Chapter 7 - The Second Daughter
Aliyah laughed.
Nobody joined her.
“No.”
Elena reached for her.
Aliyah stepped backward.
“No.”
“Aliyah—”
“My mother is alive.”
“The woman who raised you is alive,” Elena said.
“Stop saying it like that.”
Victor moved toward her.
Aliyah raised one hand.
“Don't.”
He stopped immediately.
She drove to Cambridge alone.
Victor hated it.
She didn't care.
The woman Aliyah had called Mom for twenty-four years opened the apartment door wearing slippers and an old Boston University sweatshirt.
“Sweetheart?”
Aliyah held up the photograph.
“Who are you?”
Her mother's face collapsed.
That hurt more than any denial could have.
“Come inside.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Who are you?”
The woman began crying.
“My name is Rachel Brooks.”
Aliyah stared.
“Naomi was my sister.”
Everything followed.
Naomi Brooks had been Elena's accountant.
Rachel had been Aliyah's aunt.
When Naomi discovered the financial network behind Sergei, she helped Elena gather evidence.
Then Naomi was murdered.
Rachel took four-year-old Aliyah and vanished.
“I couldn't tell you,” Rachel whispered. “They were killing everyone connected to those records.”
Aliyah sat at the kitchen table, numb.
“Did Victor know?”
“No.”
“Elena?”
“She knew Naomi had a daughter. She didn't know I survived with you.”
Aliyah covered her face.
All these years, her life had been built on a lie designed to keep her alive.
Rachel placed an old recipe box on the table.
“Your mother left this.”
Inside were index cards.
Aliyah recognized Naomi's handwriting from birthday cards Rachel had preserved.
But several cards contained strings of numbers.
Bank accounts.
Dates.
Names.
Victor arrived twenty minutes later despite being told not to.
Aliyah didn't argue.
For once, she was relieved to see him.
Nikolai examined the cards.
“This could destroy Sergei's entire network.”
Rachel nodded.
“That's why Naomi died.”
Victor looked at Aliyah.
“And why Sergei became interested in you.”
The accident at the Red Lion suddenly made sense.
Sergei hadn't selected Aliyah because Victor touched her.
He had already known who she was.
The accident had been designed to place her beside Victor.
“Why?”
Aliyah whispered.
Elena answered.
“Because he wanted you to lead him to the evidence.”
Victor's expression hardened.
“And he used me to make sure she kept digging.”
Rachel suddenly grabbed Aliyah's wrist.
“There's something else.”
She removed the bottom of the recipe box.
A tiny flash drive fell out.
Nikolai inserted it into an isolated laptop.
Files appeared.
Financial records.
Photographs.
Audio recordings.
Then one video.
Naomi Brooks appeared on screen.
Aliyah stopped breathing.
Her biological mother looked remarkably like her.
“If you're watching this,” Naomi said, “then Elena and I failed.”
Aliyah began crying silently.
Naomi explained the entire network.
Sergei had built it with corrupt officials and businessmen.
But the final revelation changed everything.
“Sergei Volkov is not the head of the organization.”
Victor leaned closer.
Naomi continued.
“The man protecting him is inside Victor Malenkov's family.”
Victor frowned.
“I don't have family.”
The recording named him.
“Mikhail Malenkov.”
Victor stood abruptly.
Aliyah looked at him.
“Who is Mikhail?”
“My father.”
Victor's father had supposedly died seventeen years earlier.
Another ghost.
Another lie.
Nikolai searched the records.
His face changed.
“Mikhail is alive.”
Victor's phone rang.
He answered.
A distorted voice spoke.
“Bring the drive.”
Victor recognized it instantly.
Not Sergei.
His father.
“You have something I want,” Mikhail said.
Victor's face hardened.
“And you have my daughter.”
“Yes.”
A girl's terrified voice sounded in the background.
“Dad?”
Victor closed his eyes.
It was the first time Eva had ever called him that.
Mikhail continued.
“Midnight. Pier Twenty-Seven.”
The call ended.
Aliyah touched Victor's arm.
He turned.
“I'm going.”
“So am I.”
“No.”
“The records came from my mother.”
“Aliyah.”
“My family died for this too.”
Victor stared at her for several seconds.
Then he nodded.
“Then we finish it together.”
Behind them, Elena quietly reached into her pocket.
She pulled out her phone.
Typed one message.
May you like
VICTOR HAS THE DRIVE.
Then sent it to an unknown number.
