Chương 6 - WHAT MIRA DID
I thought I had misunderstood him.
“What do you mean many times?”
Nikolai looked at Mira.
Then at the photograph.
“After you left me, I asked one person whether you were safe.”
“Your mother?”
“No.”
“Elena has been gone for years,” Viriato said.
Nikolai nodded.
“But someone kept sending me proof Serena was alive.”
I stared at him.
“You were having me watched.”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“I received photographs.”
“From whom?”
“I never knew.”
That answer did not help.
“How many?”
His silence answered.
“How many, Nikolai?”
“Six.”
My chest tightened.
“And you never thought to tell me?”
“You had made it extremely clear you wanted nothing to do with me.”
“I wanted distance. Not surveillance.”
“I didn’t order it.”
“But you kept the photographs.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His jaw flexed.
“Because every time one arrived, I knew you were alive.”
The words landed with more force than I wanted them to.
Fear could be selfish.
Love could be selfish too.
Sometimes they wore the same coat.
Mira watched us quietly.
Then she said, “The woman who contacted me asked strange questions.”
“What kind?”
“Whether Serena always carried a sketchbook.”
I froze.
Nikolai’s head turned.
“What exactly did she ask?”
“If Serena still drew when she was nervous.”
I looked down at the black sketchbook from the train station.
“That’s how I’ve always been.”
“I know,” Mira said. “She knew too.”
Viriato opened Sofia’s old sketchbook again.
He studied the paper.
Then looked at me.
“Your mother bought paper from one supplier.”
“So?”
“So did Elena.”
Nikolai understood before I did.
“My charcoal portrait.”
“The one I left at your penthouse?”
“Yes.”
Viriato’s eyes sharpened.
“What paper did you use?”
I thought back.
“My mother had boxes of old art paper after she quit accounting. I took some when she died.”
My pulse began to climb.
“I still use it sometimes.”
Viriato stood.
“We need that drawing.”
Nikolai was already reaching for his coat.
His penthouse no longer felt like the place I had fled.
It felt like a museum of another version of myself.
The same marble entry.
The same dark wood.
The same impossible city view.
I had lived there for four months.
Loved there.
Cooked breakfast barefoot in that kitchen.
Learned the exact sound Nikolai made when he woke from nightmares and pretended he hadn’t.
Nothing had changed.
Except me.
Nikolai led us into his study.
The charcoal drawing hung behind his desk.
Framed.
I stopped.
“You framed it?”
“Yes.”
Mira gave me a sideways look that would have been funny under different circumstances.
Nikolai removed the frame from the wall.
Viriato released the backing.
The paper looked ordinary.
Cream.
Heavy.
Slightly rough beneath my fingertips.
Then Elena Machado walked into the study.
No one heard her arrive.
Viriato had his weapon out in less than a second.
She didn’t flinch.
She was tall, silver-haired, and elegant in a charcoal coat.
Nikolai’s eyes.
Nikolai’s mouth.
But where his face carried force, hers carried exhaustion.
“Hello, Niko.”
Nikolai seemed to turn to stone.
“Elena.”
Not Mother.
Elena.
Her eyes moved to me.
Then to my stomach.
Something broke across her face.
Joy.
Pain.
Regret.
All at once.
“Serena.”
I stepped backward.
“You were in my apartment.”
“Yes.”
Nikolai moved between us.
“You stay away from her.”
Elena looked at him.
“I was keeping her alive.”
“By entering her home?”
“By checking windows after someone else had been there.”
Silence.
“What?” I whispered.
She turned toward me.
“The photograph wasn’t mine.”
I stared.
“You wrote on it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed Nikolai to understand that I was still protecting you.”
Nikolai’s voice went flat.
“From whom?”
Elena looked toward the charcoal drawing.
“The man who has been looking for that paper since before Serena was born.”
Viriato stepped closer.
“Shepherd?”
Elena’s eyes flickered.
“You found Sofia’s book.”
“Yes.”
For the first time, Elena seemed afraid.
“You shouldn’t have.”
I almost laughed.
“I’m getting tired of people deciding what I should know about my own mother.”
“You’re right.”
She said it immediately.
No excuse.
No defense.
“You have every reason to hate how we handled this.”
“Hate isn’t what I feel.”
“What do you feel?”
“Like my entire life was arranged by strangers.”
Elena’s expression softened.
“Not your entire life.”
“My career?”
“No.”
“Mira?”
“I arranged the introduction.”
Mira looked sick.
“You funded the gallery grant.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To keep Serena working in public places.”
“That makes absolutely no sense.”
“It does when you know people had begun entering her studio.”
I looked toward the photograph.
“How long?”
“Six months.”
That was when my pregnancy began showing.
Nikolai looked furious.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“You knew about my child.”
“Yes.”
“And said nothing.”
“I didn’t know whether Serena wanted you informed.”
That stopped him.
Elena looked at me.
“I respected that choice.”
“You invaded my apartment but respected my choice?”
A flash of shame crossed her face.
“Protection is not always noble just because the intention is.”
It was the first thing she had said that I fully believed.
Viriato lifted the charcoal drawing.
“Why this paper?”
Elena stepped closer.
“Sofia created her own security system. She wrote records in diluted archival ink, then covered them with blank sizing.”
“Meaning?”
“Ordinary light shows nothing.”
She looked around the room.
“Do you have ultraviolet?”
Five minutes later, the lights in Nikolai’s study were off.
A UV inspection lamp passed over my drawing.
At first, nothing happened.
Then letters began to emerge beneath the charcoal lines of Nikolai’s sleeping face.
Names.
Dates.
Amounts.
My drawing had been resting on top of my mother’s secrets for seven months.
Viriato read silently.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He didn’t answer.
I leaned closer.
One line had been written larger than the others.
03/12.
VIRIATO COSTA.
KILLED TOMAS COSTA.
I looked at Viriato.
His face had gone completely blank.
Nikolai slowly turned toward the man who had protected him most of his adult life.
“You told us Tomas died saving Sofia.”
“He did.”
Nikolai pointed at the hidden writing.
“Then why did Sofia write that you killed him?”
Viriato looked at the rosary still looped around his wrist.
May you like
When he finally spoke, his voice was almost too quiet to hear.
“Because I did.”
