Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN VICTOR BURIED
Victor called Anton once.
No answer.
Twice.
Nothing.
By the third call, Nikolai was already checking security footage.
“His car left nine minutes ago.”
Martin looked at Sofia.
“You gave him the recorder?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“I found it beneath my papers this morning.”
Victor’s voice sharpened.
“And you left it running?”
Sofia looked at him.
“I wanted whoever planted it to hear me lie.”
Hannah frowned.
“About what?”
Sofia looked at her.
“Your father.”
Victor said nothing.
Sofia continued.
“I needed Anton to believe you weren’t Victor’s daughter.”
Nikolai turned from the security monitor.
“Why?”
“Because Anton works for the trustees.”
Victor laughed coldly.
“I am the trustee.”
“No.”
Sofia’s answer fell heavily.
“You are one of three.”
The second was Nikolai.
The third was controlled by a holding company Mikhail had established before his death.
Anton represented that company.
If Hannah was confirmed as Victor’s biological daughter, control of Malenkov Holdings would eventually pass to her.
If she was not, Anton’s company could seize a controlling block after Sofia’s death.
Hannah stared.
“This family made inheritance unnecessarily dramatic.”
Martin muttered, “That may be the healthiest observation anyone has made today.”
Victor ignored him.
“Where is Elena?”
Sofia’s face hardened again.
“I don’t know.”
Victor stepped closer.
“You knew she was alive.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Eleven years.”
Victor almost stopped breathing.
“You let me mourn her.”
Sofia’s voice broke for the first time.
“She asked me to.”
That stunned Nikolai too.
“You spoke to Elena?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“A year after the crash.”
Sofia looked toward the windows.
“She came to me at night and said she had enough evidence to destroy Mikhail’s reputation, the foundation, and half the officials who protected the old transfer system.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“And you threatened her.”
“No.”
Sofia looked back at him.
“I begged her to do it.”
Nobody expected that.
“What changed?” Hannah asked.
“My husband died.”
Sofia’s answer was simple.
“Fear becomes less impressive when the person causing it is in the ground.”
Victor’s face gave nothing away.
“But Elena didn’t expose it.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because several women whose names appeared in the records were still alive. Some had families who never knew what happened. Elena refused to destroy their lives just to punish dead men.”
That sounded like the woman Victor remembered.
Which made his anger worse.
“She chose strangers over telling me she was alive.”
Sofia shook her head.
“She chose Hannah.”
Hannah stared.
“Me?”
“Elena learned Anton’s father had taken over the trust company. If she returned, they would reopen every trail from Mercy House.”
Victor’s voice became deadly quiet.
“So Elena stayed dead because my daughter was alive.”
“Yes.”
The boardroom doors opened.
Everyone turned.
Elena Malenkov stood there.
Victor did not move.
Neither did she.
Twelve years existed between them like a physical object.
Elena was fifty-one now.
Silver threaded through her dark hair.
Lines touched the corners of her eyes.
She wore a charcoal coat and carried no purse.
Around one wrist was a thin wooden rosary.
Victor recognized it instantly.
He had given it to her during their first Christmas together.
Hannah watched a feared man lose every defense he possessed.
“Elena.”
Her eyes filled.
“Hello, Victor.”
He walked toward her.
Stopped three feet away.
“You’re real.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me why.”
She looked at Hannah first.
Then at him.
“Because when I tried to come home, Anton’s father already knew I survived.”
Victor’s expression changed.
Elena continued.
“He gave me two photographs.”
She removed them from her coat.
The first showed Richard pushing five-year-old Hannah on a playground swing.
The second showed Catherine leaving a doctor’s office.
“He told me if I went back to you, Catherine and the child would disappear.”
Victor’s hand tightened.
“Nikolai knew?”
“Not then.”
Nikolai looked at the floor.
Elena faced him.
“I told him three years later.”
Victor turned.
“You knew for nine years.”
“Yes.”
Victor crossed the distance between them and struck him.
One blow.
Hard.
Nikolai did not defend himself.
Hannah flinched.
Elena said, “Victor.”
He stopped.
His brother wiped blood from his lip.
“I deserved that.”
Victor looked at Elena.
“And you?”
Her chin trembled.
“I don’t know what I deserve.”
That answer took the violence out of him.
Elena stepped closer.
“I watched you from a distance twice.”
Victor’s eyes hardened.
“Twice.”
“Your fiftieth birthday.”
He remembered leaving the restaurant that night because he had suddenly felt someone watching him.
“And?”
“The day you opened the new rehabilitation wing at the foundation.”
Victor stared.
“You were there?”
“Across the street.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Because Hannah was in nursing school by then. Safe. Catherine was gone. Richard was raising her. I told myself another year would make everything safer.”
Elena swallowed.
“Then another year became another.”
Victor turned away.
Hannah understood something painful.
Elena had survived danger.
But eventually fear had become habit.
And habit had stolen twelve years.
Hannah approached her.
“You saved me.”
Elena looked at her.
“Yes.”
“You also kept Victor from knowing me.”
“Yes.”
No excuse.
That mattered.
Hannah held up the child’s drawing.
“My mother kept this.”
Elena touched the edge.
“I remember.”
“Was she sure Victor was my father?”
Elena’s eyes met Hannah’s.
“Yes.”
“How sure?”
“She told me there had been no one else.”
Victor closed his eyes.
That was the closest thing to certainty they had received.
Elena turned toward Sofia.
“There’s still one piece missing.”
Sofia’s face changed.
“The first list.”
Martin frowned.
“We have the second.”
“The second list records children and payments.”
Elena touched her rosary.
“The first list records the people who ordered them.”
Nikolai stared.
“Father?”
“Some.”
“Sofia?”
“Some.”
Sofia did not object.
Victor asked, “Where is it?”
Elena looked toward Hannah.
“Catherine hid it.”
Hannah blinked.
“My mother?”
“She was the only person I trusted with the original.”
“Where?”
“I never knew.”
Richard might.
Hannah reached for her phone.
Elena stopped her.
“Wait.”
She removed the wooden rosary from her wrist.
One bead was larger than the others.
Elena twisted it.
Inside was a tiny rolled strip of paper.
A sequence of numbers.
Martin recognized them.
“Storage inventory codes.”
Elena nodded.
“Catherine gave me this the night before the crash.”
Hannah read the final notation.
R.P.
Richard Pierce.
They returned to Richard’s room.
He saw Elena.
Then started crying before she reached the bed.
“You took your time.”
Elena laughed through tears.
“So did you.”
Victor stayed near the wall.
Still angry.
Still unable to stop watching his wife.
Richard looked at Hannah.
“I wondered when you’d find the rosary.”
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s the first list?”
Richard’s smile disappeared.
“I gave it away.”
Victor straightened.
“To whom?”
Richard looked at Elena.
“You told me never to keep it where a Malenkov could find it.”
“That was twenty-nine years ago.”
“I followed instructions.”
“To whom, Richard?”
He hesitated.
Then answered.
“Anton Volkov.”
The room went silent.
Hannah stared at him.
“You gave the most dangerous piece of evidence to the man who’s been spying on us?”
Richard shook his head.
May you like
“No.”
“I gave it to his mother.”
