Chapter 52

Yaroslav

I can’t believe my lousy luck. I was hoping Innokentiy would be long gone before David and Kim returned. They’re hours earlier than anticipated, either Gillihan changed the time and I wasn’t informed, or someone changed it. Either that or they had a Formula 1 driver…

Of course, I’m aware that if I’m going to have a future with Kim, she’d have to meet the rest of the family someday, especially Innokentiy, but I’d have preferred to prepare her for it. He’s an old-school man, misogynistic, it took a lot of self-control not to tear his head off for calling Kim a bitch. I could have given the game away that I’ve completely forgiven and trust Kim, alerting the rat and thus losing the upper hand. Luckily, though I’m sure she knew he was being rude, she doesn’t speak Russian and wouldn’t know just how rude.

His and David’s relationship isn’t good at the best of times, especially when he drops in unexpectedly without David knowing, so I wanted to avoid them interacting, too. Kim’s presence there also meant I had to endure more lectures from Innokentiy about what I should and shouldn’t do regarding Kim and our unborn child.

By the time I’m finally able to go and see Kim, it’s not the reconciliation I was hoping for. She’s rummaging through the bags and boxes of her stuff that I had brought here from the old house. For a moment, I panic that she’s packing and planning to leave again when I’ve just got her back. But I realize that she isn’t putting things away, she’s pulling them out, searching for something. She’s so absorbed in the task she doesn’t even look up when I enter.

“Hi,” I say softly so as not to startle her.

Her head snaps up, a fear-reflex response, but her expression softens as she looks up at me. “Hi,” she breathes.

She seems to be waiting for me to make the next move, uncertain of her place here. I should reassure her first, but my curiosity wins.

“What are you looking for?”

“Something of Marta’s, for David. He misses her, he said he wished he had more things to remember her by. I thought it might cheer him up after… whatever that was,” she says referring to the meeting with Innokentiy.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that, he’s…” I say awkwardly, trying to find the words to explain our complex relationship with our uncle.

“It’s okay, I get it, families are complicated,” she responds, and I feel a surge of love for this kind, compassionate woman.

“You know, I’ve not been into the room Marta used when she stayed here yet, no one has. I... well I couldn’t face it before. But I can check in there later, too,” I offer.

She looks at me with gratitude, “Thank you.” With a sigh, she surveys the destruction of the room, “I should tidy up this mess.”

I sit down to help her and, as we’re putting things away, she spots something, letting out a gasp of triumph. It’s a cell phone.

“Whose is that?” I ask, confused about how this ties into Marta.

“It’s a phone Marta gave me to pass on to David so she could contact him. I never got around to giving it to him before… everything. But she mentioned that she’d already sent some voicemails to it that he could listen to, to hear her out in his own time if he wanted to. I’d almost forgotten about it,” Kim seems both happy and sad about the discovery.

“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled,” I comfort her.

“Do you want to listen first?” she asks, looking at me with love and concern for my pain.

I shake my head, “No. it’s his. If he is happy for me to listen after him, maybe… but not now.”

We continue to tidy her belongings away in silence, neither of us knowing what to say to the other. I have no idea how to begin broaching all of the things we need to talk about.

Kim is the one who speaks first. “Yaroslav, why am I here? Not that I don’t want to be,” she hurries to add, “But has something happened?”

“Yes, no… not really. I just realized that I’m better off with you by my side,” I want to tell her right now that I love her, but it doesn’t feel like the right time and the words catch in my throat.

“I think I’m better off with you too,” she says softly.

“You didn’t like it at the Gillihans?” I ask, worried about how she feels about everything, about me.

She shakes her head, “No, that’s not it. I actually had a nice time, everything aside. I really like Grace, and I enjoyed getting to spend time with her kids, seeing what life could be like for… for our child,” she says, seeming to correct herself.

I wonder if she meant to say ‘for us’. I wish I knew what she was thinking—if she loves me too.

