Chapter 6 - What My Father Left Behind
I laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because sometimes the brain chooses the wrong reaction when reality becomes impossible.
“I was nine.”
Peter nodded.
“You carried a stuffed fox everywhere.”
I stopped breathing.
Mr. Fox.
I had kept him until college.
Then packed him into a box after Cleo was born.
The box was in my mother’s storage unit.
Peter explained.
My father had been an accountant for the Sorokin organization.
Not a gangster.
Not an enforcer.
A numbers man.
He had discovered a network of bribery, trafficking, and murders being hidden inside legitimate businesses.
But according to Peter, even the Sorokin brothers did not know the entire truth.
Their father, Viktor, had built the system.
When Daniel tried to expose it, he was killed.
“What evidence?”
“A microdrive.”
“In a stuffed animal?”
Peter nodded.
“Your father knew nobody searches a child’s toy.”
Vadim was already issuing orders.
I grabbed his arm.
“No.”
“We need that drive.”
“We?”
“Reese, if Nikolai is searching for it—”
“You are not taking anything my father died protecting.”
Vadim’s expression tightened.
“I don’t want it to protect my organization.”
“Then why?”
“To destroy what remains of my father’s.”
I stared at him.
He told me something then that changed everything.
After Viktor died, Vadim had spent years dismantling the worst parts of the empire while preserving enough power to survive.
Weapons smuggling.
Trafficking.
Protection rackets targeting families.
He had shut them down.
But corrupt officials and old partners remained.
The evidence could expose them.
“Then give it to the FBI.”
“I don’t know who inside the FBI is compromised.”
I thought of Evan.
The hospital.
Police.
Every institution I had trusted suddenly seemed contaminated.
“We get the drive ourselves,” I said.
Vadim shook his head.
“I go.”
“It’s my storage unit.”
“Exactly.”
“You don’t get to order me around.”
His eyes flashed.
“You nearly watched your daughter die.”
“And that means I’m done letting other people control what happens to us.”
He stared at me.
Then nodded.
“Together.”
We went before dawn.
The storage facility was deserted.
Unit 318 smelled like dust and old cardboard.
I found the box.
Christmas ornaments.
My mother’s dishes.
School photographs.
And finally—
Mr. Fox.
One eye missing.
Orange fur faded.
My hands trembled as I opened the seam along its back.
Something hard rested inside.
A tiny black drive.
Vadim exhaled.
Then the lights went out.
Gunfire exploded.
Vadim threw me behind a concrete pillar.
His men returned fire.
“Stay down!”
Footsteps thundered through the corridor.
A man appeared.
Older than Vadim.
Same eyes.
Nikolai.
Alive.
Vadim froze.
That hesitation nearly killed him.
Nikolai raised his weapon.
I screamed.
But he fired past Vadim.
A man behind us dropped.
Nikolai shouted, “Peter lied to you!”
Then security shutters crashed between us.
Vadim ran toward them.
“Nikolai!”
His brother disappeared.
We escaped through a rear exit.
In the SUV, Vadim sat motionless.
“He saved you,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
We examined the drive at a secure location.
Most files were encrypted.
One wasn’t.
A video.
My father appeared on screen.
I had not heard his voice in eighteen years.
I started crying before he said my name.
“Reese, if you are watching this, I failed to come home.”
Vadim quietly moved away to give me privacy.
My father explained that Viktor Sorokin had created the criminal network.
But someone else had expanded it.
Peter.
My uncle.
Peter had manipulated Viktor, then Vadim and Nikolai.
He had arranged Elena’s murder.
He had arranged the warehouse fire.
He had spent years turning the brothers against each other.
And he needed both dead to seize the organization completely.
My father ended with a warning.
“Peter will tell you he tried to protect you. He will sound sincere. That is his greatest talent.”
The video ended.
I looked at Vadim.
“Peter is the enemy.”
Vadim was already calling Anton.
Nobody answered.
He called the mansion.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
Then my phone rang.
Peter.
I answered.
His voice was calm.
“Hello, sweetheart.”
“Where is Cleo?”
“She’s safe.”
Every part of me went cold.
“You touch her—”
“I would never hurt family.”
“Misha?”
“Safe too.”
Vadim took the phone.
“If you harm either child—”
Peter laughed.
“You still threaten people when you’re frightened, Vadim. Just like your father.”
“What do you want?”
“The drive.”
Vadim looked at me.
Peter continued.
“And Reese.”
“No.”
“Then perhaps we test how long a five-year-old can breathe after exposure to peanut protein.”
I made a sound I did not recognize.
Vadim’s face transformed.
Peter gave us an address.
Then disconnected.
I grabbed the drive.
Vadim stopped me.
“You’re not going.”
“My daughter is there.”
“He wants you.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
His voice broke.
It was the first time I had ever heard fear in it.
I stared at him.
Vadim touched my face.
“If I lose you—”
He stopped.
The unfinished sentence hung between us.
I kissed him.
Once.
Hard.
Desperate.
May you like
Then pulled away.
“Then don’t lose me.”
