Chapter 4 - The Ninth Interpreter
Branko chose a bakery.
Not a warehouse.
Not a private club.
Not one of the restaurants with velvet ropes and men pretending not to be security.
A bakery.
At 8:10 on a rainy Saturday morning, Petra stood beneath a green awning in Brooklyn and wondered whether dangerous men deliberately preferred ordinary places because nobody expected important secrets to be discussed beside trays of poppy-seed rolls.
Cassian had objected.
Strongly.
“You’re not going alone.”
“Branko said alone.”
“I heard you.”
“Then why are we still discussing this?”
“Because his definition of alone and mine are different.”
Petra folded her arms.
“Is that a language problem?”
Cassian had stared at her for three seconds.
Then Mara laughed.
Cassian finally compromised.
Petra would enter alone.
Drolett security would remain two blocks away.
No microphones.
No visible surveillance.
Petra had agreed only because the alternative was Cassian appearing beside her like an angry shadow.
Branko was seated near the back when she entered.
No bodyguards in sight.
A newspaper rested beside his coffee.
He gestured toward the chair opposite him.
“You came.”
“You asked.”
“In my experience, those are not the same thing.”
Petra sat.
A waitress arrived.
Branko ordered for both of them in Serbian.
Petra raised an eyebrow.
“You don’t know what I want.”
“Coffee.”
“That was a safe guess.”
“And burek.”
“I already ate.”
“Then you will eat twice.”
For several minutes he discussed nothing more serious than weather.
Petra waited.
That was another lesson from childhood.
People revealed more when silence made them uncomfortable.
Branko was not uncomfortable.
Eventually he folded the newspaper.
“You should not work for Cassian Drolett.”
Petra blinked.
“That’s why you brought me here?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“You should not work for any man whose enemies speak more languages than his friends.”
“That sounds rehearsed.”
“It is old.”
“Still dramatic.”
Branko smiled faintly.
“You sound like your mother.”
Petra’s blood went cold.
She stared at him.
“What did you say?”
Branko’s smile disappeared.
“Elena.”
Petra stood.
He did not move.
“Sit down.”
“How do you know my mother?”
“Petra.”
“You have ten seconds before I walk out.”
His gaze changed.
Not threatening.
Sad.
“I knew her in Belgrade.”
Petra remained standing.
“How?”
“She translated.”
The bakery sounds seemed to move farther away.
“She cleaned apartments.”
“She did many things.”
Petra slowly sat.
“My mother told me she worked for families.”
“She did.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
Branko leaned forward.
“In the late nineties and early 2000s, trade companies in the Balkans used people who could move between communities. Serbian. Ukrainian. Polish. Russian. English. Your mother could.”
Petra’s jaw tightened.
“You’re telling me she worked for you?”
“No.”
“For Cassian?”
“No. Cassian was barely more than a boy.”
“Then who?”
Branko looked toward the window.
“A consortium that no longer exists.”
“That means nothing.”
“It means I am trying not to put names in your mouth that you cannot remove once heard.”
Petra nearly stood again.
Branko raised one hand.
“Victor Saye’s father was part of it.”
Everything stopped.
Petra stared.
“Victor.”
“Yes.”
“You knew his father.”
“I knew what he did.”
“What did he do?”
“Controlled information.”
The phrase landed hard.
Branko continued.
“Before encrypted messaging, before real-time automated translation, people with language were valuable. More valuable than guns in some rooms.”
Petra’s stomach tightened.
“Why was my mother involved?”
“She was young. Poor. Intelligent.”
The description felt painfully familiar.
“She translated because it paid.”
“And then?”
“She overheard things.”
Of course she did.
Petra looked down at her hands.
Her mother always said Petra listened too closely because she inherited it from her.
“What things?”
“Routes. Ownership. Political payments. Smuggling disguised as legitimate freight.”
Petra’s eyes snapped up.
“I don’t want details.”
“Good.”
Branko nodded once.
“You are wiser than most people in Meridian Tower.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because Victor knows who your mother is.”
Petra stopped breathing.
“Does Cassian?”
“I do not believe so.”
“How could Victor know?”
“Because his father hated Elena.”
“Why?”
“She testified.”
Petra felt the floor tilt beneath her.
“My mother testified against someone?”
“Not in open court.”
“Then where?”
“A financial investigation. Confidential.”
Branko’s voice lowered.
“She gave information that helped collapse a network his father depended on.”
Petra thought about Elena’s fear when she mentioned translating.
You promised you were done with that kind of room.
The words had seemed protective.
Now they felt like history.
“Victor sent the Polish message.”
“I cannot prove it.”
“But you think so.”
“Yes.”
“What does he want?”