“I know we need to talk properly about our feelings for each other, about the future. But first, we need to take care of the Sharkozi situation,” I say voicing my thoughts.

She nods in agreement. “What’s the plan?”

“We’re going to slowly have you appear to everyone that you’re ‘winning my trust’, then, once that’s been fed back to Bogdan and Amelia Sharkozi, we will have you send false information. We suspect that Sharkozi’s goal is to usurp the deal we have with the Gillihan Mob. If he can make one of our deals go badly and destroy our alliance, then he’s free to move in and form a deal with them instead. Or better yet, by destroying my shipment and leaving the Gillihan crew without product, they can flood the market and try to take over,” I pause checking that Kim is following me.

She nods, encouraging me to continue, “So, where do I come in?”

“Bit by bit, we feed them correct information to gain their trust, ten thousand dollars here or there, nothing I can’t afford to lose. Hopefully, they will trust you enough that the mole shows himself, or that we can take them down with the promise of a big bust, the one they’re really looking for. We’ll also divert their attention away from where your grandmother is being held and send in a rescue team,” I explain.

“Okay,” she says with a determined look, “You just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. I trust you.”

The words are like music to my ears, I want to take her in my arms and kiss her. I want to stay here all night making love to her and not let go. But I can’t do that. Not yet. We need to stick to the plan.

So instead, I get up to leave, “I should go, we can’t seem to reconcile too quickly.”

She nods, getting up too. I gently kiss her and she responds, her body melting to mine and it takes all my willpower to break away.

“Soon,” I say, the word a promise.

***

After finally plucking up the courage to go into Marta’s room I’m now hunting through her things. I’ve found several items, including some old photographs of us as kids, that I can give to David. As I’m looking through the wardrobe, hidden toward the back, I spot a box with my name on it.

Intrigued, I pull it down and look through the contents. Inside, there are reams of information and evidence, mostly surrounding Uncle Innokentiy and his wife’s family, the Petrovs. Some of it I already know, but there’s a lot here that I was unaware of. I settle down to look through it properly.

There are photographs of Innokentiy and his illegitimate sons, I’ve seen one or two before, so I recognize them, but I’ve never seen their mother. Some nobody, I’m told, a prostitute he visits regularly. It’s part of the reason why Zinaida has tolerated the affair.

There’s a journal in the box, too. I open it and realize that it must be Marta’s. The diary is written to me, as though Marta is right here speaking. In it, she documents in detail her feelings about our uncle. How she suspects he isn’t trying to help me, he’s trying to usurp me. That he’s been trying all along. This isn’t news to me, but as I read on, I realize I didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle.

In one extract, Marta writes how, not long before our parents died, she overheard a conversation between Innokentiy and our father.

Everyone in the house had long gone to bed. I should have been sleeping too. But you had been suffering from nightmares a lot and, although Papa always told you off when I slept in your bed to comfort you, you had pleaded with me earlier that night for me to be there. I knew that if I was caught it would be you who would be punished for your ‘weakness’, so I had to be very quiet and stealthy. I’d grown good at sneaking around the house undiscovered.

Which is why Papa and Uncle Innokentiy didn’t realize I was right outside the door during their argument. I heard everything. If Uncle Innokentiy knew this, I’ve no doubt he’d have killed me. As it was, he thought I only suspected, which is why he sent me away.

Uncle Innokentiy had recently returned from a business trip to Macau where he had visited a casino and blown all of his money. He was demanding more, accusing Papa of being miserly and paying him a pitiful allowance compared to what he was worth.

Papa argued that the family fortune was divided equally between them. But Innokentiy denied it, he claimed Papa had other money hidden elsewhere. That’s when Papa revealed what he’d discovered. He knew that Innokentiy had been embezzling and taking money from the family for years. Papa said Innokentiy’s greed and gambling were what was stopping the family from achieving greatness. That if he had hidden money, it was for his own good.

Innokentiy was furious. He denied everything, ranting and raving about how his brother had betrayed him before storming out. I was able to sneak into the shadows just in time before he saw me.

