Chapter 4 - THE GIRL THEY ERASED
By morning, Talia's apartment had been searched.
Nothing valuable was taken.
That frightened her more.
Someone had opened drawers, moved books, and left her laptop on the kitchen floor.
They had been looking for information.
Lucian insisted on going with her.
“You have employees for this.”
“I don't delegate guilt.”
She glanced at him.
“That almost sounded emotionally healthy.”
“Don't spread it around.”
Inside the apartment, Talia froze.
A photograph had been removed from her bookshelf.
She crossed the room.
“No.”
“What?”
“My father's picture.”
Lucian looked around.
“Only that?”
Talia searched frantically.
A box beneath her desk was gone too.
She sat back on her heels.
Lucian crouched beside her.
“What was inside?”
“My research.”
“You said your dissertation wasn't funded.”
“It wasn't.”
“That doesn't explain why someone wants it.”
Talia closed her eyes.
Because the dissertation had never really been about grammar.
“My father was a diplomatic interpreter.”
Lucian waited.
“Patrick Brennan. State Department contractor. Moscow, Riga, Prague. He specialized in informal speech patterns—dialects, coded language, criminal slang.”
Lucian's expression changed.
“He taught you.”
“Everything.”
“What happened to him?”
“He died when I was nineteen.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
Lucian's silence told her he did not believe in convenient accidents.
Neither did she anymore.
“My dissertation used some of his notebooks.”
“What was in them?”
“Patterns. Phrases. Names he never explained.”
Lucian stood.
“And Orlov?”
“I saw that name once.”
Lucian turned.
“You never thought to mention that?”
“I saw hundreds of names. I was nineteen.”
He paced away, furious.
Talia rose.
“Don't.”
“Don't what?”
“Turn this into another reason to speak to me like I'm incompetent.”
Lucian stopped.
She walked toward him.
“I saved you. Twice.”
“I know.”
“Then start acting like it.”
The anger left his face.
“All right.”
It was the first time Lucian Marchetti had yielded an argument without demanding something in return.
They searched the apartment.
Behind a row of language textbooks, Talia found an envelope she had forgotten.
Her father's handwriting covered the front.
For Talia, when words become dangerous.
Her fingers trembled.
She opened it.
Inside was a single sheet.
Seven sentences.
Each in a different language.
Lucian looked over her shoulder.
“What is it?”
“I don't know.”
“You understand them.”
“Yes. That's the problem.”
Translated literally, the sentences made no sense together.
The river remembers the first bridge.
A saint sleeps beneath thirteen bells.
The wolf eats after midnight.
Talia stared.
Then she understood.
“They're not sentences.”
“What are they?”
“Coordinates.”
Lucian frowned.
She grabbed a notebook.
Her father had taught her a childhood cipher based on linguistic families. Germanic languages supplied one number. Romance languages another. Word positions supplied the rest.
Ten minutes later she had an address.
Lucian read it.
“Red Hook.”
They drove to Brooklyn with four guards.
The address belonged to an abandoned import warehouse.
Inside, dust covered everything.
Talia found a rusted office door.
Behind it sat an old filing cabinet.
One drawer contained a cassette recorder.
Lucian stared.
“Your father liked antiques.”
“He distrusted anything connected to the internet.”
Inside the recorder was a tape.
Talia pressed play.
Static.
Then her father's voice.
“If you're hearing this, Talia, I failed to keep you outside it.”
She stopped breathing.
Lucian looked at her.
The tape continued.
“Vasily Orlov is not merely a smuggler. He built a network by purchasing men inside other organizations. Police. Customs. Shipping companies. Families.”
Talia's eyes filled.
“I translated for him once. I discovered a ledger. Not money. Names.”
Lucian stepped closer to the recorder.
“The ledger was divided into seven linguistic keys. I copied enough to make myself dangerous.”
A pause.
Then:
“If Lucian Marchetti is still alive when you hear this, do not assume he is your enemy.”
Lucian's face changed.
Talia stared at him.
Her father's voice continued.
“His father, Carlo Marchetti, helped me hide the first copy.”
Lucian whispered, “My father?”
Then the tape clicked.
Another voice appeared.
A man's voice.
Italian-American.
Older.
Lucian went pale.
“Carlo,” Talia whispered.
His father.
“If anything happens to Patrick Brennan, Vasily has someone close to me.”
Lucian stepped toward the machine.
Carlo continued.
“I don't know who.”
The recording ended.
For several seconds, only static filled the warehouse.
Talia wiped her cheek.
“My father's accident.”
Lucian's voice was quiet.
“Probably wasn't an accident.”
She looked at him.
“And your father?”
“Murdered six years ago.”
“How?”
“Someone shot him outside church.”
They both understood.
Their fathers had been connected.
And both were dead.
A vehicle screeched outside.
Lucian turned.
“Down!”
The warehouse windows exploded.
His men returned fire.
Lucian dragged Talia behind a steel column.
Gunshots echoed through the building.
One guard shouted that the rear exit was blocked.
Talia looked toward the cassette recorder.
A bullet struck the desk and shattered it.
“No!”
She lunged.
Lucian caught her.
“Forget it.”
“My father's tape!”
“You can't help him by dying for it.”
The shooting stopped as suddenly as it began.
Silence.
Then Lucian's phone vibrated.
A message.
He read it.
His face changed.
Talia saw the photograph on the screen.
Nico Marchetti.
Bound to a chair.
Blood on his face.
Underneath was a message.
BRING THE GIRL.
COME ALONE.
OR YOUR BROTHER DIES.
Talia looked at Lucian.
He locked the phone.
“No.”
“Lucian—”
“No.”
“He's your brother.”
“And they're asking for you.”
She stared at him.
“So?”
“So I am not trading your life for his.”
For the first time, she heard something in Lucian's voice that frightened her more than anger.
Fear.
May you like
Not for Nico.
For her.