Branko looked at her with an expression Petra could not read.
“At first? To know whether you were merely a cleaner who understood Serbian.”
“And now?”
“Now he will discover you are Elena Vance’s daughter.”
The coffee arrived.
Neither touched it.
Petra forced herself to ask the next question.
“Why did you look at Victor during the negotiation?”
“Because I recognized his method.”
“Mistranslation?”
“Not exactly.”
Branko tapped one finger against the table.
“His father believed truth should never be erased. Erased truth creates suspicion.”
Petra listened.
“He believed truth should be tilted.”
A phrase changed.
A tone softened.
A condition omitted.
A threat made polite.
“Exactly,” Branko said.
“He taught Victor.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I watched Victor do it for twelve years.”
“Then why didn’t you tell Cassian?”
Branko gave a tired smile.
“I did.”
“When?”
“Many times.”
Petra frowned.
“Cassian said the warning last week was new.”
“It was not.”
A cold realization formed.
“You warned him through interpreters.”
“Yes.”
“And the warnings were softened.”
“Yes.”
Petra sat back.
That was the elegance of it.
Victor did not need to silence Branko.
He only needed to control how Branko sounded.
Petra looked toward the bakery entrance.
“You said nine interpreters.”
Branko’s face tightened.
“You found that?”
“I found eight before Julian.”
“You should ask what happened to the first.”
“Cassian said they resigned or were fired.”
“The first did not.”
Petra’s mouth went dry.
“Where is he?”
“Alive.”
Branko said it quickly.
“He is alive.”
Petra exhaled.
“Then what happened?”
“He disappeared from this industry.”
“Why?”
“Because he realized what was happening.”
“Who was he?”
Branko pulled a folded piece of paper from his coat.
He slid it across the table.
A name.
Adrian Kessler.
Underneath was an address in New Jersey.
Petra did not touch it.
“Why haven’t you gone to him?”
“He refuses to see anyone associated with Cassian.”
“But he’ll see me?”
“He might see a cleaner.”
Petra looked up sharply.
Branko’s gaze was steady.
“You think invisibility is weakness,” he said. “People like Victor think so too. That is why they make mistakes around people they do not consider important.”
Petra thought of the cleaning cart.
The men speaking freely while she emptied bins.
The executives who never remembered her name.
The doors that stayed open because nobody considered a cleaner capable of understanding what happened behind them.
“What did Adrian hear?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why is he important?”
“Because after he left, Victor changed every language vendor Drolett Maritime used.”
Petra finally picked up the paper.
Outside, a black SUV rolled slowly through the intersection.
She watched it pass.
Branko followed her gaze.
“Cassian’s?”
“Probably.”
“He does not understand the word alone.”
“We already discussed that.”
Branko smiled faintly.
Then his expression turned serious again.
“There is one more thing.”
Petra waited.
“When you speak to your mother today, do not ask whether she knew Victor’s father.”
“Why?”
“Ask whether she remembers the name Saye.”
“That’s the same question.”
“No.”
Branko’s eyes remained on hers.
“If she says she does not know him, believe her.”
Petra frowned.
“And if she says she remembers?”
“Then do not bring her to Meridian Tower again.”
“I’ve never brought her there.”
“Keep it that way.”
Petra slipped Adrian Kessler’s address into her bag.
When she left the bakery, Cassian was standing across the street beneath an umbrella.
Not two blocks away.
Across the street.
Petra stopped.
He crossed toward her.
“Before you say anything—”
“You agreed to two blocks.”
“I reconsidered.”
“You don’t get to reconsider my conditions without telling me.”
“Did Branko threaten you?”
“No.”
“Did he give you something?”
Petra looked at him.
Cassian saw the answer in her face.
“What?”
“A name.”
“Whose?”
Petra hesitated.
For the first time since entering his world, she understood exactly why Branko had requested privacy.
Information did not simply belong to the person who knew it.
It changed relationships.
Cassian’s expression darkened.
“Petra.”
“Adrian Kessler.”
The rain seemed to strike harder.
Cassian went completely motionless.
Petra recognized that dangerous stillness again.
“You know him,” she said.
Cassian looked away.
“Yes.”
“Branko says he was your first interpreter.”
“He was.”
“Why did he leave?”
Cassian’s voice was low.
“Because eleven years ago Adrian Kessler accused my father of building Drolett Maritime on a lie.”
Petra stared.
Cassian looked back at her.
“And three days later, my father died.”
The name on the paper suddenly felt much heavier.
Because Petra had believed she was investigating corrupted translations.
Now she understood she was walking backward into a secret that had begun long before Cassian became the man people feared.
May you like
And somewhere in New Jersey, the first interpreter was still alive.
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