Chapter 10 - THE LAST WORD
The third man in the photograph was seventy-two-year-old Anton Volkov.
To the public, he was a retired professor of Eastern European history.
To Patrick Brennan, he had once been a mentor.
To Vasily Orlov, he had been something else.
The architect.
Marco found him twenty-four hours later.
Not hiding.
Teaching.
Talia sat in the back row of a Columbia lecture hall while Volkov discussed the fall of the Soviet Union with forty bored undergraduates.
Lucian sat beside her.
“You're sure?”
“Yes.”
“You met him?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“I was twelve.”
Volkov finished his lecture.
Students departed.
He looked toward Talia.
Recognition came immediately.
“Patrick's daughter.”
Talia stood.
“Professor.”
Volkov smiled.
“And Lucian Marchetti.”
Lucian didn't return the smile.
Marco's agents waited outside.
Volkov knew.
He seemed almost amused.
“You killed Orlov,” Talia said.
“No.”
“Someone did.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Volkov packed his notes.
“Vasily accumulated enemies the way ordinary men accumulate receipts.”
Talia placed the photograph on his desk.
“My father trusted you.”
Volkov looked at it.
“For a time.”
“You betrayed him.”
“No.”
“Then explain.”
The professor sat.
“Your father discovered Orlov's network. Carlo Marchetti financed the effort to expose it. I built the linguistic encryption.”
Talia froze.
“You?”
“Patrick improved it.”
Lucian stepped forward.
“Why were you hidden from the tapes?”
“Because one person needed to survive.”
Volkov looked at Talia.
“Your father chose me.”
Talia hated the answer.
“My father died.”
“Yes.”
“And you did nothing.”
“No.”
Volkov opened his briefcase.
“I waited.”
He removed a thick folder.
Inside were bank records, photographs, names, dates.
“Orlov was never the highest level because there was no highest level. That was Patrick's final discovery. The network survived because people kept looking for a king.”
He looked at Lucian.
“Networks don't need kings.”
Talia understood.
“Everyone was protecting everyone else.”
“Yes.”
Volkov pushed the folder toward Marco as he entered.
“This finishes it.”
Marco opened the documents.
His expression changed.
“This is enough for dozens of indictments.”
“More.”
“Why give it up now?”
Volkov looked at Talia.
“Because Patrick's daughter finished what we couldn't.”
Talia shook her head.
“I poured wine.”
“You listened.”
Those words stayed with her.
Six months later, thirty-seven people had been indicted across four states.
Orlov's network collapsed.
Nico received a twelve-year sentence with eligibility for earlier release based on cooperation.
Lucian visited every Sunday.
Elena visited every Wednesday.
Talia went once.
Nico apologized.
She did not tell him she forgave him.
She told him forgiveness was something he would have to earn from himself first.
Spring arrived in New York.
On a warm April evening, Talia stood inside Saint Aurelia Library.
It was no longer abandoned.
Lucian had purchased the building and donated it to the Brennan Foundation.
The restored reading room glowed beneath brass lamps.
Students filled the tables.
A free translation clinic occupied the first floor.
The basement archive had become a research center.
Talia had accepted the doctoral fellowship.
Not in Boston.
The university had agreed to let her conduct much of her research from New York.
She told herself this decision had nothing to do with Lucian.
Nobody believed her.
Especially Lucian.
She found him standing on the library steps after the opening reception.
His tie was loose.
“You disappeared.”
“I was hiding from donors.”
“You used to terrify armed criminals.”
“Donors ask more questions.”
She smiled.
The city moved around them.
No guards hovered nearby.
Lucian still had security.
But he no longer lived like every doorway contained an enemy.
Talia sat beside him.
For a while they watched taxis move through the evening traffic.
Then Lucian said, “I owe you something.”
“Money?”
“An apology.”
“You've apologized.”
“Not properly.”
She turned.
He looked almost uncomfortable.
That alone was worth listening to.
“The first night we met, I looked at your uniform and decided I knew everything about you.”
Talia said nothing.
“I thought power meant being the person in the room everyone feared.”
He glanced toward the library behind them.
“I was wrong.”
“You're getting very good at saying that.”
“Practice.”
She smiled.
He continued.
“You were smarter than everyone at that table.”
“Obviously.”
“And considerably more annoying.”
“There he is.”
Lucian laughed.
Then he became serious.
“You saved my life when you had nothing to gain.”
“I gained several assassination attempts.”
“Yes.”
“Terrible benefits package.”
“I'll speak to management.”
She laughed.
