Chapter 3 - The Brother Who Died
Vera stared at the photograph until the face blurred.
Elias.
The name felt foreign.
The pendant did not.
She ran upstairs, found her jewelry box beneath the overturned dresser, and returned with a small silver half-moon.
Dmitri enlarged the photograph.
The two pieces matched.
Nikolai watched Vera rather than the screen.
“We don’t know whether that man is actually Elias.”
“He has the pendant.”
“That proves someone knows about it.”
“He looks like my father.”
Nikolai could not deny that.
Vera grabbed her coat.
“Where are you going?”
“Bellweather.”
“No.”
She turned.
“Try stopping me.”
“I will.”
“Then you’d better lock me up.”
Nikolai’s expression changed.
For one terrible second Vera thought he might.
Instead he stepped aside.
“I’m coming with you.”
Bellweather was a ghost town built around an abandoned textile complex.
They arrived before dawn with Dmitri and eight armed men.
The burned building stood at the edge of the old industrial district.
Inside, the smell of smoke remained.
Vera found the place where her photograph had been discovered.
Then she noticed a symbol burned into the wall.
A crescent.
Her pendant.
“This was meant for me.”
Nikolai touched the blackened brick.
“Yes.”
They found no Elias.
Instead they found a projector.
It turned on automatically.
Leon Helian appeared on the wall.
But the footage was old.
Twenty-two years old.
Beside him stood Anton Voss.
And Daniel Sullivan.
Leon was shouting.
“You stole from me.”
Daniel replied, “I copied evidence.”
Anton stepped between them.
“Leave his children out of this.”
Leon smiled.
“Children are the only leverage men understand.”
The recording ended.
Vera looked at Nikolai.
“Your father tried to protect us.”
“It appears so.”
“Why didn’t you know?”
“Anton Voss did not confess his sins to his children.”
A noise came from upstairs.
They moved.
Nikolai caught Vera around the waist as gunfire shattered a window.
His men returned fire.
“Stay down!”
A vehicle roared outside.
Dmitri shouted.
“North exit!”
They pursued.
The attackers escaped, but one man remained behind.
Wounded.
He laughed when Nikolai approached.
“You brought her.”
“Where is Elias?”
The man looked at Vera.
“He’s closer than she thinks.”
“Who runs Helian now?”
The wounded man smiled.
“You still think this is Helian?”
Then he bit down.
Dmitri swore.
Poison capsule.
Within seconds the man was dead.
Vera stared.
“This isn’t about a rival organization anymore.”
“No,” Nikolai said.
A phone vibrated inside the dead man’s jacket.
One message.
SHE SAW THE RECORDING. MOVE ELIAS.
Vera looked at Nikolai.
“We can track it.”
Dmitri was already working.
The signal led to a motel thirty miles away.
They found Room 17 empty.
Blood stained the chair.
The ropes remained.
But Elias was gone.
On the bathroom mirror someone had written in red lipstick:
ASK NIKOLAI WHAT HIS FATHER DID AFTER BELLWEATHER.
Vera turned.
Nikolai looked furious.
“I don’t know.”
“Then find out.”
Dmitri called.
“Boss, there’s something else.”
“What?”
“I checked Anton’s private records after Bellweather.”
“And?”
“Three days after the fire, he made a payment.”
“To whom?”
Dmitri hesitated.
“Margaret Sullivan.”
Vera’s aunt.
The woman who had raised her.
Vera whispered, “Why would your father pay my aunt?”
Nobody answered.
Her phone rang.
Margaret.
Vera stared at the screen.
She had not spoken to her aunt in nearly eight months.
She answered.
“Aunt Margaret?”
Silence.
Then crying.
“Vera, listen to me.”
Vera gripped the phone.
“What happened to Elias?”
Margaret gasped.
“You remember him?”
“No. But I know he existed.”
“Vera—”
“Is he alive?”
A long silence.
“Yes.”
Vera closed her eyes.
Nikolai moved closer.
“Why did you tell me he died?”
“Because your father begged me.”
“My father is dead.”
Margaret began crying harder.
“No, sweetheart.”
Vera froze.
“What?”
“Daniel isn’t dead.”
Every sound disappeared.
“Where is he?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because they’ll hear.”
“Who?”
Margaret whispered something.
Vera barely caught it.
“The man who has been inside Nikolai’s organization from the beginning.”
The call cut out.
Nikolai grabbed his phone.
“Dmitri, lock down the estate. Nobody enters or leaves.”
Dmitri stopped.
“Boss.”
“What?”
His face had gone pale.
“The estate already called.”
Nikolai stared at him.
“What happened?”
“The security system has been overridden.”
“By whom?”
Dmitri turned his tablet around.
A live camera showed Nikolai’s mansion.
The front doors were standing open.
A man walked through them.
Vera leaned toward the screen.
The man lifted his face to the camera.
Nikolai stopped breathing.
May you like
Because he knew him.
“Father?”
