Chapter 47: Mikhail

Sophia’s hands tremble as she looks at the beautiful china cup on the table containing the remnants of her chamomile tea.

Her face is blotchy and her eyes red. She looked the same way last night when we left the morgue.

I arrived at her home twenty minutes ago. I promised I would come by after Natalia left to fill her in on the details I have on Ivan.

Ivan, who my men and I have been searching for and can’t find.

We watched him on the surveillance cameras at Dmitriyev Ltd. and didn’t find shit. I wish I could have pulled my gun on him last night and ended him, but with my father dying in my arms, I couldn’t home in on my inner beast.

The motherfucker must have known what Father was saying to me, or he wouldn’t have left. Or he heard some parts of the whispers Father imparted to me before he died.

I still can’t believe he’s gone. Having both my parents and sister die in not even the space of six months has destroyed me. To add to the blow, I lost my girl, too.

I shake my mind free of the loss and focus on Sophia. She needs me, and she’s now aware of Ivan’s treachery.

We’ve been sitting in her living room since I arrived. Her sipping on her tea while I brought her up to speed on everything else.

She made me cup a of tea, too.

I haven’t touched it yet. I’m going to need something stronger to get through the night.

Finally, she looks at me and dabs at the corners of her eyes.

“I don’t know how to process this. It’s too much, Mikhail.” She shakes her head. “In the space of months, this family has more than cut in half. To hear that one of us is responsible for it kills me.”

Her lips tremble.

“I’m sorry to bring more bad news to your door.” It was the last thing I wanted to do. She needed to be aware of the danger, though.

Her guards are here, as are mine, along with the secret squad who are always with the Pakhan. They are all outside watching the place as we speak.

“You can’t apologize for that. Everything is just so bizarre. All of it.” She wipes away more tears. “Why didn’t you come to me before?”

“I wanted evidence. I wanted hard evidence against Ivan. I guess part of me didn’t want to believe it even though it was believable. Ivan is that wicked.”

“When I saw your father yesterday morning, he looked like he knew something and was holding back. I didn’t know he was on the verge of death. Maybe knowing his son was responsible for his wife and daughter’s deaths broke his heart.”

The coroner said the heart attack was brought on by an aneurysm. Because his body was already so weak, it wiped him out. He never stood a chance.

“Maybe,” I agree.

“He was happy about you, Mikhail. He told me his decision was always you; that’s why he decided on doing things the way he did. But he wanted it to be fair to Ivan, too. He knew the two of you would work hard and push for the position. He wanted each of you to have a fair chance, but his heart kept coming back to you.”

All that time, I never had anything to worry about.

“Thank you for telling me.”

“It’s okay, you should know.”

“I wish I could have done more. My men were trying to track Ivan, and we were so careful, but we couldn’t find anything. Now we don’t know which corner of hell he’s hiding in. It’s fucking draining me.”

She reaches across the coffee table and taps my hand.

“I know. Me too. It’s draining me, too. Have some tea, dear. I’ll grab us something to eat.”

She stands and walks out of the room.

I reach for my cup and down the contents of the tea that’s now cold then set the cup back down on the table.

My phone rings in that moment. I reach for it eager for news.

It’s Eric.

“Hey, have you heard anything yet?” I ask.

“No, nothing on Ivan. But something’s happened, Mikhail. Natalia never reached the airport.”

The moment I hear that, I bolt up.

“What do you mean? I saw her leave.”

“She never boarded the plane, and I’ve been calling Levka and the other guards, but no one is answering their phones.”

“Jesus Christ. Fuck! Maybe he got to her. How the fuck would he have known when she was leaving?”

“That’s not the only thing, Mikhail.” I hear him sigh, and my pulse skitters with anticipation. “My friend at the coroner’s office contacted me when he realized parts of your father’s initial postmortem report had been removed. When he checked it out, he found the original log made when your father was brought in, and he noticed the same poison that killed José was listed on there.”

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah, exactly. It wasn’t the same lethal amount that was found in José’s blood, and there were no needle marks, but the dosage was enough to kill him within twelve hours. It would have caused the heart attack. He said the report suggest the poison was in his system from early that morning. I asked him to look into it deeper. I think we’re onto something.”

My mind wobbles, then freezes. Something he said clicks in my core, and the truth dawns on me.

Early that morning.

That’s what he said.

There… was only one person my father saw early in the morning yesterday, and he would have spent the day with them.

The same person who was the only one outside my guards who knew when Natalia would be leaving for the airport and who she was going with. Once I declared who she was going with, they would also have known what car they would have taken. Levka always drives the Bugatti.

It wouldn’t have been that hard to track them.

“Mikhail, are you still there?” Eric asks but sounds suddenly far away, and the room looks dim.

I hear footsteps and turn to Sophia walking up to me.

She picks up the cup and smiles wide.

“Good, you finished it,” she states and then laughs.

There’s something wrong with the way she looks, though.

There’s something wrong with everything, and my hand feels numb. Fucking numb. The phone falls from my hand and hits the floor. That sounds far away, too, but loud at the same time.

The room spins as I reach for the sofa.

“If you’d eaten the sweet I gave you last night, you could have died peacefully with your father,” she tells me in that good-natured tone I’ve been used to my whole life. “This way is better, I suppose. This way carries more of a punch and you get answers to the puzzle that mystified you so much.”

“Sophia, what did you give me? What are you saying to me?”

I don’t understand what she’s saying to me, but I understand what truth is screaming at me along with the voices in my soul.

That person who was with my father all day yesterday and would have been with him in the morning was her.

That person who knew what time my wife was leaving for the airport.

It’s her.

It’s fucking her.

My aunt.

She’s the person working with Ivan. But why?

And… what did I just drink? My vision speckles, but I fight to stay awake. I need to. I have to get out of here and find my wife.

“It’s a concoction of poison from Russia they used in the war. I made this blend a little less vicious, if you will. So, you can die slowly. Just like your father.”

“You poisoned my father? You did all of this?”

“I did, my love. It was me.”

“What about Ivan?”

“Of course, he was right alongside me, and the only reason you couldn’t find anything on him was because you were tracking the wrong person.” She gives me that laugh again.

She sits back down and sets the cup back on the table.

“Why? Would you do this?” Of all the people, I never expected this from her. Not her, the last person I trusted.