Chapter 104 Adeline
Adeline's POV
One of the first things you would learn in law school was how to compartmentalize. We were trained to take messy, highly emotional human disasters and pack them into neat boxes labeled "Evidence" and "Precedent."
For the rest of the weekend, I shoved the ghost of the Whitmore baby into the darkest box in my mind. I spent Sunday wrapped in Percy's arms, letting his quiet strength ground me, convincing myself that the underground racing circuit was just a breeding ground for overactive imaginations.
But by Monday morning, I was back at my desk at Royal & Associates, where the sterile box in my mind finally broke open.
The office floor was quiet. The morning sun glared through the floor-to-ceiling windows of my office that cast sharp and unforgiving light across my mahogany desk. Or maybe I was the one choosing to see it that way.
A soft ping from my computer shattered the silence in the office. My chest thumped erratically as I pulled up my secure email client to find a new message from Silas Vance, the firm’s top-tier private investigator that I had contacted on Saturday.
Silas was a former FBI agent who made seven figures quietly digging up dirt. If a file existed on planet Earth, Silas could get it; no matter how redacted or deleted it was, Silas would get to it.
The subject line simply read "Whitmore Archive," meaning he had found them.
My hands hovered over the keyboard as I debated if I wanted to see what was in those files. The logical part of my mind told me I was better off not seeing what was in those files.
"I just need to see the file," I reasoned with myself, my pulse roaring in my ears. I just need to look at the facts of the kidnapping, prove that it has absolutely nothing to do with me, and then I can finally put this insane theory to rest.
The illogical part of my mind finally won, and I clicked the encrypted zip file and typed in my unique decryption password to find a massive folder opened on my screen that contained dozens of scanned police reports, FBI field notes, and witness statements from over two decades ago.
Before I dove into the FBI files, I needed my own baseline facts. I opened a second window, logging into the firm's secure HR portal to pull up my own background check. When Percy had found out who I really was, his fixers had quietly updated my file with my actual Russian records.
I clicked on my birth certificate and scanned the translated text.
Name: Adeline Ilyinichna Volkov
Father: Ilya Kozlov
Mother: Melissa Volkova
Date of Birth: April 14th.
All of those details matched across all the databases I appeared in, so it was solid. I was exactly the age I should be according to my birth certificate: 26 years old.
I took a deep breath and turned my attention back to Silas's files. I bypassed the witness statements and clicked directly on the FBI's primary incident report. The scanned document was old, and the typewritten letters were slightly faded, as expected, but the federal header was unmistakable. I scrolled down to the victim details.
The victim was an unnamed Whitmore infant (female), and the date of abduction was April 17th. I stopped breathing as my eyes darted back to my birth certificate. Born April 14th. The Whitmore baby was abducted on April 17th. Three days later. The exact amount of time a newborn would typically spend in a maternity ward before being cleared to go home. It was hitting too close to home.
It’s just a date, I told myself fiercely, my knuckles turning white as I gripped the edge of my desk. Thousands of babies were born that week in New York. It proves nothing. This was just another coincidence, right?
I forced my eyes to keep reading the clinical, detached language of the federal agents. According to the presiding officer, suspects gained entry to the private maternity wing by bypassing the secondary security door. No forced entry. Suspects demonstrated high-level tactical proficiency, and a handwritten ransom note was left on the mattress where the suspects requested five million dollars in unmarked and untraceable bills.
I scrolled past the ransom note details, looking for the picture of the ransom paper. I clicked on a subfolder labeled Pursuit & Recovery.
A new FBI field report loaded, and this one was dated four days after the kidnapping.
The ransom drop was aborted after the local NYPD inadvertently triggered a media leak. Suspects attempted to flee the designated drop zone in a stolen black sedan. The FBI and state troopers initiated a high-speed pursuit on the highway. Due to severe weather conditions and excessive speed, the suspects' vehicle lost control and collided with a concrete barrier, igniting.
Both suspects were pronounced instantly dead at the scene. Dental records identified the deceased as Viktor Markov and Leonid Rostova, known associates of a Brooklyn-based Russian crime syndicate. The vehicle was thoroughly searched. The Whitmore infant was not recovered. It is presumed the suspects handed the infant off to a third, unknown accomplice prior to the pursuit.
I sat perfectly still, staring at the screen. The air in my office suddenly felt colder, as if I were standing in the snow. My brain itched as I stared at the names. I could swear that those names were familiar. When I was a little girl, my father would often toast or take a shot to his brothers he lost to several factors. He mentioned Viktor and Leonid often. That memory was clear as if it just happened yesterday.
My father? No, Ilya hadn't orchestrated the kidnapping. He was the third accomplice. He was the safehouse. When Viktor and Leonid died in that fiery crash, Ilya was left holding the stolen Whitmore baby while the entire federal government hunted for her.
Now, there was one more thing that didn't make sense about the whole thing. If Ilya was stuck with me, why hadn't he just abandoned me? Why didn't he drop me off at a fire station or an orphanage?
There was only one person that could answer that question. An image of my mother, no Mellisa, instantly filled my mind.
Mellisa wasn't mother of the year by any shot, but she was fiercely protective of me. She protected me from Ilya and stayed with him despite all his abuse because he was the only one who could make sure I stayed hidden.
"Oh, my God," I whispered, clapping a hand over my mouth as everything suddenly made sense.
I quickly shut my computer down and slammed my laptop down so hard the screen cracked. I didn't care. I grabbed my coat and my keys, my hands shaking so violently I dropped them twice.
I couldn't look at files anymore. I needed to look the woman who raised me in the eye.
I was going to see Melissa.