Chapter 128 Nikolai
I arrived at the dock early the next morning. And found Viktor standing beside the boat. His face was ashen.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Look," he said. He pointed to the water.
I looked. And my stomach dropped.
The water around our boat was filled with dead fish. Hundreds of them. Floating with their belly up.
"All of them," Viktor whispered. "All of our fish is dead."
"How?" My voice dropped.
"I do not know," Viktor said. "Poison maybe. Or disease. The entire stock is gone."
I climbed onto the boat and checked the tanks. He was right. Every single fish was dead.
"This will bankrupt us," Viktor said. His voice shook. "We have debts. Contracts. Without the fish..."
"We will figure it out," I said. "We can rebuild. Get new stock."
"With what money?" Viktor asked. "We have nothing. This was everything."
Over the next days, things got worse.
The bank called and demanded payment on loans. Viktor could not pay. Suppliers refused to deliver without payment up front which Viktor did not have.
The fishing company was dying. And the family was going down with it.
I gave Viktor everything I had. The small amount of money I had saved. It was not enough. Not even close.
"I am sorry," Viktor said one night. "I am sorry I brought you into our problems."
"You saved my life," I reminded him. "I owe you everything."
"You owe us nothing," Viktor said. "You are family. And family helps each other."
But I felt helpless and useless. I could not save them.
Just when the family was still surviving, Katya disappeared.
It was a Tuesday morning. She left for school and never came home.
Marina called everyone. The school said she never arrived. Her friends had not seen her.
She was just gone.
The police came, asked questions and searched. They found nothing.
Days passed. No word. No ransom. No body.
Marina stopped sleeping. She stopped eating. She sat by the window, waiting. Viktor aged ten years in a week. The stress of losing his daughter and his business was crushing him.
And I felt rage building inside me.
This was not a coincidence.
The fish dying. The debts. Katya disappearing.
Someone was targeting this family.
But who? And why?
One night, I could not sleep. I went to Viktor's office and started looking through papers. Bills. Documents. Anything that might give me a clue.
That was when I found a letter. Hidden at the bottom of a drawer. Tucked beneath old receipts.
I pulled it out and read it.
"Viktor Petrov. Your debt is now three times the original amount. Interest accumulates weekly. Pay in full by the end of the month, or we will take payment in other ways. You know how we operate. You know we always collect."
Below the message was the symbol of awolf. It's fangs bared.
I heard footsteps approaching. Viktor appeared in the doorway. When he saw what I was holding, his face went white.
"You were not supposed to find that," he said.
"What is this?" I demanded. "Viktor, what have you done?"
He walked to the chair, sat down heavily and put his head in his hands.
"When we were in Moscow, things were hard," he began. His voice was low. "We had nothing. I could not feed my family."
"So you borrowed from them?" I asked.
"I had no choice," Viktor said. "It was a small loan. Just enough to get us out of Moscow. To start fresh here. I thought I could pay it back quickly."
"But you could not."
He nodded.
"The interest," Viktor said bitterly. "It grew faster than I could earn. Every time I made a payment, the debt got bigger. I have been paying for years. It never ends."
"Does Marina know?"
"No," Viktor said. "I have kept this from her. From everyone. She thinks we escaped Moscow because of hard work. Not because I sold my soul to monsters."
"The fish," I said. "The debts being called in. Katya's disappearance. This is not random. Someone is squeezing you. Trying to destroy you."
"I know," Viktor said. "And I know who."
"Who?"
Viktor looked at me. His eyes were hollow. "Someone far more dangerous than I ever imagined. Someone I thought was just a rumor. A ghost story we told to scare children."
"Who?" I asked again.
Viktor shook his head. "You do not want to know. Trust me."
"Katya is gone because of this," I said. "I deserve to know."
Viktor was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "His name does not matter. What matters is that he always collects. Always. There is no running. No hiding. No escape."
"Then what do we do?"
Viktor stood up. His face was hard now.
"I will tell Marina," he said. "Everything. The debt. The money. Katya. She deserves to know the truth."
"Now?"
"Now," Viktor said. "Before it gets worse. Before they come here."
Before they come here?
Just when I thought I’d left behind Nikolai Markov.
We walked to the living room. Marina was sitting by the window. Still waiting for her daughter to walk through the doors.
"Marina," Viktor said. "We need to talk."
She quietly wiped her tears and turned to us.
My heart broke.
"What happened? Is it Katya? Did you find her?" She asked.
"No," Viktor said. He sat beside her. Took her hands. "But there is something I should have told you a long time ago. Something about why we really left Moscow."
Marina's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"
Viktor took a breath. "I borrowed money. Before we left. From dangerous people. I thought I could pay it back, but…"
He never finished the sentence.
Gunfire erupted outside. Breaking the night into pieces.
Marina screamed. Viktor pushed her to the floor and covered her with his body.
I dropped to the ground, crawled to the window and peered through the curtain.
My heart stopped.
The front door exploded inward. The wood splintered. Glass shattered.
Men flooded inside with their guns raised. Their faces were masked.
And then a figure stepped through the doorway.
I froze.
I could not move. I could not breathe.
Because standing in front of me was someone I had hoped never to see again.
Viktor was on the ground. Marina was screaming.
And Katya was still missing.
This was not a rescue. This was not an exchange.
This was collection day.
The figure smiled. “Ivan Sokolov. Or should I say, Nikolai Markov.”