Chapter 6 - The Name Behind the Company
Sergei raised his hands.
"I came alone."
Alexei moved in front of Maria.
"You poisoned me."
"No."
"Your button was found beside Sophie's medical kit."
"It was planted."
Maria stared at him.
"Everyone says that."
Sergei looked exhausted rather than threatening.
"Because someone wants you looking at me."
"Seventeen years of stolen money says otherwise," Alexei said.
Sergei flinched.
"So you found that."
"You admit it?"
"I moved money."
Maria felt anger rise.
"From my father's trust?"
"To protect it."
She laughed.
"That's convenient."
Sergei stepped closer.
Alexei blocked him.
"Stay there."
Sergei obeyed.
"Nikolai discovered that someone was using Petrov companies to wash stolen corporate funds through property transactions. Rafael discovered it too."
"Who?" Maria demanded.
Sergei looked toward the old shelves.
"Viktor Volkov."
Dmitri stiffened.
"My father."
"Yes."
Teresa had named Viktor as an accomplice.
Sergei claimed something worse.
Viktor wasn't helping Sergei.
Sergei had been helping Nikolai secretly move assets away from Viktor's reach.
"Then why hide it?" Alexei asked.
"Because your father didn't know how deep it went."
"Viktor is dead."
"Yes."
"Then who poisoned me?"
Sergei's eyes shifted.
"His partner."
Silence.
"Name," Alexei said.
"I don't know."
Maria shook her head.
"Seventeen years and nobody knows anything."
Sergei looked at her.
"Your father knew."
"Then he's dead because of it."
Sergei lowered his eyes.
"Yes."
That answer broke something inside her.
Not because it was surprising.
Because someone finally said it without qualification.
Rafael Alvarez had not simply become sick.
He had been silenced.
Maria stepped toward Sergei.
"You knew."
"Not until afterward."
"And you did nothing."
"I spent seventeen years trying to find proof."
"You had money. Lawyers. Security."
"And the person we were hunting had access to all of them."
Maria stopped.
Alexei asked:
"Why come here tonight?"
"Because I received this."
Sergei handed over his phone.
A message.
GO TO THE LOWER ROOM IF YOU WANT THE GIRL TO LIVE.
Maria's blood turned cold.
"Sophie."
"She's safe," Dmitri said quickly.
"Call Teresa."
He did.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Maria ran upstairs.
They raced through the passage and into the main house.
Sophie and Teresa were supposed to be in the library.
The library was empty.
On the table sat Sophie's pink stethoscope.
Maria screamed her name.
Then a door opened.
Teresa appeared.
"Maria?"
Maria nearly collapsed.
"Where's Sophie?"
"Bathroom."
Sophie emerged seconds later.
"Mommy!"
Maria grabbed her.
Teresa stared at them.
"What happened?"
Sergei showed the message.
Teresa's face hardened.
"They're trying to make us turn on one another."
Alexei looked around the room.
"And it's working."
Sophie pulled away slightly.
"Mommy, I found Grandpa."
Maria blinked.
"What?"
Sophie pointed at the bookshelf.
"Grandpa."
There was an old framed photograph among Alexei's books.
Rafael stood beside Nikolai at a company picnic.
Maria hadn't noticed it before.
Sophie took it down.
"Look."
On the glass was a small mark.
A child's fingerprint?
No.
A number scratched into the wooden frame.
Teresa inhaled sharply.
"What?"
"Rafael used numbers for storage locations."
"317 means what?"
"Third floor, room seventeen."
Alexei looked upward.
"There is no room seventeen."
Dmitri said:
"Not anymore."
The third floor had been renovated twelve years earlier.
Two rooms were combined into a private gallery.
They went upstairs.
Maria kept Sophie with her this time.
The gallery contained paintings, sculptures, and old family photographs.
Room seventeen no longer existed.
But part of its original wall remained.
They measured.
Dmitri tapped one panel.
Hollow.
Behind it was a metal box.
The brass key opened it.
Inside were financial ledgers.
Original contracts.
Photographs.
And a cassette recorder.
Alexei found an old player.
They pressed PLAY.
Static.
Then Rafael's voice.
Maria covered her mouth.
"If Maria ever hears this, then I failed to come home."
Tears filled her eyes.
Rafael continued.
"The money matters less than the names. Nikolai believes someone inside his security operation has been selling information. Viktor is involved, but he answers to someone else."
The recording crackled.
"I saw the person tonight."
Everyone leaned closer.
"I wrote the name inside the blue ledger."
Alexei grabbed the blue book.
Maria opened it.
Pages of figures.
Dates.
Accounts.
Then one page had been torn out.
"No," Teresa whispered.
Maria flipped through the ledger.
Gone.
The only page that mattered.
Sophie climbed onto the chair.
"Mommy."
"Not now, baby."
"The paper."
Maria looked.
Sophie was pointing inside the box.
Beneath the cassette recorder was a narrow strip of blue paper.
A torn edge.
Maria pulled it free.
Only part of a name remained.
"...ENA M..."
Elena Markovic.
Everyone stared.
Dmitri whispered:
"Elena."
Maria shook her head.
"She helped us."
Alexei's expression hardened.
"Or guided us."
Maria remembered the hospital.
Elena appearing with Sophie.
The earring.
The flash drive.
The convenient explanations.
Dmitri called her.
No answer.
Alexei called.
Voicemail.
Then Maria's phone buzzed.
A photograph arrived from Elena's number.
It showed Elena sitting in a chair.
Her wrists bound.
Her face terrified.
Behind her was a clock.
Below the photograph were six words:
YOU HAVE THE WRONG ELENA.
A second message appeared.
ASK TERESA WHO ELENA REALLY IS.
May you like
Everyone turned.
Teresa's face went white.
