Chapter 4 - The Person Stellan Trusted Most
Stellan read the sentence twice.
Then he walked away from the desk.
Celia watched him stop beside the window.
"You knew Elena personally."
It wasn't a question.
Stellan remained silent.
"Stellan."
"Her father worked for mine."
That wasn't the answer Celia expected.
"Doing what?"
"Accounting."
"What happened to him?"
"He disappeared when Elena was sixteen."
Celia stared.
"Another disappearance?"
"He stole from my father."
"Did he?"
Stellan turned.
"What does that mean?"
"It means we're currently investigating years of deliberately altered information. Maybe you should stop assuming everything you were told was true."
The words struck something.
She could see it.
For years, Stellan had built his life around information.
Reports.
Contracts.
Loyalty.
Accuracy.
Now Celia was asking him to consider that the foundation itself might have been corrupted.
Archer entered carrying a tablet.
"We found Mateo."
"Where?"
"Airport."
Stellan's jaw tightened.
"Leaving?"
"Private terminal. Flight scheduled for Lisbon."
Celia expected Stellan to explode.
He didn't.
"Stop the departure legally," he said. "Tell him I need him back here regarding an accounting discrepancy."
Archer nodded.
"And Archer?"
"Yes?"
"Don't tell anyone why."
Archer left.
Celia looked impressed.
"You're learning."
"Don't become unbearable."
"Too late."
Mateo returned ninety minutes later.
He entered the study visibly irritated.
"What is this?"
Stellan gestured toward a chair.
Mateo remained standing.
"I have a flight."
"You had a flight."
Celia sat quietly near the bookshelf with her notebook.
Mateo noticed her.
Something changed.
There.
His right hand closed.
Celia saw it.
Stellan did too.
"Sit."
Mateo sat.
Stellan placed the false document on the desk.
"Have you seen this?"
"Of course."
"Who else?"
"Archer. Legal. Possibly Anton."
"And Grekov?"
Mateo's eyes flickered.
Barely.
But Celia saw it.
"I don't understand."
Stellan switched to Russian.
Mateo didn't speak Russian fluently.
But he understood enough.
Stellan asked a harmless question.
Mateo answered.
Then Celia deliberately mistranslated Stellan's next sentence.
For the first time in her professional life, she knowingly gave an incorrect interpretation.
Mateo immediately reacted to what Stellan had actually said.
Not what Celia translated.
Silence filled the room.
Mateo realized his mistake.
Stellan leaned back.
"You understand Russian."
"Some."
"Enough to know she translated me incorrectly."
Mateo said nothing.
Celia's voice was quiet.
"Which means you understood negotiations you claimed required an interpreter."
Mateo stood.
"I don't have to participate in this."
"No," Stellan said calmly. "You don't."
That calmness frightened Mateo more than shouting would have.
He sat again.
The truth arrived slowly.
Mateo had been paying translators to alter language.
Not every sentence.
Never enough to make the manipulation obvious.
He had spent years creating misunderstandings between organizations and profiting from the resulting financial instability.
But he hadn't started it.
"Who did?" Stellan asked.
Mateo refused to answer.
Until Celia placed Elena's name on the table.
Mateo's face changed.
"You don't understand what she found."
"Then explain it," Celia said.
Mateo looked at Stellan.
"Ask Archer."
The room became silent.
Celia felt something cold move through her.
Stellan didn't move.
"What did you say?"
Mateo swallowed.
"Ask Archer who approved the first North Meridian contract."
Stellan pressed the intercom.
"Archer."
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Stellan stood.
They found Archer's office empty.
His phone remained on the desk.
His jacket was gone.
The security feed showed his car leaving twelve minutes earlier.
Celia stared at the screen.
"He knew."
Stellan said nothing.
Archer had been with him for seventeen years.
Longer than almost anyone.
The man who had warned Celia about the estate.
The man who had told her to assume every rumor about Stellan was true.
The man Stellan trusted to control access to his home.
Stellan's face remained calm.
His eyes didn't.
Celia understood something then.
Betrayal wasn't shocking because an enemy had harmed you.
It was shocking because the person who harmed you had once been allowed close enough to matter.
"Find him," Stellan told security.
Then he walked back toward his study.
Celia followed.
"Stellan."
"Go to your room."
"No."
He stopped.
"That wasn't a request."
"Good, because I'm refusing anyway."
His eyes flashed.
"This is no longer interpreting."
"It stopped being interpreting yesterday."
"You have fulfilled your contract."
"No."
"You'll be paid the entire amount."
"This isn't about money anymore."
Stellan stared at her.
"Everything was about money when you arrived."
"Things change."
That silenced him.
Celia stepped closer.
"Elena left clues for someone who understood language. I understand them. If I leave now, we lose the only advantage we have."
"We?"
The word came quietly.
Celia hesitated.
Then nodded.
"We."
Something passed between them.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Trust.
And for Stellan Varo, that might have been more dangerous.
They searched Archer's office.
Twenty minutes later Celia found a photograph hidden inside an old Russian dictionary.
Two teenage girls stood beside a lake.
One was Elena.
The other looked familiar.
Celia turned the photograph over.
Two names were written on the back.
Elena Markovic.
And beneath it:
Mara Varo.
Celia looked at Stellan.
"Who's Mara?"
Every trace of color disappeared from his face.
"My sister."
"Where is she?"
Stellan stared at the photograph.
"She died eighteen years ago."
Celia turned it over again.
A date had been written beneath the names.
The photograph was taken only six years ago.
Which meant one of two things was true.
May you like
Either the photograph was fake.
Or Stellan Varo's sister had been alive for twelve years after everyone told him she was dead.
