Chapter 8 - The Woman Nikolai Buried
Elena Voss walked toward her son as if twelve years had not passed.
Nikolai did not move.
She stopped ten feet away.
“You look like Anton.”
Nikolai’s voice was cold.
“You ordered Bellweather.”
“Yes.”
Vera stepped beside him.
Elena looked at her.
“Daniel’s daughter.”
“You knew me?”
“I carried you out.”
Vera remembered the woman in the tunnel.
“You saved me.”
“After helping create the danger.”
Elena did not excuse herself.
That surprised Vera.
Elena had worked undercover inside Vale’s network.
The Bellweather order had been deliberate—but not what the recording suggested.
The building had been evacuated.
Or was supposed to be.
Vale secretly changed the timing.
Elias was still inside when the fire began.
Elena rescued Vera.
Leon took Elias.
“Why disappear?”
“Vale discovered I was working against him.”
Nikolai laughed bitterly.
“So everyone protected me by pretending to die.”
Elena lowered her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Remarkable family tradition.”
Anton came outside.
For the first time, Vera saw love and fury occupy the same face.
“Elena.”
“Anton.”
There was no reunion.
Not yet.
Elena had returned because Vale was moving.
He planned to seize the ledger that night.
“How?”
Elena looked toward the house.
“Through someone already here.”
Everyone drew weapons.
Margaret gasped.
Dmitri checked the windows.
Then Daniel vanished.
His chair was empty.
The back door stood open.
Vera ran.
“Dad!”
A vehicle started beyond the trees.
Elias followed.
They reached the road too late.
Daniel had been taken.
On his chair was a phone.
Vale called.
“One exchange.”
Vera answered.
“Where is my father?”
“Safe.”
“What do you want?”
“You.”
Nikolai took the phone.
“No.”
Vale laughed.
“Still predictable.”
“You want the ledger.”
“I want the only person who can authenticate it.”
Vera.
Vale proposed an exchange at sunrise.
Daniel for Vera.
Nikolai refused.
Vera did not.
They argued for an hour.
Finally Vera said, “You don’t get to claim you love me and then refuse to respect my choices.”
That silenced him.
“I won’t walk blindly into it,” she said. “We make a plan.”
Nikolai looked at her for a long time.
Then nodded.
At sunrise, Vera arrived at an abandoned marina.
Alone, apparently.
Vale’s men brought Daniel.
Vera walked forward.
Daniel shouted, “Don’t!”
Vale smiled.
The exchange began.
Halfway across the dock, gunfire erupted.
Nikolai’s team.
Elias freed Daniel.
Vera ran.
Vale escaped again.
But this time Elena had planted a tracker on his vehicle.
They followed it to an old mansion outside Bellweather.
Beneath the mansion they found Vale’s archive.
And Gregor Dane.
Dead.
He had not betrayed Nikolai voluntarily.
Vale had tortured him for information.
Nikolai closed Gregor’s eyes.
Then Dmitri found a live security feed.
Vale was heading toward the estate.
“Why?” Vera asked.
Elena understood first.
“The original ledger.”
“We have it.”
“No,” Elena said. “You have Daniel’s copy.”
Anton went pale.
“The original was never microfilm.”
Vera stared.
“Then where is it?”
Anton looked at Nikolai.
“Inside the estate.”
“Where?”
“Your father’s study.”
Nikolai frowned.
“My study.”
Anton nodded.
“Behind the fireplace.”
They raced home.
The study had been destroyed.
The hidden safe was open.
Empty.
Vale had beaten them.
But on Nikolai’s desk lay a note.
One sentence.
COME TO GREENHOUSE NINE IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO VERA SULLIVAN REALLY IS.
Vera read it twice.
“What does that mean?”
No one answered.
Then she noticed something beneath the note.
A birth certificate.
Her birth certificate.
The father line read:
DANIEL SULLIVAN.
But the mother line did not contain the name Vera had known all her life.
May you like
It contained another.
ELENA VOSS.
