Chapter 4 - The First Name in the Code
Adrien did not shout.
That frightened Natalya more than shouting would have.
“Turn around.”
Vincent glanced at him through the mirror.
“We're five minutes from her apartment.”
“Turn around.”
“Where?”
“Back to Cello Nero.”
Natalya stared at him.
“My mother is with Carlo DeSantis.”
“Which means she's either safer than we think or we're already too late to help by driving blindly around Manhattan.”
“You don't know that.”
“No.”
Adrien's gaze remained steady.
“But DeSantis knows my people, my vehicles and my habits.”
He pointed toward the windows.
“If he has your mother and wants us somewhere, driving straight into it is exactly what he expects.”
Natalya hated that his logic made sense.
“What do we do?”
“Figure out where your mother wants you to go.”
“Where the lions face the sea.”
Vincent frowned.
“Central Park?”
“No sea.”
“Public library?”
Natalya shook her head.
“The stone lions face Fifth Avenue.”
Adrien leaned back.
“What did your father mean by lions?”
Natalya closed her eyes.
Memory came in fragments.
Her father's hand.
A green coat.
Salt air.
Two stone animals.
Not New York.
Russia.
She had been perhaps six.
They were standing on an embankment.
“There's a place in St. Petersburg,” she said. “The Palace Pier. Stone lions.”
Vincent glanced back.
“Not exactly driving distance.”
“But my mother said she remembered something my father told her.”
Natalya opened the photograph again.
Wood table.
Green book.
Key 47.
A blurred brass edge in the background.
She enlarged it.
Adrien leaned toward the screen.
“What is that?”
“I don't know.”
She zoomed again.
Letters became visible.
...NEVSKY.
Her pulse quickened.
“Nevsky.”
Viktor, seated in the second vehicle with Mikhail, was called.
When he answered, Natalya spoke Russian.
“Does Elena Markova own anything in New York named after Nevsky?”
Silence.
Then:
“How do you know that name?”
“Answer.”
“A gallery.”
“Where?”
“Brighton Beach.”
Natalya's heart dropped.
Of course.
Brighton Beach.
The neighborhood where her father died.
The place her mother avoided for twenty years.
“What gallery?”
“Nevsky House. Russian art and antiquities.”
Adrien heard enough to understand.
“Address.”
Vincent rerouted.
The convoy moved south.
Forty minutes later, neon signs and dark storefronts replaced Midtown's glass towers.
Natalya watched Brighton Beach pass outside the SUV window.
She hadn't been here since she was nineteen.
Her mother hated the neighborhood.
Too many memories.
Too much Russian spoken on sidewalks.
Too many ghosts.
Nevsky House occupied a narrow brick building three blocks from the water.
Dark windows.
Metal security gate.
No sign of activity.
Adrien stopped Natalya before she opened the door.
“You stay here.”
“No.”
“That wasn't—”
“I know.”
She looked at him.
“And I'm still going inside.”
His mouth tightened.
“Natalya.”
“My mother sent the message to me.”
“And the man with her works for me.”
“Exactly.”
She opened the door.
Adrien stared after her.
Then muttered something in Italian and followed.
The gallery door was unlocked.
Inside, moonlight spilled across framed paintings.
No alarms sounded.
Natalya moved slowly between displays.
Russian landscapes.
Imperial portraits.
Icons.
A marble lion stood at the end of the room.
Then another.
Both facing a huge painting of the Baltic Sea.
“The lions face the sea,” she whispered.
Adrien looked around.
“Your mother has a flair for drama.”
“She learned it from Russians.”
Behind the marble lions stood a door.
Natalya opened it.
Light shone beneath another door at the bottom of a narrow staircase.
She heard voices.
Russian.
Her mother.
Natalya hurried down.
Adrien caught her wrist.
“Slow.”
She pulled free.
“That's my mother.”
She opened the door.
“Mom?”
Irina Petrov turned.
For one second, she simply stared.
Then she crossed the room and wrapped both arms around her daughter.
“Nata.”
Natalya held her.
“You're okay.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you answer?”
“I couldn't.”
Natalya pulled back.
Then saw the other man.
Carlo DeSantis stood near a desk.
His hands were visible.
No weapon.
No threatening posture.
His signet ring matched the photograph.
Adrien stepped into the room.
Carlo's face changed.
“Boss.”
Adrien stared at him.
“You want to explain?”
Carlo glanced at Irina.
“She contacted me.”
Natalya turned toward her mother.
“You called him?”
Irina nodded.
“You know him?”
“For many years.”
That sentence seemed to stun everyone except Carlo.
Adrien's voice hardened.
“How many?”
Irina looked at him.
“Since before you took over your father's organization.”
Adrien glanced at Carlo.
“You never mentioned that.”
Carlo's face looked tired.
“I promised her.”
“To hide what?”
Carlo nodded toward the desk.
The green Pushkin book lay there.
Beside it, the key marked 47.
Irina touched the worn cover.
“Your father gave me this the night before he disappeared.”
Natalya looked at her.
“You told me he left it in our apartment.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
“From what?”
Irina's eyes filled.
“From all of them.”
Her gaze moved from Carlo to Adrien.
“From Russians. From Morettis. From anyone who learned what your father had created.”
Natalya felt anger and grief twisting together.
“For twenty-two years?”
“You were seven.”
“I'm twenty-nine now.”
“I kept waiting for the danger to end.”
Irina looked toward the book.
“It never did.”
Adrien stepped closer to Carlo.
“What is your part in this?”
