Chapter 3 - The Secret in Her Birth Certificate
Victor did not tell Aaliyah.
That decision lasted forty-eight hours.
It was also the worst decision he could have made.
On Monday afternoon, Aaliyah left the campus bookstore carrying two textbooks and a coffee she couldn't afford.
A silver-haired man stood near the entrance.
“Aaliyah Carter?”
She stopped.
“Yes?”
“My name is Anton Volkov.”
The name meant nothing to her.
“I knew your mother.”
Aaliyah's body went still.
“My mother?”
“Danielle.”
Nobody called her mother Danielle around Aaliyah.
Mostly because nobody talked about her.
Her mother had disappeared from her life when Aaliyah was six.
Occasional birthday cards became occasional texts.
Then silence.
“What do you want?”
Anton smiled sadly.
“Ten minutes.”
“No.”
“I've spent twenty-five years trying to find you.”
Aaliyah stared.
He handed her an envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Her mother, young and smiling.
Beside her stood Anton.
His arm around her waist.
On the back, handwriting read:
Danielle & Anton, 2000.
Aaliyah looked up.
“What is this?”
“Ask Victor Melenov.”
Her blood chilled.
“How do you know Victor?”
Anton walked away.
Aaliyah called Victor immediately.
He answered on the first ring.
“Aaliyah.”
“Do you know Anton Volkov?”
Silence.
That was enough.
“You knew.”
“Aaliyah—”
“Did you know?”
“Since Saturday.”
Rage replaced confusion.
“You investigated me again?”
“I investigated him.”
“And found what?”
Victor said nothing.
“Tell me.”
“We should discuss this somewhere private.”
“No. Now.”
“Aaliyah.”
“Victor.”
A long pause.
“He may be your biological father.”
The campus disappeared around her.
Aaliyah sat on a bench.
“What?”
“Your mother had a relationship with him shortly before you were born.”
“You're sure?”
“No. Not without DNA confirmation.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I needed more information.”
“You decided that for me?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“There it is again.”
“Aaliyah—”
“You keep using protection as permission to control information about my own life.”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“When I understood whether Anton was dangerous.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Marcus was right about you.”
Victor became silent.
“You think because you have money and security and people who investigate things, you can decide what everyone else gets to know.”
“That isn't what I'm doing.”
“That's exactly what you're doing.”
She ended the call.
Victor stared at his phone.
Nikolai stood across the office.
“That went poorly.”
Victor looked at him.
Nikolai wisely said nothing else.
For three days, Aaliyah avoided the Red Lion.
She traded shifts.
Ignored Victor's messages.
And met Anton in a public café.
He told her a complicated story.
He and Danielle had been young.
He had been involved in businesses Danielle wanted no part of.
She became pregnant.
She disappeared.
Anton claimed he hadn't known where she'd gone.
“Why now?”
“I found her two years ago.”
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
Anton looked down.
“She died last winter.”
Aaliyah's throat tightened.
Her mother had died without contacting her.
Anton pushed an envelope across the table.
“She left this.”
Aaliyah didn't open it.
Not yet.
“Were you in organized crime?”
Anton looked at her.
“Yes.”
The honesty startled her.
“Are you still?”
“I have legitimate businesses.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“No.”
Aaliyah stood.
“Then we're finished.”
Anton did not stop her.
“Victor isn't innocent either.”
She turned.
“What does that mean?”
“Ask him why Elena really died.”
Aaliyah froze.
“Cancer.”
“Cancer killed her.”
Anton nodded.
“But ask Victor why he blames himself for it.”
That night, Aaliyah went to the Red Lion.
Victor was already at table nine.
He stood when he saw her.
“You've been avoiding me.”
“Yes.”
“Are you all right?”
“No.”
Victor started toward her.
Aaliyah raised a hand.
“Don't.”
He stopped immediately.
“Anton says he's my father.”
“I know.”
“He says my mother is dead.”
Victor's expression softened.
“I didn't know that.”
“He gave me a letter.”
“Have you read it?”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“He also told me to ask about Elena.”
Victor's face became unreadable.
“What about her?”
“Why do you blame yourself for her death?”
Silence.
Victor looked toward Nikolai.
The bodyguard quietly moved farther away.
Aaliyah sat.
Victor slowly joined her.
“Elena had cancer,” he said.
“I know.”
“Her death was natural.”
“But?”
Victor's hand closed around his wedding band.
“I wasn't a good man when I met her.”
Aaliyah waited.
“I built my wealth through businesses that existed in gray areas of legality.”
“Gray?”
“Some considerably darker than gray.”
He didn't romanticize it.
No swagger.
No pride.
“I had enemies. Elena hated that world. When she became ill, she begged me to leave it.”
“Did you?”
“Not quickly enough.”
Victor stared into the dark surface of his vodka.
“I believed money meant power. Power meant control. I thought if I controlled enough people and enough businesses, nothing could touch us.”
He swallowed.
“Then cancer showed me what control actually meant.”
“Nothing.”
“Exactly.”
Aaliyah's anger weakened.
Victor continued.
“Elena spent her final months asking me to become someone she could recognize again.”
“Did you?”
“I tried.”
He looked around the pub.
“Most of my businesses today are legitimate because of her.”
“Most?”
Victor almost smiled.
“I'm being honest.”
“That's new.”
“I deserved that.”
Aaliyah sat quietly.
Finally she pulled out her mother's envelope.
“I can't open it alone.”
Victor looked at her.
“Are you asking me to stay?”
“Yes.”
The word affected him more than she expected.
Aaliyah opened the envelope.
Inside were four pages.
The first sentence broke her.
My beautiful Aaliyah, if you're reading this, I failed to become brave before time ran out.
Aaliyah covered her mouth.
Victor said nothing.
He simply moved his chair closer.
She read.
Danielle admitted leaving Anton.
She admitted abandoning Aaliyah with Gran because she feared Anton's world would eventually find them.
But there was another confession.
Anton believed you were his daughter. I allowed him to believe it because the truth was more dangerous.
Aaliyah stopped breathing.
Victor noticed.
“What?”
She handed him the page.
Victor read the next line.
His expression changed.
Your biological father was not Anton Volkov.
Below it was another name.
Victor knew it.
He stood so quickly his chair scraped backward.
Aaliyah looked up.
“What?”
Victor reread the name.
“No.”
“Who is he?”
Victor's gray eyes met hers.
Aaliyah had never seen genuine fear in them before.
Not until now.
May you like
“Your father,” Victor whispered, “is the man who tried to destroy my family fifteen years ago.”
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