Chapter 2 - A Seat at Moretti’s Table
Natalya looked at the mark again.
Three lines.
One circle.
Her father's symbol.
Impossible.
Her fingers rested against the edge of the paper.
Adrien noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed.
Natalya folded the page.
The scarred Russian immediately reached for it.
She didn't release it.
His eyes lifted to hers.
“That belongs to me.”
“You brought it as proof.”
“Not as a gift.”
Moretti's voice cut between them.
“She keeps it.”
The Russian leaned back.
His expression said he didn't like that answer.
But he accepted it.
Moretti's lieutenant approached.
His name, Natalya knew, was Vincent Russo.
Forty-three.
Six feet two.
Always ordered espresso without sugar.
Always left a twenty-dollar tip even when he drank nothing.
He bent toward Moretti.
“We should move this somewhere private.”
Moretti glanced around the dining room.
Customers were pretending not to watch.
“Agreed.”
He looked at Natalya.
“You're coming.”
It wasn't phrased like a request.
Natalya stood.
“So are they?”
“Unfortunately.”
The Russians rose.
Moretti turned to Marco.
“Table Twelve is finished for the evening.”
Marco nodded far too quickly.
“Yes, Mr. Moretti.”
“And Natalya is no longer serving tonight.”
Marco looked at her.
Something between concern and farewell appeared in his eyes.
“Yes, sir.”
Moretti led the group through a corridor behind the wine room.
Natalya had passed the door hundreds of times.
She had never seen it open.
Behind it was a private dining room with no windows, a long walnut table, leather chairs, and a painting of the Manhattan skyline.
The door shut.
Moretti's men remained standing.
The Russians sat.
Natalya stayed near the wall.
Moretti looked at her.
“Sit.”
Again.
She sat.
He placed the Pushkin page between them.
“What did you see?”
Natalya hesitated.
“The code.”
“Something else.”
“No.”
Moretti stared at her long enough that she knew he didn't believe her.
But he let it go.
“For now.”
The scarred Russian introduced himself as Viktor Sokolov.
The thin man was Mikhail Antonov.
Natalya suspected neither name was real.
Moretti apparently suspected the same.
“Where are the remaining pages?”
She translated.
Viktor answered.
“Secure.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere your men cannot reach.”
Moretti almost smiled.
“You're very confident.”
“We came here alive.”
Viktor looked around the room.
“We intend to leave the same way.”
Natalya translated.
Vincent muttered, “Optimistic.”
Moretti ignored him.
“What happens now?”
Mikhail answered.
“Miss Petrov reads the sample. If she demonstrates she understands the system, we arrange access to the rest.”
“Access?”
Moretti's expression cooled.
“You said I was buying documents.”
“You are buying information.”
“I'm buying the documents.”
“They are not in New York.”
That changed something.
Moretti's gaze sharpened.
“Where?”
Viktor smiled.
“Thirteen million dollars buys that answer.”
Moretti glanced at Natalya.
“Ask whether they have copies.”
She did.
Mikhail answered carefully.
“Copies exist until payment.”
“And after?”
“Destroyed.”
Natalya translated.
Moretti laughed once.
It was not amusement.
“You expect me to believe criminals promising to destroy leverage?”
Viktor smiled.
“You expect us to believe a Moretti promising payment.”
Fair enough, Natalya thought.
She wisely kept that untranslated.
Instead, she focused on the page.
The altered poem bothered her.
Her father had played similar games.
Change a word.
Find what didn't belong.
Every Sunday morning when she was small, he'd sit beside her with a book and pencil.
“What does a good reader notice, Nata?”
“Mistakes.”
“No.”
He would tap her forehead.
“Choices. A mistake can happen accidentally. A choice tells you someone wanted something.”
She heard his voice now.
Choices.
Natalya examined the poem again.
The obvious marks created account numbers.
The altered line breaks suggested dates.
But the symbol…
Three strokes through a circle.
It sat beside the fourth stanza.
Her father had called it a compass.
When she'd asked what it pointed toward, he had always answered:
Home.
Natalya lifted the sheet toward the light.
There.
Barely visible.
Indented writing.
Someone had placed another page over this one and written hard enough to leave impressions.
“What are you doing?” Moretti asked.
“There's something underneath.”
Viktor shifted.
A tiny movement.
But Natalya saw it.
She tilted the sheet.
Numbers emerged.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Then letters.
N.P.
Her initials.
She stopped breathing.
Moretti noticed immediately.
“What?”
Natalya put the page down.
“Where did this come from?”
She asked Viktor in Russian.
His face remained still.
“Why?”
“Where?”
“It's part of the collection.”
“Who wrote it?”
Mikhail glanced toward Viktor.
That was answer enough.
They knew.
Natalya leaned forward.
“You know who wrote this.”
Viktor's eyes hardened.
“Translate for Moretti.”
“Answer me.”
Moretti's voice came softly.
“What are you asking them?”
Natalya looked at him.
“This page may be connected to my father.”
For the first time that evening, Moretti appeared genuinely surprised.
Vincent frowned.
“What the hell does your father have to do with any of this?”
“I don't know.”
Moretti looked toward the Russians.
“Ask them.”
Natalya did.
Neither replied.
Moretti's patience disappeared.
He stood.
Viktor's body tensed.
Moretti planted both hands on the table.
“You came into my restaurant demanding twenty-two million dollars. You told me seven people inside my organization are selling my secrets. Now my waitress tells me your evidence may have something to do with her dead father.”
He looked directly at Viktor.
“I'd strongly suggest you start answering questions.”
Natalya translated.