Carlo swallowed.
“Your father asked me to watch them.”
Natalya stared at him.
“Giancarlo Moretti?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Carlo looked at Adrien.
“Because Giancarlo and Alexei were working together.”
Adrien's expression hardened.
“Working on what?”
“An exit.”
The room went still.
Carlo continued.
“Your father wanted out of certain businesses. Alexei had financial records proving who was stealing from whom, who was bribing officials, who was planning to betray partners.”
Adrien laughed bitterly.
“My father spent his life building the organization.”
“No.”
Carlo shook his head.
“He spent the last years of his life trying to keep you from inheriting the worst parts.”
Adrien's eyes darkened.
“You're lying.”
“I wish I were.”
Carlo looked at Irina.
“Tell him.”
Irina nodded reluctantly.
“Giancarlo wanted records preserved in case people inside his organization moved against him.”
Natalya looked at the book.
“And my father designed the code.”
“Yes.”
“Why poetry?”
A painful smile crossed Irina's face.
“Because your father believed dangerous men rarely read poems.”
For the first time all night, Natalya nearly laughed.
It sounded exactly like him.
Adrien turned toward Carlo.
“Why were you in the photograph?”
“Because Irina called me after she learned Natalya had become involved.”
“How?”
Irina looked embarrassed.
“Marco.”
Natalya blinked.
“Marco called you?”
“He knows I worry.”
Natalya closed her eyes.
Of course.
Marco knew her mother.
He'd driven her home after shifts.
He had her number.
“He told you Russian men were meeting Moretti?”
“He told me you hadn't left work and something was wrong.”
Irina opened the green book.
“So I opened the place where your father told me never to look unless someone came asking about poetry.”
She turned to the back cover.
The leather lining had been carefully cut.
Inside was a narrow metal key.
Not the key marked 47.
Another.
Smaller.
“What's that?” Adrien asked.
Irina looked at Natalya.
“The real key.”
Natalya stared at the numbered key on the table.
“Then what's number forty-seven?”
Carlo answered.
“A decoy.”
That changed everything.
Viktor and Mikhail had claimed the archive sat in a commercial vault.
But Alexei Petrov had apparently designed a second security layer nobody had told them about.
Natalya opened the green book.
Several passages were underlined.
She knew them.
Her father had read them endlessly.
Pushkin.
Lermontov.
Akhmatova.
On the inside cover he had written four words in Russian.
Home is where truth survives.
Natalya touched the handwriting.
Tears burned behind her eyes.
Adrien noticed but said nothing.
Carlo approached the desk.
“We don't have much time.”
“Why?” Adrien asked.
“Because Viktor isn't working only for Elena Markova.”
Natalya looked up.
Carlo's voice lowered.
“He's working for Kirill Volkov.”
Her mother's face drained.
Adrien looked toward Natalya.
“The man connected to your father.”
“Yes.”
Carlo nodded.
“Volkov has spent twenty-two years looking for this book.”
“Why?”
Carlo looked at the tiny metal key.
“Because Alexei hid one part of the archive separately.”
“What part?” Natalya asked.
“The part identifying who ordered his murder.”
Her breathing stopped.
Irina closed her eyes.
Carlo continued.
“And if Volkov learns you can read it, he'll do anything to make sure you never finish.”
Adrien pulled out his phone.
“Vincent.”
No answer.
He called again.
Nothing.
Carlo's expression changed.
“Where is he?”
“With the Russians.”
Adrien looked toward the staircase.
Then his phone rang.
Vincent.
Adrien answered.
A voice came through.
Not Vincent.
Viktor.
His Russian was calm.
“Natalya should have stayed at the restaurant.”
Adrien handed her the phone.
“What do you want?”
Viktor answered.
“The green book.”
Natalya looked at her mother.
“And Vincent?”
“He's alive.”
“Where?”
“Safe enough.”
“You're working for Volkov.”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“Why come to us?”
“Because I needed you to unlock what your father hid.”
Natalya's hand tightened around the phone.
“You never cared about selling the archive.”
“No.”
The truth fell into place.
The meeting.
The outrageous price.
The sample page.
The planted symbol.
They had baited her.
They needed to confirm Alexei Petrov's daughter could still recognize the system.
“Where are the forty-seven pages?”
Natalya asked.
Viktor laughed quietly.
“Closer than you think.”
The line went dead.
Adrien stared at her.
“What did he say?”
Natalya looked at the green book.
Then at the marble lions.
Then at the painting of the sea.
Closer than you think.
She suddenly understood.
She crossed the room.
“What are you doing?” Irina asked.
Natalya stopped in front of the painting.
The Baltic Sea.
Her father's favorite view.
She lifted the frame.
Behind it was a steel compartment built into the wall.
Carlo stared.
“I've never seen that.”
Natalya inserted the small key.
The lock turned.
Inside sat a black archival box.
Her hands trembled as she opened it.
Forty-seven handwritten pages.
Exactly.
And resting on top was a sealed envelope.
Written in Alexei Petrov's handwriting were four words.
For Natalya. When ready.
She opened it.
Inside was a single sheet.
Not poetry.
A letter.
The first sentence made her knees weak.
My dearest Nata, if you are reading this, then the people who killed me have finally become afraid of you.
And beneath those words was the beginning of a story Natalya's mother had spent twenty-two years trying to protect her from.
A story that would reveal why seven men inside Adrien Moretti's organization had betrayed him.
May you like
And why the seventh name would be almost impossible for Moretti to believe.
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