Chapter 7 - The Woman in the PhotographAdrian refused to go to a hospital.
Lena argued with him for twenty minutes before discovering that arguing with an injured mafia boss was remarkably similar to arguing with an uninjured one.
He remained stubborn, controlled, and infuriatingly convinced that his own judgment was superior to everyone else's.
“You have a bullet wound,” she told him.
“A graze.”
“You have blood on your shirt.”
“An observation, not a diagnosis.”
“I'm going to diagnose you with an inability to listen.”
Despite his pallor, he almost smiled.
Their driver took them to a secure apartment outside the city, where a private physician arrived within half an hour. The doctor cleaned and dressed the wound while Lena stood by the window, watching the street below.
She could still hear the gunshots.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Adrian stepping in front of her, his body blocking hers from the gunman.
She had spent months believing that she was an obligation to him. A debt paid in human form. A woman whose name happened to appear beside his on legal documents.
Now she had to confront the uncomfortable possibility that Adrian's feelings were more complicated than either of them had admitted.
The physician finished dressing the wound.
“He needs rest,” the man said. “No strenuous activity for several days.”
Adrian nodded.
“Understood.”
Lena turned from the window.
“You heard him.”
“I did.”
“You'll rest.”
“Of course.”
She looked at the physician.
“Does he always lie this convincingly?”
The doctor gathered his equipment.
“Mrs. Volkov, I have treated him for nine years. I no longer attempt to distinguish between his promises and his plans.”
He left before Adrian could respond.
Lena folded her arms.
“Well?”
Adrian sat on the edge of the bed.
“Well what?”
“Are you going to rest?”
“I am resting.”
“You're sitting on a bed while planning how to find the man who shot you.”
“That is a form of resting.”
She stared at him.
He sighed.
“I'll stay here tonight.”
“Good.”
“And tomorrow, I'll review the security footage.”
“Adrian.”
“Fine. The day after tomorrow.”
She shook her head, but the anger had lost its sharpness.
He looked exhausted.
For once, she decided not to fight every battle.
She brought him water and placed it beside the bed.
“I'm going to make tea.”
“Lena.”
She paused.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
The words were quiet.
She looked at him.
“For what?”
“For staying.”
Something tightened in her chest.
“I haven't decided whether that was a good idea.”
“You don't have to decide tonight.”
She nodded and left the room.
In the kitchen, she leaned against the counter and closed her eyes.
She had stayed because she was frightened of losing him.
The realization was unwelcome, but there was no point pretending otherwise.
She was beginning to care about Adrian Volkov.
Not the reputation. Not the power. Not the man other people feared.
The man who had sat beside her while she mourned a sister she had never known. The man who had finally acknowledged the wrong he had done her. The man who had stepped into the path of a bullet without stopping to calculate whether she was worth the risk.
But caring about someone did not make them safe.
And it certainly did not make them innocent.
The next morning, Adrian was still in bed when Lena entered the room carrying two cups of coffee.
She stopped in the doorway.
He was asleep.
Without the tension in his face, he looked younger. One hand rested beside the pillow, and the other lay across his abdomen, careful of the bandage beneath his shirt.
Lena placed the coffee on the bedside table.
She had never seen him sleep before.
During their three months in New York, he had always been gone before she woke. She had occasionally heard him return late at night, but he had never entered her room, and she had never gone looking for him.
She wondered whether he slept badly because of the life he led or whether the life he led had become a way to avoid sleep.
Then she noticed the photograph on the table beside him.
It was the picture Victor had shown them at dinner.
Elena Hart outside the hospital.
Pavel Morozov beside her.
Lena picked it up.
On the reverse, beneath the date and the name of the airfield, there was a second line she had not noticed the previous night.
Transfer authorized by A. Volkov.
Her fingers went cold.
Adrian stirred.
“What are you doing?”
She turned toward him.
“Who is A. Volkov?”
He sat up too quickly and winced.
“Give me the photograph.”
“Answer the question.”
“Lena.”
“Your father's name was Viktor Volkov. Your name is Adrian Volkov. Who authorized this transfer?”
He looked at the photograph.
Then he closed his eyes.
“My mother.”
Lena stared at him.
“Your mother was involved?”
“Yes.”
“You told me your mother had nothing to do with my family.”
“I told you I didn't know whether she had been involved.”
“No. You told me you weren't aware of any connection.”
“I wasn't.”
“Then how do you know now?”
He held out his hand.
She gave him the photograph, but she did not sit down.
Adrian studied it for a long moment.
“My mother died when I was twelve. Afterward, my father had all her personal documents moved to a private archive. When I inherited the business, I found several references to her in the financial records, but nothing that explained what she had been doing.”
“And you never investigated?”
“I did. The archive had been emptied.”
“By whom?”
“I suspect Victor.”
Lena felt the old anger returning.
“Another convenient gap in your knowledge.”
“I understand why you don't believe me.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
He placed the photograph on the table.
“My mother was called Natalia Volkov. She came from a family that had business interests in Eastern Europe. She married my father when she was twenty-two. For most of my childhood, I believed she knew nothing about his operations.”
“And now?”
“Now I believe she was more involved than I understood.”
Lena sat down slowly.
“What does that mean for us?”
“I don't know.”
She rubbed her forehead.
“Adrian, I'm not asking for certainty. I'm asking you to stop giving me the truth in pieces.”
He looked at her.
“You're right.”
He reached for a folder beneath the table and handed it to her.
“I received this from my investigator last night. I hadn't had time to review it.”
Inside were scanned photographs, medical invoices, and several pages from a private correspondence file.
The first photograph showed Natalia Volkov standing outside the same clinic where Lena had found the envelope.
She was holding a baby.
The second photograph showed Elena Hart beside her.
