Chapter 11 - Elias’s Confession
Vera could not speak.
Elias looked destroyed.
“I thought you were dead until I was twenty.”
“Then you found me.”
“Yes.”
“And told Vale?”
“I was trapped inside Helian. He already suspected Daniel had another child. I gave him your name because he threatened a family I was protecting.”
Vera stepped back.
“You traded me.”
“Yes.”
Nikolai moved.
Vera caught his arm.
“No.”
Elias continued.
“I spent every year afterward keeping Vale away from you.”
“The fake employment agency?”
“Me.”
Vera stared.
“You sent me to Nikolai.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because there was one man Vale hesitated to attack directly.”
Nikolai.
The truth rearranged everything.
Her employment had been manipulated.
But the years afterward had not.
Elias had guided her toward safety.
He had not controlled what happened after.
Vale was arrested at the airfield.
Not dramatically.
No final gunfight.
No escape.
Federal agents put him in handcuffs while Vera watched.
He looked at her.
“You think this ends with me?”
Vera said nothing.
He smiled.
“It never does.”
For once, she did not care.
The evidence was overwhelming.
Vale’s organization collapsed over the following weeks.
Elias surrendered voluntarily and provided testimony.
His cooperation, and evidence that he had secretly saved multiple victims, changed the case against him.
But he still faced consequences.
Vera visited him.
“You’re angry.”
“Yes.”
“I deserve it.”
“Yes.”
He smiled faintly.
“You always were direct.”
“I learned from Dad.”
Daniel was rebuilding his relationship with both children.
Slowly.
Anton recovered.
Elena remained.
That was perhaps the strangest change.
Nikolai had spent twelve years mourning his parents separately.
Now both were alive and arguing in his dining room.
Vera occasionally caught him staring at them as though afraid they might disappear again.
One evening she found him in Greenhouse Nine.
“What are you doing?”
“Destroying the surveillance equipment.”
“Good.”
He held up one camera.
“This one watched your potting table for three years.”
Vera looked offended.
“Then someone has hours of footage of me swearing at aphids.”
“I would pay to see that.”
She threw a glove at him.
He caught it.
Then his expression changed.
“What?”
“I have something for you.”
“If it’s another tracking phone, I’m leaving.”
“It isn’t.”
He handed her an envelope.
Inside was the deed to her cottage.
Paid in full.
Her name only.
Vera stared at him.
“Nikolai.”
“It was always supposed to be yours.”
“I can’t accept—”
“You already owned it emotionally. I merely corrected the paperwork.”
“That sounds suspiciously like billionaire logic.”
“Probably.”
She looked at him.
“You really don’t know how to give normal gifts.”
“No.”
She kissed his cheek.
“I love it.”
He froze.
Vera realized what she had said.
Neither moved.
Then Nikolai whispered, “Say that again.”
She smiled.
“No.”
“Vera.”
“You heard me.”
“I would like confirmation.”
She stepped away.
“You’ll survive.”
His phone rang.
Dmitri.
Nikolai answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Vera’s smile disappeared.
Nikolai switched to speaker.
Dmitri said, “Vale wasn’t the highest person in the network.”
Vera closed her eyes.
“Of course he wasn’t.”
“We found a second encrypted archive.”
“Whose?”
“That’s the problem.”
“What problem?”
Dmitri hesitated.
“The archive belongs to someone currently inside the estate.”
Nikolai looked toward the greenhouse door.
Footsteps approached.
Slowly.
Then someone knocked three times.
May you like
Daniel’s voice came from the other side.
“Nikolai, don’t open that door. The person standing beside me is supposed to be dead.”
