Semua Bab WHAT HE ERASED: Bab 21 - Bab 30

Six days before I walked into that clinic I was still in Viktor's house.Still in my studio. Still designing his spring collection. Still eating breakfast in a kitchen that was about to stop being mine without anyone telling me yet.Six days before I sat on that bathroom floor with a test in my hand, someone connected to the Conti Group had already paid for whatever I was going to find out.I stood on the pavement outside the restaurant and ran the timeline three times and it kept coming out the same way."Mara," Dani said. "You still there.""Who knew," I said. "Who inside that house could have told them.""That's what I keep landing on." Papers rustling. Train noise underneath it. "The payment came from a subsidiary three layers deep. Paid directly to the clinic administrator. Not a staff member. The person who runs the building.""So they owned her before I ever walked in.""Looks like it."I started walking. No direction. Just moving."Someone was watching me inside the estate," I

I didn't buzz him in immediately.Stood at the intercom with my hand on the button and thought about every way this could go wrong. Unknown man. Italian accent. Shows up at Camille's building two hours after Peter Sands disappears from a house two hundred miles away.Either Aleksei's contact had found me.Or someone wanted me to open a door."How do I know who you are," I said.A pause. Then: "Aleksei left you a file. Page twelve. There is a column of numbers in the top right corner. Third number from the bottom is forty-one. That was my age when he recruited me. He said if you were smart enough to find the file you were smart enough to need more than a name."I checked the file.Third number from the bottom. Forty-one.I buzzed him in.He was smaller than I expected. Late forties, grey at the temples, the kind of face that had been careful for so long it had settled into something unreadable as a default. He wore a coat that had seen weather and carried a bag that looked heavy and he

I told the driver to change the route.Not dramatically. Just one turn earlier, one street over, the kind of adjustment that looked like nothing from the outside but added four minutes and a completely different approach road.Matteo noticed. Didn't comment."How long were you on the Meridian," I said."Ten minutes. Took the overpass from the north entrance." He was still looking out the window but his eyes were doing the inventory thing. Buildings. Side streets. Anyone walking the same direction too long. "I wasn't followed from the airport. I checked three times.""But they knew you were coming.""Someone knew." He paused. "I called ahead. From a clean phone. But clean phones—""Are only as clean as who picks up on the other end," I said.He was quiet."Who did you call," I said.Another pause. Longer."Dani," he said.I turned to look at him."She was my contact point," he said. "She called me first, three weeks ago, she gave me her number, told me to use it if I needed to move." H

I sat very still.Grace was watching me. She'd heard enough from my side of the call to know something had shifted."Say that again," I said."A marriage record," Matteo said. "Viktor Dmitri Volkov and Mara Elena Reyes. Registered seven years ago through a private civil office. Completely legal. Completely binding." A pause. "Completely unknown to either of you."The office was quiet except for Grace's computer fan and the faint sound of traffic six floors below."He registered a marriage," I said. "Between two people who didn't know about it.""He had authorisation. Or someone acting on his behalf did. The documentation is Aleksei was thorough.It is not a forgery." Another pause. "He built it as a failsafe. If the Conti Group ever tried to use your status against the claim, if they tried to manufacture a legal dispute around your relationship to Viktor, this—""This makes me his wife," I said.The word sat in the room like something that had fallen from a height."Technically," Matt

His name was Gregor Volkov.Viktor said it like the name had a taste he didn't want in his mouth. Flat. Controlled. The way he said things when what was underneath them was the opposite of flat and controlled."Your mother's brother," I said."Fifteen years older than her. He was on the founding board when my father built the company." Viktor looked at the wall. "He stepped back when I took over. Kept a ceremonial seat. One vote. No operational role." A pause. "I thought it was sentiment.""How long has he been on the board.""Since the beginning." His jaw moved. "Thirty years."Thirty years.I thought about what Matteo had said. The Conti family has been building toward this for fifteen years. Lorenzo Conti starting it. His children inheriting the mission. And somewhere in the architecture of all of it, a man with a ceremonial board seat and thirty years of quiet access."Viktor," I said carefully. "When did Elara's family first make contact with yours."He looked at me."Not Viktor