They appeared to be speaking urgently. Elena's hand rested on Natalia's arm, while Natalia looked toward someone outside the frame.
Lena turned the page.
A handwritten letter was attached to the scan.
She recognized her mother's handwriting immediately.
Natalia,
If anything happens to me, do not allow Viktor to separate the girls again. I know what he has threatened, and I know what you have agreed to. Whatever happens between our families, the children are innocent.
Lena read the paragraph twice.
Then she looked up.
“Your mother and mine knew each other.”
“Yes.”
“And they were both trying to protect the children.”
“It appears so.”
“From your father.”
“Possibly.”
She returned to the letter.
There was more.
The original ledger must remain hidden until the girls are old enough to understand what it contains. If Viktor finds it, he will destroy everything, including the evidence that could save him from the people he has chosen to trust.
Lena looked at Adrian.
“What does that mean?”
“I don't know.”
She gave him a warning look.
He raised both hands slightly.
“I genuinely don't know.”
For the first time that morning, she almost smiled.
Then she turned to the final page.
It was a list of names.
Some were familiar from the financial records. Others belonged to politicians, business executives, and lawyers.
At the bottom was a name written in blue ink.
Michael Hart.
Lena felt the room close around her.
“My father.”
Adrian nodded.
“Your father was involved.”
“In what?”
“The ledger may contain evidence of payments made to him.”
“For what?”
“That's what we need to discover.”
Lena rose and walked toward the window.
She had spent years defending her father in her own mind. Even after he gambled away their savings, even after he became unreliable and desperate, she had held on to the belief that he was fundamentally a good man who had made terrible mistakes.
Now she was beginning to wonder whether she had spent her childhood protecting the memory of someone who had never deserved it.
“Did my father know my mother was involved with your family?”
“I believe he did.”
“Did he know about Sofia?”
“I don't know.”
She turned sharply.
“Then we ask him.”
Adrian watched her.
“Michael is meeting Pavel Morozov today.”
“Where?”
“We don't know yet.”
“Find out.”
“Lena—”
“No. This is my father. My mother. My sister. I'm done waiting for people to decide when I'm ready to know the truth.”
He looked at her for several seconds.
Then he reached for his phone.
“Victor,” he said when the call connected. “I need the location of Michael Hart's meeting.”
A pause.
“Yes, I know you have the information.”
Another pause.
“Because someone attempted to kill us last night, and I'm no longer interested in protecting the people responsible.”
He ended the call.
Lena stared at him.
“You think he'll help?”
“No.”
“Then why call him?”
“Because I wanted him to know that I was asking.”
She shook her head.
“You're impossible.”
“So I've been told.”
He put the phone down.
For a moment, they simply looked at each other.
Then Lena moved toward him and sat on the edge of the bed.
“I'm frightened,” she admitted.
Adrian's expression softened.
“Of what?”
“Of finding out that my mother wasn't the woman I remember. Of discovering that my father knew what happened and chose to let me live with a lie. Of finding Sofia and realizing she has every reason to hate me because I was the daughter who got to keep our mother.”
Adrian listened without interrupting.
“And I'm frightened,” she continued, “that I'll discover you knew more than you've told me. That I'll start trusting you, and then find out that everything between us was another arrangement.”
He reached for her hand, stopping just short of taking it.
“May I?”
She nodded.
He held her hand gently.
“I cannot promise that I won't disappoint you,” he said. “I have already done that. But I can promise that I won't ask you to accept a lie because the truth is inconvenient.”
She looked at their joined hands.
“That's all I want.”
He lifted her hand and pressed a brief kiss to her knuckles.
The gesture was old-fashioned, almost formal.
It moved her more than she expected.
For a moment, she wanted to lean into him and forget the investigation, the gunshots, and the terrible uncertainty of the past.
Instead, she stayed where she was.
There were still too many unanswered questions.
But she no longer felt that she had to face them alone.
That afternoon, the investigator returned with new information.
Pavel Morozov had been seen entering a private residence outside the city. Michael Hart had arrived twenty minutes later.
The house belonged to a company registered under the name of a woman who had died fifteen years earlier.
Adrian studied the photographs.
“This is where they are meeting.”
Lena put on her coat.
“Then let's go.”
“You'll stay in the car.”
She gave him a look.
He sighed.
“Would you prefer to discuss the security arrangements?”
“I would prefer to be treated like a person capable of making decisions.”
“Then we discuss the security arrangements.”
They spent the next forty minutes reviewing the plan.
Lena would remain in a secure vehicle with a direct line to the team. Adrian would enter the property with two trusted guards. If anything went wrong, she would leave immediately.
It was not ideal.
But it was a compromise.
As they drove toward the residence, Lena watched the city pass by.
She thought of the photograph of her mother and Natalia Volkov.
Two women had tried to protect their children from a dangerous world.
They had failed to keep the truth alive.
But perhaps they had succeeded in leaving enough clues for their daughters to find one another.
Lena looked at Adrian.
“Whatever happens today, we don't stop until we find Sofia.”
He met her gaze.
“We won't.”
She believed him.
Not completely.
Not without reservations.
But enough to take the next step.
When the vehicle stopped outside the residence, Lena noticed something strange.
A small white flower had been placed on the gate.
It was the same kind her mother had grown in the garden of their childhood home.
Beneath it was a folded piece of paper.
Lena opened the note.
There were only four words.
Your sister is alive.
She looked up.
At the far end of the street, a woman stood beneath a tree, watching them.
She was in her early thirties, with dark hair, a pale face, and a small scar above her eyebrow.
Lena's breath caught.
The woman looked exactly like the little girl in the photograph.
May you like
Their eyes met.
Then the woman turned and disappeared into the crowd.