Viktor stared at her.
“How did your father die?”
Her mouth went dry.
“He was murdered.”
“When?”
“Twenty-two years ago.”
“Where?”
“Brooklyn.”
Mikhail whispered something.
Natalya heard it.
“No.”
Viktor turned sharply toward him.
But she had heard enough.
She switched to Russian.
“What do you mean, no?”
Mikhail looked at Viktor.
Viktor said nothing.
Natalya leaned closer.
“You know his name.”
Silence.
“My father's name was Alexei Petrov.”
Mikhail's face changed.
Only for a second.
But everyone in the room saw it.
Moretti lowered himself back into his chair.
“Well.”
He looked at Natalya.
“Apparently tonight keeps getting more interesting.”
Viktor muttered a curse.
Then he spoke.
“Alexei Petrov wasn't supposed to have a daughter.”
Natalya felt the room tilt.
“What?”
“He was careful.”
“Careful about what?”
Viktor's gaze moved toward Moretti.
“Your father worked for people whose names you don't want to know.”
“You're wrong.”
“I wish I were.”
“My father repaired marine engines.”
“He repaired many things.”
Natalya's voice hardened.
“You're lying.”
Viktor took a slow breath.
“Your father was an accountant before he became a mechanic.”
She froze.
That was true.
A detail almost nobody knew.
In Russia, before America, Alexei Petrov had worked with numbers.
He abandoned that profession after they immigrated.
Her mother never explained why.
Viktor continued.
“He discovered financial records connecting Russian intermediaries, American politicians, shipping companies and organized-crime families.”
Moretti's face became unreadable.
“Which families?”
Natalya translated.
Viktor answered.
“Moretti was one of them.”
Vincent swore.
Adrien did not react.
Natalya felt anger rise.
“My father died twenty-two years ago. Mr. Moretti was a teenager.”
“Not him.”
Viktor nodded toward Adrien.
“His father.”
That landed differently.
Adrien's expression finally shifted.
“My father?”
Viktor continued.
“Giancarlo Moretti.”
Adrien leaned back.
His eyes stayed on Viktor.
“What exactly are you claiming?”
The Russian answered.
“Alexei Petrov helped create the first version of the poetry archive.”
Natalya stared at him.
“The first?”
Viktor nodded.
“The system evolved. Different people added information through the years. Payments. Names. Protection arrangements. Crimes. Betrayals.”
Mikhail added quietly:
“Your father's method became the language.”
Natalya remembered Sunday mornings.
Pushkin.
Lermontov.
Her father deliberately changing words.
Asking her to notice.
Not mistakes.
Choices.
Her childhood game had not been a game.
He had been teaching her.
Preparing her.
But for what?
“Why?”
Her voice barely worked.
Viktor stared at her for a long moment.
“Because he knew someday someone might need to read what powerful men wanted buried.”
Natalya looked toward Moretti.
He looked as unsettled as she felt.
“My father was killed because of this?”
Viktor didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
She closed her eyes.
Twenty-two years of questions suddenly had shape.
Not answers.
But shape.
When she opened them again, Moretti was watching her differently.
Not as an employee.
Not even as a translator.
As someone standing inside the same trap.
“How much do you know about my father?” Adrien asked.
Viktor smiled sadly.
“Enough to tell you he wasn't the man you think he was.”
Moretti's jaw tightened.
Natalya translated.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Then Moretti pointed toward the page.
“You said forty-seven.”
“Yes.”
“Where are they?”
Viktor looked toward Natalya.
“There is a private vault in Queens.”
Vincent immediately reached for his phone.
Viktor raised a hand.
“Not yours.”
“Whose?” Moretti asked.
“A document-storage company.”
“What name?”
Mikhail answered.
“Volkov Historical Preservation.”
Natalya's blood went cold.
She knew the name.
Not the company.
The man.
Kirill Volkov.
A man her mother had once described with trembling hands.
The last person seen speaking with Alexei Petrov before he disappeared.
Natalya looked at Viktor.
“You knew.”
Viktor's face told her everything.
“You knew who I was before you came here.”
Moretti turned.
“What?”
Natalya's voice became quiet.
“They didn't discover a waitress who happened to speak Russian.”
She looked from Viktor to Mikhail.
“They came to this restaurant knowing I worked here.”
Viktor didn't deny it.
Moretti's chair moved back.
Vincent stepped forward.
The atmosphere changed instantly.
“You used her,” Moretti said.
Viktor remained seated.
“We needed someone capable of reading the archive.”
“You could have hired a translator.”
“No.”
Viktor looked at Natalya.
“We needed Alexei Petrov's daughter.”
Her heart struck painfully against her ribs.
“Why?”
Mikhail finally answered.
“Because there are parts of the code nobody else can read.”
He glanced at the symbol on the page.
“Your father designed them specifically for you.”
Natalya looked down.
The compass.
Home.
And beneath the altered Pushkin lines, faint numbers waited.
A message written across twenty-two years.
She had spent her entire life believing her father had left her nothing but memories.
Now forty-seven pages hidden somewhere in New York carried a language he had built for her.
Moretti spoke quietly.
“Then we're going to Queens.”
Viktor immediately shook his head.
“No.”
Moretti looked at him.
“That wasn't a request.”
Natalya touched the page.
For the first time since she was seven, the memory of her father no longer felt like a closed door.
It felt like a trail.
And somewhere at the end of it waited the truth.
But Natalya had no idea yet that before dawn, the first of Moretti's seven traitors would realize she could expose him.
May you like
And he would make sure the forty-seven poems never reached Table 12.
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