“Do you ever do anything simply because you want to?”
He looked at me.
“Yes.”
“What?”
His eyes dropped briefly to my lips.
Then returned to mine.
“This.”
He kissed me.
It wasn't dramatic.
There was no urgency.
Just warmth.
A question.
I answered by stepping closer.
His hand settled at my waist.
For a few seconds, the mystery disappeared.
There was only him.
Only me.
Only the strange certainty that somehow, despite everything, we had arrived here.
Then the apartment door opened.
We broke apart.
Kirill stood there.
He looked at us.
Then at the floor.
“I saw nothing.”
Damon's expression became murderous.
Kirill held up his hands.
“Important information.”
“What?”
“We found Elena.”
I stopped breathing.
“Alive?”
Kirill nodded.
“Alive.”
“Where?”
He looked at me.
“Chicago.”
My heart began racing.
“Where?”
Kirill gave me an address.
I recognized it immediately.
The bakery.
The photograph.
The place where this entire nightmare had started.
I looked at Damon.
He was already reaching for his coat.
The bakery was closed.
Its windows were dark.
The photograph had been taken outside nearly three years earlier.
I remembered the yellow coat.
My birthday.
Sloan laughing.
My father had been alive then.
I stood on the sidewalk.
“Why here?”
Kirill checked the address.
“Because Elena rented the apartment above the bakery.”
I looked up.
A light was on.
Damon touched my arm.
“Stay close.”
We climbed the stairs.
The door at the top was unlocked.
I knocked.
Nothing.
Damon opened it slowly.
The apartment was empty.
Except for one chair.
And a blue scarf.
I froze.
My mother's scarf.
Not the one I had.
Another.
Older.
Folded carefully.
Beside it was an envelope.
My name was written across it.
Alina.
I opened it.
The handwriting was unfamiliar.
But the first sentence made my knees weak.
My granddaughter,
If you are reading this, then Damon finally brought you to me.
I looked at him.
He looked just as stunned.
The letter continued.
I am sorry I could not meet your mother when she came.
I was afraid.
Not of her.
Of what would happen to her if I returned.
I have watched you from a distance for years.
You have your mother's stubbornness.
Your father's heart.
And something of mine.
Courage.
I want you to know one thing.
Your father did not die because of cancer alone.
My hands stopped moving.
I read the next line.
He was killed because he found the final document.
The document proving who ordered the fire.
And I know who did it.
At the bottom was an address.
And a name.
I looked at Damon.
“What does it say?”
I handed him the letter.
He read it.
His face went completely still.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“The name.”
“Who?”
May you like
Damon whispered,
“My mother.”