One week later our parents died.

Every night I searched Papa’s office for the evidence he claimed to have. I felt horrible abandoning you when the nightmares got even worse, but I had to know. I had to prove who killed them, but someone got there first. I had no proof. I knew Innokentiy was a traitor and that he was responsible for the death of our parents. I was determined to prove it.

Innokentiy was equally determined to keep me away from you, to stop me from being able to find out the truth. But I never stopped searching for evidence of his deceit.

I sit for a moment, taking in Marta’s words. I remember that night, waking and feeling afraid after another nightmare and Marta wasn’t there. The next morning, my father had seemed upset, Marta too, and I wondered if she’d been caught sneaking around. Then our parents died, and even though the nightmares got worse, Marta stopped coming to my room at night.

Now I know she must have been using the time to look for evidence. My heart breaks for poor young Marta, single-handedly trying to get justice for our parents and no one believing her, being sent away to another country and cut off from the family. How did I not see it before? Because I felt abandoned by her, the lack of those nighttime visits was the start and Innokentiy fueled that belief.

I read on, she talks of her hurt, her rage, and her efforts to find the truth. As I get closer to more recent times, I’m eager to find out more about what she learned, and what her life was like, before we saw each other again.

I thought that perhaps Innokentiy gave up his pursuit of power, that he was happy working under you as you didn’t know his true nature, giving him more control than Papa had ever done. But then, after I heard about the bombing of your car and the attempt on your life in Atlanta, I knew even oceans of distance between you hadn’t stopped Innokentiy from trying to reach his goal. He’d just been taking his time.

I looked into it and my suspicions were correct. The Petrov family were behind the attack. This means Innokentiy gave them a reason to want you dead and put him in charge, he had to be behind it. Presumably, the promise of more power or a faked insult from you against them would have been all it took.

I read through all of the evidence Marta compiled, it seems her suspicions were sound. I can’t argue that it appears as though the Petrovs orchestrated the attack, not Sharkozi as I suspected. But why? I doubt Innokentiy’s word alone would have been enough or the desire for him to have more power wouldn’t either, otherwise they’d have made a move years ago. I read on, hoping Marta might offer a theory.

It was when I discovered who Innokentiy’s mistress really was that I realized what a dangerous game Innokentiy’s been playing. She isn’t a nobody.

She’s Sharkozi’s daughter.

If the Petrovs find out. They’ll not only kill him, they’ll take down the entire family.

On the next page, there’s a photo of Innokentiy and his kids, but in this photo, there’s a woman I recognize too, Helena Sharkozi. Marta was right, Innokentiy has been the traitor all along. I have what I need to take Innokentiy down, but how do I do that without incurring the wrath of the Petrovs?

Although I couldn’t find proof against Innokentiy, I found something far more valuable. Information. Papa had something on each of the big families, leverage against them all. I think Papa wanted to hide it from Innokentiy, that’s why I took it. It was meant for you, of that I’m certain. Do you remember that antique pendant of the family crest, the one that’s been in the family for generations that Papa always wore? It turns out it was a key. It unlocked a hidden safe where the information was kept.

I remember the exact pendant, I have it kept in a safe in my room. I never did understand why my father was so adamant this would belong to me someday and always stressed its importance. Now I know. I assume Innokentiy knew its importance, he’s often dropped hints about how he’d like it as a keepsake and I don’t wear it.

I’m sorry, but I took it all. I couldn’t risk it falling into Innokentiy’s hands, I hope you understand. I’ve encrypted all of the information onto a flash drive, my own modernized version if you will.

This is the key to taking down everyone. And to keep our family safe.

If you’re reading this, brother, then I must be dead. Know this, I have never stopped loving you or David. I miss you every day.

Underneath this, there is a seemingly random jumble of words, numbers, and symbols. A code. I recognize it as one Marta and I used as kids. I quickly figure it out.

It’s the location of a safety deposit box.

The flash drive isn’t here. This must be where it is.

The key to solving all of this.