But that movement pattern. That knowledge of camera placement.
That’s not a coincidence.
“Dimitri?” Vera’s voice is shaking. “That was him, wasn’t it? That was Alexei.”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly, my heart pounding. “But I’m going to find out.”
I pull up the case file on Alexei’s death. I spread the documents across my desk—autopsy report, crime scene photos, witness statements, forensics analysis.
And suddenly I’m seeing things I was too grief-stricken to see before.
The gunpowder burns on the body. The forensics report said they were consistent with close-range shots, execution style. But looking at the photos now, with fresh eyes, they don’t look right. The pattern is off. The concentration is wrong.
I pull up the ballistics report. The bullets were Volkov ammunition, but the trajectories don’t match what the coroner reported. The angles are wrong for someone standing over a kneeling victim.
And then there’s the timeline.
The Ashfords arrived at the warehouse at 9:40 p.m. Security footage confirms it. But the coroner estimated the time of death at 9:30 p.m., give or take ten minutes, but still.
It’s like a riddle that I’ve been mulling over for months—how do you ambush someone who’s already been dead for ten minutes?
The question has bothered me for weeks, but I dismissed it and assumed the time of death estimate was wrong. Coroners aren’t perfect.
But what if it wasn’t wrong?
What if the time of death was accurate, and everything else—the whole scenario—was staged?
Unless...
Unless the body wasn’t Alexei’s.
The thought hits me so hard I actually rock back in my chair.
What if someone staged Alexei’s death and used a body that looked like him, planted our ammunition, and made it look like an Ashford ambush? What if Alexei has been alive this whole time?
Butwhy? Why would Alexei fake his own death? Why would he let me grieve him, bury him, and marry Vera to avenge him?
And who would help him do it?
I’m already pulling up my computer and calling my tech team. “I need you to pull everything on the body from the coroner. Dental records, DNA, fingerprints. I want it cross-referenced with Alexei’s actual records.”
“Sir?” The tech sounds confused. “We already did that. The body was identified as?—”
“Iknowwhat it was identified as,” I snap, feeling my temper fray. “Do it again. Check for discrepancies. Any irregularities in the chain of custody. Anything.”
“Yes, sir.”
I hang up and make another call to financial forensics. “I need a full audit of all offshore accounts associated with Alexei Volkov. Look for any activity in the last three months. Anything. I don’t care how small.”
The person doesn’t even hesitate. “Right away, sir.”
I hang up and realize my hands are shaking from adrenaline or fear or rage, I don’t know.
Vera is watching me with wide eyes. “What are you thinking?”
I run a hand over my face. “I’m thinking that maybe you weren’t hallucinating,” I tell her.
The reports start coming in three hours later.
