Chapter 106 Adeline
Adeline's POV
"I see you've finally reconnected with your real family, malyshka. "I read it once and I read it again. I know there was only one person that could be responsible for this message, but my mind still struggled to comprehend the fact that he was near enough to know what was happening.
I stood frozen in the hallway, staring at the glowing screen of my phone. The word "malyshka," which meant "little one," echoed in my head in Ilya’s thick and gravelly voice, and it made my stomach churn.
He knew. He wasn't just a ghost hiding in the Russian underground. He was here, in New York, watching me from the shadows.
Who knew when and where he was doing his surveillance from. He could be watching me stand in the office of Royal & Associates or eating lunch with Zara. Watching me walk right into the lion's den, he knew.
My lungs tightened as the panic hit me so fast that it tasted like copper in the back of my throat. I shoved the phone back into my pocket and practically sprinted for the elevator, slamming the button for the lobby.
When the metal doors closed and sealed me in, I braced my hands against the stainless steel railing and dropped my head as I fought off what I knew could result in a full-blown panic attack.
My mind was spinning, running through a dozen terrifying scenarios.
"I have to tell Percy," was my first thought. I have to call him. He will put the entire syndicate on lockdown and put a twenty-man guard on Zara and Evelyn. He would hunt Ilya down and kill him, but as the elevator descended and the panic slowly faded, I started to see reason. Going to Percy now would do more harm than good in the long run.
If I told Percy, the king of New York would go to war. It would be bloody and public.
There was also the fact that Ilya Kozlov was a cornered rat who had spent more than twenty-six years evading the FBI. If he realized Percy was coming for him, he wouldn't face him head-on. Ilya would strike at the softest, most vulnerable targets first to use as leverage.
He would strike the Whitmores. He would hurt Zara, and I absolutely wasn't going to stand for that. Sister or not, Zara had become an important part of my life.
Ilya’s text wasn't just a taunt. It was a warning to me that the only way to protect my loved ones was to face this by myself. "I see them" was what he wanted me to know. If he could see them, he could hurt them.
I couldn't tell Percy. I had to play this game completely in the dark until I had neutralized the threat myself, but to do that, I needed undeniable proof. I needed a weapon stronger than circumstantial evidence and a crying, lying mother. I wasn't stupid enough to just take Melissa's word as the truth.
The elevator dinged at the lobby. I walked out with my back straight and my expression wiped, void of any emotion. I walked past the concierge and climbed into the back of my waiting car before giving the driver a new address.
"Take me to Soho," I ordered evenly. "Zara Whitmore's penthouse."
Thirty minutes later, I was stepping out of the private elevator directly into Zara’s sprawling living room.
As usual, the penthouse was an explosion of silk, fabrics, and designer garment bags. Zara was standing in the center of the room in a plush white robe. She was in the middle of a heated argument with an equally stressed tailor who was pinning the hem of a striking blue ballgown draped over a mannequin.
"I'm telling you, François, the slit needs to be two inches higher," Zara insisted, waving a hand. "It’s a charity gala, not a convent. Oh, Adeline! Thank God you're here!"
Zara abandoned the tailor and rushed over to me, her face bright with genuine relief. Alex was again standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, pretending not to watch her, though his dark eyes tracked her every movement. I was no longer surprised by his presence around her.
"You look like you're preparing for battle, Z," I noted with an amused smile on my face. Even though every instinct in me was screaming at me to grab her, pull her behind Alex, and barricade the door, I kept it cool, still.
"The gala is in two weeks, and I am losing my mind," Zara groaned, linking her arm through mine and dragging me toward the sofa. "I need you to look over the seating chart. My mother is trying to put the mayor next to my obnoxious cousin, and it’s going to end in a fistfight."
"I can handle a seating chart," I promised, sitting down. I looked at her, truly looked at her. I traced the arch of her brow, the curve of her jaw, and the exact shade of her dark eyes.
We would have been twenty-seven this month. Guilt settled over my chest at my true intention for coming here this morning, which was to violate her trust.
"Actually," I said, leaning forward and pressing a hand to my forehead, feigning a slight wince. "I will absolutely fix the seating chart, but do you have any Advil? I’ve got a massive headache brewing since I left the firm."
Zara’s face instantly softened with concern. "Of course. There’s a bottle in the medicine cabinet in my en-suite bathroom. Top shelf. Just grab it while I argue with François about this neckline."
"Thanks," I murmured and stood up. I walked down the wide hallway toward her master bedroom. The second I stepped into her huge bathroom and closed the door behind me, the smile dropped.
Instead of opening her medicine cabinet as she directed, I went straight to her vanity. It was cluttered with expensive perfumes, makeup brushes, and the most important part, a silver-plated hairbrush.
I picked up the hairbrush and examined it. There were several long strands of hair in it. I reached into my blazer pocket and pulled out a clean tissue. With trembling fingers, I extracted four strands of hair from the brush. I folded the hairs into the tissue, sealed the tissue inside a small plastic evidence baggie. I had grabbed it from the firm and slipped it deep into the inner pocket of my jacket. I sighed deeply when I was done.
I stared at my pale reflection in the bathroom mirror.
"I am doing this to protect her," I said to myself even as I gripped the edge of the marble sink. I am going to get the proof and then I am going to end Ilya Kozlov permanently.
I splashed some cold water on my wrists, took a deep breath, and finally opened the medicine cabinet to grab the bottle of Advil.
When I walked back out to the living room, rattling the pill bottle with a fake smile, Zara was laughing at something the tailor said.
She had absolutely no idea that I was currently holding the key that could destroy her entire reality right inside my pocket.