Lucian looked at her the way he had learned to look at her—not through her, not over her, but at her.
“I love you.”
Talia stopped smiling.
Not because she was unhappy.
Because Lucian Marchetti did not say unnecessary things.
He had learned tenderness like a foreign language: slowly, awkwardly, afraid of mispronouncing it.
“You rehearsed that,” she said.
“Twenty-three times.”
She laughed softly.
“That many?”
“I had several versions.”
“What happened to them?”
“They sounded stupid.”
“And this one?”
“Also stupid.”
She moved closer.
“No.”
His eyes searched hers.
“No?”
“This one was good.”
He exhaled.
Talia touched his face.
“I love you too.”
Lucian kissed her.
No gunshots interrupted them.
No bodyguards crashed through doors.
Nobody ordered anybody murdered in Russian.
It was surprisingly nice.
A year later, Lucian took Talia back to the Amaranth.
Desmond still worked there.
When he saw them enter together, he nearly dropped a tray.
“Talia?”
“Hi, Desmond.”
His eyes moved toward Lucian.
Then back.
“You two are…”
“Yes,” Talia said.
Lucian added, “Apparently.”
They were seated in the same private room.
The same round table.
The same chandelier.
Lucian had requested it deliberately.
Talia knew because he was terrible at pretending coincidence.
After dinner, a young waitress approached with a bottle of red wine.
She looked nervous.
Lucian noticed.
Talia noticed him noticing.
The waitress began pouring.
Her hand trembled.
A single drop missed the glass.
It landed on the white tablecloth.
The young woman's face went pale.
“I'm so sorry, sir.”
Lucian stared at the stain.
Talia stared at Lucian.
He slowly looked at her.
She raised one eyebrow.
The waitress swallowed.
“I'll replace the cloth.”
Lucian leaned back.
“No.”
The girl froze.
He picked up his glass.
“Leave it.”
She looked confused.
“Sir?”
Lucian glanced at the red stain spreading across the white linen.
Then he smiled.
“Some spilled wine is worth remembering.”
The waitress left.
Talia laughed.
“You've become sentimental.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You donated a library.”
“Tax strategy.”
“You started a scholarship foundation.”
“Public relations.”
“You cried at my graduation.”
“I had something in my eye.”
“Both eyes?”
“Extremely aggressive pollen.”
She laughed harder.
Lucian reached across the table and took her hand.
Then he placed something beside her glass.
A small velvet box.
Talia's laughter stopped.
“You said this wasn't happening after two kisses.”
“That was fourteen months and considerably more than two kisses ago.”
“Lucian.”
He opened the box.
Inside was a simple diamond ring.
He did not kneel.
Talia was glad.
It wasn't them.
Instead, he held her hand and looked straight into her eyes.
“I spent most of my life believing the safest thing a man could do was need nobody.”
His thumb moved across her fingers.
“Then a woman I humiliated heard someone order my murder and decided my life was worth saving anyway.”
Talia's eyes filled.
“You've been impossible ever since.”
“Romantic.”
“I rehearsed this less.”
“I can tell.”
He smiled.
“Talia Brennan, will you marry me?”
She pretended to consider it.
Lucian's confidence disappeared by degrees.
Five seconds.
Ten.
“Talia.”
She smiled.
“Yes.”
He exhaled so sharply she laughed.
“You were nervous.”
“I was not.”
“You looked terrified.”
“I've been shot at with less anxiety.”
She held out her hand.
He slipped the ring onto her finger.
It fit perfectly.
Talia looked at the wine stain.
A strange little circle had formed on the tablecloth.
She remembered the woman she had been.
Twenty-six.
Invisible.
Overeducated.
Underpaid.
Standing beside powerful men who believed a uniform made her stupid.
She remembered the moment she could have remained silent.
One sentence had changed everything.
You're wrong.
Lucian followed her gaze.
“What are you thinking?”
Talia looked at him.
“That you were very lucky I understood Russian.”
He smiled.
“I was lucky you answered.”
Outside, Manhattan burned gold beneath the evening sky.
Inside the private room, nobody was negotiating territory.
Nobody was planning murder.
There was only a former waitress whose voice had finally become impossible to ignore and a man who had learned that power meant very little if it cost him everyone worth loving.
Lucian lifted his wineglass.
“To complicated thoughts.”
Talia touched her glass to his.
“To listening before you insult the waitress.”
“I'm never going to live that down, am I?”
“Not in any of the seven languages I speak.”
May you like
He laughed.
And this time, when the wine touched the white tablecloth, neither of them cared.
