Chapter 2 - The Name That Shouldn't Exist
Odessa forgot about Camille’s engagement party.
She forgot about the rain.
She even forgot the question Anton had asked only minutes earlier.
Who are you dressing up for?
There were suddenly more dangerous questions in the room.
“How can someone who disappeared eleven years ago authorize a shipment today?”
Anton did not answer immediately.
He walked to the office door and locked it.
That frightened Odessa more than anything else.
Anton Kazarian did not look like a man who locked doors because he was afraid of what might enter.
He looked like a man other people locked doors against.
“Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
Odessa almost objected.
Instead, she sat.
Anton picked up his phone.
“Lev.”
A man's voice answered.
“Boss.”
“Where is Mercer?”
“Thirty-eighth floor.”
“Keep him there.”
“Problem?”
“Possibly.”
Anton disconnected.
Odessa folded her hands.
“Mr. Kazarian—”
“Anton.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“You called me Anton thirty seconds ago. Apparently we've crossed that bridge.”
Under different circumstances, she might have smiled.
Tonight, she couldn't.
Anton returned to the documents.
“My younger brother was named Stefan.”
Odessa waited.
“He disappeared when he was twenty-three.”
“What happened?”
“We never found out.”
“Police?”
Anton gave her a look.
Right.
Wrong family.
“My father believed Stefan ran away,” he continued. “I didn't.”
“Why?”
“Because Stefan left without money, passport, or the watch our mother gave him.”
Anton looked toward the skyline.
“He would have left me before he left that watch.”
Odessa heard something beneath the words.
Grief.
Old grief.
The kind that no longer screamed because it had learned to live inside the bones.
“And the authorization code?”
“Every Kazarian family executive had one. Stefan's was disabled after his disappearance.”
“Then somebody reactivated it.”
“Yes.”
“Who can do that?”
Anton looked at her.
“Three people.”
He named them.
Himself.
His chief financial officer, Marcus Mercer.
And Anton’s father.
Odessa knew the last answer before asking.
“Your father?”
“Dead seven years.”
The office became very quiet.
Odessa looked at the Rotterdam file.
“So Mercer?”
“Maybe.”
“But you don’t believe that.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Mercer is greedy.”
Anton leaned against the desk.
“Greedy men steal money. They don't resurrect ghosts.”
The phrase chilled her.
Anton turned several pages.
“What made you notice the weight discrepancy?”
“It wasn't difficult.”
“Nobody else noticed.”
“They should have.”
“But they didn't.”
Odessa shrugged.
“I check everything.”
“I know.”
She looked at him.
That answer surprised her.
“You know?”
Anton’s eyes stayed on the file.
“You think I haven't noticed what you do?”
Odessa nearly laughed.
“Actually, yes.”
He looked up.
She immediately regretted saying it.
But Anton did not become angry.
“Why?”
“Because nobody notices.”
“I’m not nobody.”
“No.”
She held his gaze.
“You're usually the person noticing everything except me.”
The sentence escaped before she could stop it.
Anton became completely still.
Odessa felt heat rise into her face.
“I shouldn't have said that.”
“Why?”
“You’re my boss.”
“That doesn't make it untrue.”
She looked away.
Anton studied her.
“Three years.”
“What?”
“You've been outside my office three years.”
“Three years, two months.”
“I know.”
“Of course you do.”
Something almost resembling amusement touched his mouth.
Then disappeared.
His phone vibrated.
A message.
Anton read it.
His expression hardened.
“Mercer left the building.”
“You told security to hold him.”
“I did.”
“How did he leave?”
Anton showed her the screen.
PRIVATE ELEVATOR OVERRIDE — AUTHORIZATION: S. KAZARIAN.
Odessa felt cold.
“Stefan?”
Anton grabbed his jacket.
“Stay here.”
“Absolutely not.”
He stopped.
Odessa surprised herself.
“You're investigating something connected to paperwork I found. Priscilla knows I found it. If something is wrong, sitting alone in your office doesn't make me safer.”
Anton stared.
“You argue with your boss often?”
“Only since I bought this dress, apparently.”
This time he actually smiled.
It lasted less than a second.
“Come.”
They descended through a service elevator.
The parking garage was nearly empty.
Mercer's space was vacant.
Anton crouched beside it.
A white envelope lay on the concrete.
His name was written across the front.
ANTON.
He opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Two young men stood beside the Savannah River.
Anton, perhaps twenty-five.
And another man who resembled him enough that Odessa immediately understood.
Stefan.
On the back were six words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LOOKED CLOSER, BROTHER.
Anton stared at them.
Odessa saw his hand tighten.
Then she noticed something.
“Anton.”
“What?”
“The photograph.”
“What about it?”
“That building.”
She pointed to the background.
A hotel stood behind Stefan.
A neon sign was visible.
THE RIVER HOUSE.
“I know it.”
“So?”
“It was renovated five years ago.”
Anton frowned.
Odessa pointed to the photograph.
“That balcony didn't exist before the renovation.”
He stared at her.
“You’re certain?”
“My cousin had her wedding there last year. She showed me approximately eight hundred pictures.”
Anton turned the photograph over.
“If you're right—”
“This wasn't taken eleven years ago.”
“No.”
His voice became almost inaudible.
“It was taken recently.”
They returned upstairs.
At 9:12, Anton's security team found Mercer.
Not fleeing.
Not hiding.
Unconscious in his apartment from what doctors later called a severe stress reaction, with his phone missing and no memory of leaving the building.
Someone had used him.
The following morning, Odessa arrived wearing her gray cardigan again.
Anton noticed immediately.
He said nothing.
At 10:15, Priscilla approached Odessa’s desk.
“You had an exciting night.”
Odessa looked up.
“What?”
Priscilla smiled.
“Heard you stayed late with Mr. Kazarian.”
The implication was obvious.
Odessa's old instinct told her to shrink.
Instead, she remembered Anton saying:
I know.
She closed the folder she was working on.
“Did you need something?”
Priscilla's smile tightened.
“No.”
“Then I have work.”
Priscilla walked away.
At noon, Anton appeared.
“Odessa.”
“Yes?”
“My office.”
The whispers started before the door closed.
Anton placed a folder before her.
Inside were employment records.
Hers.
“What is this?”
“I had security review everyone who touched the Rotterdam documentation.”
“And?”
“You were hired three years ago through an outside recruiting agency.”
“Yes.”
“Calloway Administrative.”
“Yes.”
“That agency never existed.”
Odessa stared at him.
“What?”
Anton slid another document across the desk.
“Someone created it six weeks before you applied here.”
Her mouth went dry.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“It gets worse.”
He placed a photograph beside the paperwork.
It showed a man leaving a Savannah bank two weeks earlier.
Older.
Gray at the temples.
But unmistakable.
Stefan Kazarian.
Odessa stared.
“He's alive.”
Anton nodded.
Then he pointed to the woman walking beside Stefan.
Odessa stopped breathing.
Because she knew that face.
She had not seen it in twenty years.
But she knew it.
“That's impossible.”
Anton watched her.
“Who is she?”
May you like
Odessa touched the photograph with trembling fingers.
“My mother.”
