She turns, lifts her hand, and points.
At Nikolai.
“He has it,” Bella says. “Nikolai has the drive.”
For a second, nobody moves.
I feel, more than see, Nikolai’s whole body go rigid beside me. Then he lets out a short, incredulous laugh.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says. “She’s concussed, Alek. You’re really going to listen to this?”
Irina’s eyes light up. She looks from Bella, to Nikolai, to me. “Now this is interesting,” she murmurs.
“Bella,” I say, keeping my gun up, my voice tight. “Think about what you’re saying.”
“I have,” she fires back. She’s shaking, but she doesn’t back down. “I remember more now.”
My mother gestures lazily with her gun. “Go on then,” she says. “Entertain me.”
Bella swallows, but her voice stays clear. “On that flight,” she says, looking at Nikolai, “Elena wasn’t the only one who killed Kirov. You did it together. You and her.”
The wind cuts across the tarmac. Nobody moves.
“You knew he was carrying something for Irina. I’m betting you got wind of it during your time in Russia,” she goes on. “You were Aleksander’s right hand. You had access to his plans, his schedule, his seat. Elena had access to the cabin, to who sat where, to who got bumped where. Between the two of you, you had everything you needed.”
Nikolai’s jaw tightens, just a fraction.
“You waited until the lights were down, until everyone was half-asleep. You and Elena went to his row. One of you distracted. The other did it. Quick. Quiet. You killed him and walked away like nothing happened. And then you pinned it on Aleksander.”
She looks at Irina now. “You wanted someone to blame, someone to ask questions about. And who better than the son you already hated?”
Irina’s face doesn’t change, but her gun doesn’t waver either.
Bella keeps going.
“You got the drive off Kirov’s body,” she says, turning back to Nikolai. “But you couldn’t just walk around with it. Everyone was looking for it. Everyone on both sides. So you hid it somewhere no one would search.” Her eyes flash. “In one of Lily’s toys.”
It hits me like a punch.
“Elena helped me out on the flight,” she says, voice trembling but steady. “She was kind to me. She even offered to help with my luggage when I was struggling with Lily and all the bags.”
She swallows, glancing at me, then at Irina. “That’s when she did it. She must have slipped the drive inside Lily’s bunny. It was the perfect place. No one would check a child’s toy. And we left early, thanks to Aleksander’s connection. The police never questioned us, and that’s the way you intended it to be.”
Nikolai is still silent, tense.
“You couldn’t get it back,” Bella says. “Not until yesterday. Because Lily wouldn’t let it go. She held that bunny everywhere she went. Slept with it. Walked with it. Clutched it like her life depended on it.”
She draws a breath. “And then, conveniently, she gets sick. Suddenly she’s in a hospital. Exhausted. Hooked to IVs. Sedated. Out of it. And you just happen to be around, with every excuse to go in and out of her room, go through our things, take whatever you want.”
Her voice hardens. “If I had to bet, I’d say you had something to do with that too.”
Irina’s eyes narrow, finally turning fully on Nikolai.
“And when you still couldn’t be sure where the drive ended up,” Bella says, “you went back. With Elena. You tried to take me out of the hospital, away from Aleksander, so you could squeeze answers out of me and search anything I’d touched. That’s when I cut you.”
She takes a step closer, still between me and my mother’s gun, like she doesn’t even realize what she’s doing.
“On that flight,” she says, quieter now, “you and Elena killed Kirov together and pinned the blame on Aleksander. And if I had to bet, I’d say you had something to do with putting him on that flight in the first place.”
