Chapter 2 - THE NAME MY FATHER LEFT BEHIND
Z
I didn't answer Nikolai's question.
Not because I couldn't.
Because I had spent seven years building a life around the decision not to answer it.
My father, Thomas Montgomery, had been a university professor in Columbus. He taught comparative linguistics, collected dictionaries, and believed that a person could learn more about a nation by studying its proverbs than by reading its laws.
He made pancakes every Sunday.
He sang off-key in the car.
He left notes inside my lunch bag even after I turned eighteen.
And he spoke nine languages fluently, with a working knowledge of several more.
To his colleagues, he was a brilliant academic.
To me, he was the man who taught me how to say “I love you” in twelve languages because he believed affection should never be limited by borders.
Then, seven years ago, he died in a single-car accident on a rainy road outside Columbus.
The police said he had lost control on a bend.
The road was wet. The visibility was poor. No other vehicle had been identified.
I was nineteen.
I believed them because I had no reason not to.
Three weeks after the funeral, I found a letter hidden inside his old Russian dictionary.
It contained no dramatic confession. No list of enemies. No explanation of why a man who hated driving at night had been on that road after midnight.
There were only four sentences.
Aria, if anyone asks about Elena Markovic, you never heard her name.
If a man called Sokolov approaches you, do not believe his promises.
Your languages are a gift, not a debt.
Live your life, little star.
I read the letter so many times that the folds began to tear.
Then I put it away.
I changed my phone number, moved to New York, and took jobs where no one cared that I could understand Russian, Polish, German, Italian, or Hungarian.
I learned to smile when customers snapped their fingers.
I learned to accept being underestimated.
And I learned that sometimes a quiet life was not cowardice.
It was survival.
Now Nikolai Sokolov was watching me across a table in the Onyx Room, and the past I had buried was sitting between us like an unexploded device.
“Who was Elena Markovic to your father?” he asked.
“I don't know.”
It was technically true.
I knew her name. I knew she had called our house twice during the week before my father's death. I knew he had taken both calls in his study and closed the door.
I did not know what they had discussed.
Nikolai studied me.
“You recognized her name.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And recognizing a name isn't a confession.”
Roman muttered something in Russian.
I answered without turning toward him.
“If you have a question, Mr. Ivanov, ask it in English. I can understand you either way.”
His face tightened.
Nikolai's eyes narrowed, but this time I couldn't tell whether he was annoyed or impressed.
A knock sounded at the door.
Laurent returned with a folder.
“Mr. Sokolov, the security team found this in the coatroom.”
Nikolai opened it.
Inside lay a photograph of a woman in her forties standing beside a black car. She had dark hair, a narrow face, and a small scar near her left eyebrow.
I recognized her immediately.
Elena.
The picture was old, perhaps ten years old, but the expression was unmistakable.
On the back, someone had written a date and a short sentence in Russian.
Nikolai slid it across the table.
“Read it.”
I looked down.
The translator knows what was moved.
My fingers went cold.
“What was moved?” I asked.
“That,” Nikolai said, “is what we were hoping to find out before Elena disappeared.”
Roman leaned forward.
“The shipment was supposed to contain machine parts. The customs manifest was altered. A second document was submitted under a different company name. Now Elena is missing, the interpreter who was scheduled to replace her never arrived, and someone sent this photograph to our office.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because you recognized her.”
“Lots of people recognize photographs.”
“Not with that expression.”
I looked at the picture again.
Elena had visited our house once when I was seventeen. She had brought my father a book from Budapest and stayed for dinner. She spoke softly, laughed at my father's terrible jokes, and asked me what I wanted to study.
I had told her linguistics.
She'd looked at my father with something close to concern.
She has a good ear, Elena had said. Better than either of us.
My father had changed the subject.
At the time, I thought it was a compliment.
Now I wondered what else it had meant.
“I can't help you,” I said.
Nikolai didn't argue.
He simply closed the folder.
“Then you can return to your shift.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
I stood slowly.
He had given me an opening. I should have taken it.
But as I reached the door, he spoke again.
“One more thing, Miss Montgomery.”
I turned.
“Your father didn't die on that road by accident.”
The world seemed to tilt.
I gripped the doorframe.
“What did you say?”
Nikolai's face had lost its mocking edge.
“I don't know who caused his death. I don't know whether Elena was involved. But I have a report from a private investigator who examined the case years ago. Your father's car was inspected before the accident, and the inspection record disappeared.”
I couldn't breathe.
“You're lying.”
“I might be mistaken. That's why I want the original report.”
“Why would you have a report about my father?”
“Because he was connected to a financial investigation that involved my family.”
I stared at him.
My father had been a professor.
He had taught students how to translate medieval texts.
He had kept spare change in a jar and forgotten to cancel his newspaper subscription for months after switching to digital.
He had not been connected to a criminal investigation.
That was impossible.
Nikolai seemed to read the disbelief on my face.
“I didn't say he was a criminal,” he said. “I said someone used his language skills to access information they shouldn't have had.”
I stepped backward.
“No.”
“Miss Montgomery—”
“No. You don't get to walk into my life, insult me, tell me my father was involved with your world, and expect me to help you make sense of it.”
For the first time, my voice shook.
“My father is dead. Whatever happened to him, I buried him. You don't get to use his name because your interpreter disappeared.”
I opened the door.
Nikolai let me leave.
No guards followed.
No threats came.
I walked through the restaurant, past the pianist, past the glittering tables, and into the staff corridor.
Chloe was waiting by the lockers.
Her eyes were red.
“Aria? What happened?”
I tried to answer.
Nothing came out.
She took my hands.
“Hey. You're freezing.”
I stared at her.
Then I whispered the only thing I could think of.
“I think my father's death wasn't an accident.”
May you like
Chloe's expression changed.
And somewhere behind us, in the Onyx Room, a mafia boss who had mocked a waitress in Russian was reading a document that might finally explain why a university professor had died on a rainy road seven years earlier.
