Page 103

“How do you know that?” I asked.

Kit opened the Bellandi guard’s report.

“He arrived while they were still trying to drag her out. He heard one of them tell her to call the girl and get her outside. They had zip ties, a sedative, and this,” she explained.

A photograph appeared: me at fifteen, leaving school with a backpack over one shoulder. The image blurred for several seconds. I blinked until my vision cleared again.

“They were going to use her to get me out of the house.”

“That was their plan,” Kit said.

“What happened when Raffaele’s guards arrived?”

“The first Bellandi car turned onto the street at 7:47. One of the attackers fired toward it, then a second fired into your mother’s car before they ran.”

The traffic camera didn’t show the shot clearly. Only the movement of the man’s arm, the flash of a bullet, the sudden stillness inside the driver’s seat, and the van pulling away seconds later.

I stared at the frozen image. For eleven years, my mother’s final moments had been an abandoned car, a shattered window, and a grocery bag that never came home.

Now I knew she had died fighting like a lioness against the men who wanted to take me.

Sergei’s hand took my hand in his. His thumb moved once across my wedding ring, then stilled.

“Keep going,” I told Kit.

The next frame showed the van passing beneath a traffic camera four blocks away. The driver turned his face toward the side mirror as a Bellandi vehicle pulled up behind them. He was younger, his hair was longer, and there was no silver near his temples, but I recognized the narrow face and the flat, watchful eyes.

“That’s the man from Nocturne,” I declared.

“Arsen Vardanyan,” Ivan confirmed. “Levon’s cousin.”

“What about that one?” I asked.

Ivan enlarged the plate and typed a few things into his computer before he cleared his throat, turning the screen back towards us. “That car was leased through a Queens transportation company used by Volkov couriers. Same company moved men for Yuri’s organization.”

“So, the Volkovs were part of my mother’s murder too.”

“We can’t say that exactly,” Kit replied. “Not yet, at least. What this proves is that the Petrosyans had access to Volkov logistics eleven years ago. They borrowed vehicles and routes from the same organization Dmitry controls now.”

“Levon wanted Bellandi access before Dmitry came after Sergei.”

“Yeah,” Kit said.

Ivan’s attention shifted to his tablet. “Arsen knows we reopened the file,” he said quickly.

“How is that possible?” I asked.

“He abandoned his normal accounts this morning. Emptied what money he could reach, missed two Petrosyan check-ins, and left the apartment we had connected to him,” Ivan answered.

“He’s running from Levon,” I guessed.

“Blood is useful until it becomes inconvenient,” Sergei said.

Ivan set a small, outdated phone on the table. I recognized the cracked lavender case immediately.

It was my mother’s.

I knew that my Nonna had kept the line active for eleven years, because canceling it meant she would lose the sound of my mother’s voice whenever she called that number and got her voicemail. Ivan must have gotten it from her.