Chapter 4 - A Name Hidden in the Contract
Elara entered Vadim's study without knocking.
For the first time, she did not care about rules.
She threw the statement onto his desk.
“You knew my mother?”
Vadim looked down.
His face changed.
“Where did you get this?”
“Answer me.”
He picked it up.
“Elara, I've never seen this.”
“Your name is on my mother's account.”
“I can read.”
“Then explain it.”
“I can't.”
She laughed once.
Angry.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I have not lied to you.”
“Maybe you just haven't been caught.”
The words landed.
Vadim went silent.
Elara immediately regretted them.
But she did not take them back.
He opened a safe.
From inside he removed several files.
“You want everything?”
“Yes.”
He dropped them onto the desk.
“Then everything.”
Vadim told her what Gerald had offered.
Access to Fagan-controlled shipping routes.
Political connections.
A settlement of an old debt.
And North Star Holdings.
“I thought it was Gerald's.”
“But it was my mother's.”
“Yes.”
“And your name is somehow attached.”
“Yes.”
Elara stared at him.
“Why marry me?”
Vadim hesitated.
“Because Gerald insisted.”
That answer was worse.
“He insisted?”
“He said the transfer would happen only if I married you.”
Elara felt sick.
“Why?”
“I assumed he wanted a permanent alliance.”
“And now?”
“Now I think he wanted you legally connected to someone else before something surfaced.”
“What?”
“I don't know yet.”
Vadim picked up the statement.
“But this may tell us.”
The account had been opened twenty-seven years earlier.
One year before Elara's birth.
Vadim would have been twenty-three.
He remembered nothing about it.
But he remembered Evelyn.
Not personally.
Her name.
“My father knew a Morozova family.”
Elara stared.
“Your father?”
“They operated import businesses in New York and Chicago.”
“Criminal?”
“Some.”
“Was my mother?”
“No idea.”
Vadim called an old attorney named Mikhail Levin.
The man arrived before dinner.
He was seventy-eight and carried no computer.
Only a battered leather case.
When he saw Elara, he stopped.
“My God.”
Elara stiffened.
“What?”
“You have Evelyn's eyes.”
Her throat tightened.
“You knew her.”
Mikhail looked at Vadim.
“You didn't tell her?”
“I didn't know.”
The attorney slowly sat.
“Then Gerald buried this deeper than I imagined.”
He opened his case.
Inside was an old sealed envelope.
EVELYN MOROZOVA.
Mikhail explained.
Vadim's father, Alexei Sokolov, had once protected Evelyn's family during a violent business dispute.
North Star Holdings was placed partly under Sokolov protection.
Vadim's name had been listed as successor trustee if Evelyn died before her daughter reached thirty.
Elara stared at him.
“Trustee?”
“Not owner,” Mikhail said. “Protector.”
Vadim looked furious.
Not relieved.
“Why wasn't I told?”
“Your father died before Evelyn.”
“And Gerald?”
“Knew.”
The room went silent.
Elara understood.
Her father had not chosen Vadim randomly.
He had married Elara to the one man whose name could unlock the structure he had spent years trying to steal.
“What happens when I turn thirty?”
Mikhail's face became grim.
“You receive absolute control.”
Elara was twenty-six.
Gerald had four years.
Or he had.
Until the marriage.
“Why now?” she asked.
Mikhail looked at Vadim.
“Because someone recently requested an audit.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
Vadim stood.
“We find out.”
Mikhail reached for his case.
Then paused.
“There is something else.”
Elara's heart sank.
“Of course there is.”
“Your mother believed Gerald was stealing from North Star before she died.”
Elara stopped breathing.
“She died in a car accident.”
Mikhail said nothing.
Vadim's entire posture changed.
Elara whispered, “Didn't she?”
Mikhail looked toward the window.
“I was told never to question it.”
“By whom?”
Before he could answer, a sharp crack sounded outside.
The window exploded.
Vadim threw Elara to the floor.
A bullet buried itself in the wall.
Guards shouted.
Vadim covered Elara with his body.
May you like
Then Mikhail looked at the bullet hole and whispered a name.
“Gerald.”
