Chapter 5 - THE CHILD’S DRAWING
The dead voice of Viktor’s father continued to echo through Penn Station, drowning out the ambient noise of the terminal.
“Come to the rail yards, Viktor,” the voice said in Hungarian. “Bring the girl. Bring the key. Or the boy stays with me.”
I froze.
I whipped around to grab Toby’s hand.
But my hand closed around empty air.
“Toby!” I screamed, spinning in a frantic circle.
The spot next to me, where my nine-year-old son had been standing five seconds earlier, was empty. On the tiled floor sat the heavy silver watch Viktor had given him to calm his nerves.
“Toby!” I shrieked, running toward the nearest pillar.
“Mara, stop!” Viktor grabbed my waist, pulling me hard against his chest. “They have him. Running blindly will get you killed.”
“They took my son!” I clawed at Viktor’s arms, sobbing hysterically. “He was right here!”
“They used the PA system to distract us,” Viktor said, his eyes scanning the sparse crowd of late-night commuters. “Professional extraction. Silent. But they want the key, which means Toby is safe until they get it.”
“His father is dead,” I choked out, the reality of the voice breaking through my panic. “You said your father died twenty years ago.”
“He did,” Viktor said, picking up the silver watch from the floor. He stared at the child’s drawing of the wolf and scale. “That voice was a digital recording. A deepfake constructed from old tapes. But only one person alive knows about this coat, this locker, and my father’s death.”
Viktor looked at me, his eyes dark with a sudden, horrifying realization.
“Peter Horvath didn’t betray me. Stefan didn’t betray me.”
“Then who?”
“My mother.”
The air left my lungs.
“Your mother?” I repeated. “Why would your own mother want to destroy your empire and bankrupt me?”
“Because she isn’t just my mother,” Viktor said, shoving the cashmere coat into his duffel bag. “Her maiden name was Nagy. She is Ilona’s daughter. She is your aunt, Mara.”
My mind violently rejected the information.
“No. My mother was Ilona’s only child. She raised me alone.”
“Ilona had two daughters,” Viktor corrected as he pulled me toward the service exits. “Your mother, and mine. My father married my mother to merge the syndicates. But he was brutal. He murdered his rivals, including my mother’s lover. When my father was assassinated, my mother vanished, presumed dead. I took over the empire.”
He pushed open a heavy fire door, leading us into the damp, industrial darkness of the Hudson rail yards.
“She never vanished,” Viktor said quietly. “She went underground. She built the debt collection shell companies. She orchestrated everything to punish my father’s legacy, to tear down the empire I built, and to force Ilona’s true heir—you—to hand over the proxy seal.”
Rain lashed against our faces as we moved through the rows of rusted train cars. The smell of ozone and wet steel was overpowering.
“She took Toby,” I said, my voice turning cold. The panic was suddenly replaced by a maternal rage so intense it physically burned. “I don’t care if she’s my aunt. I will kill her.”
Viktor pulled his gun. “You won’t have to.”
We rounded the edge of a massive freight car.
At the end of the tracks stood a sleek, private train car, its windows glowing with dim yellow light. Standing on the boarding platform was an older woman wrapped in a dark trench coat.
She looked exactly like the photos of my grandmother, Ilona. The same sharp cheekbones. The same piercing eyes.
Holding her hand, looking terrified but unhurt, was Toby.
“Mom!” Toby cried out.
I lunged forward, but Viktor caught my arm, pulling his gun level.
“Hello, Viktor,” the woman said in perfect, unaccented English. “It has been a very long time.”
“Let the boy go, Mother,” Viktor said, his finger tight on the trigger.
“I will,” she said calmly. “As soon as Mara hands over the iron key and signs the digital transfer.”
She held up a tablet. The screen glowed with the altered document Peter Horvath had prepared.
“You ruined my mother’s life,” I spat, stepping forward. “You drowned her in debt. You tortured your own sister!”
“My sister chose to hide like a coward,” she replied coldly. “I chose to fight. This empire belongs to the Nagy bloodline. Not to the men who abused us.”
She looked at me.
“Hand over the key, Mara. Or I put Toby on this train, and you never see him again.”
I reached into my pocket, my fingers wrapping around the cold iron key attached to the silver bracelet.
But as I pulled it out, I noticed something glinting in the mud near the train tracks.
It was a broken piece of a heavy brass lock.
The lock to the private train car’s door.
Someone else had already forced their way inside.
Before I could warn Viktor, the door behind his mother violently slammed open.
A man stepped out of the shadows of the train car, pressing the barrel of a suppressed pistol directly against the back of her head.
May you like
It was Stefan.
“You’re right, Mrs. Kovacs,” Stefan smiled, his eyes locking onto Viktor. “This empire belongs to the bloodline. Which is exactly why I’m going to end it.”
