Chapter 1 - THE FORTY-SEVENTH POEM
The Russian man smiled when Adrien Moretti refused to pay twenty-two million dollars.
That was the moment I knew the negotiation was never supposed to end peacefully.
"Tell your employer he has ten seconds," the scarred man said in Russian.
I translated.
Adrien didn't blink.
"Tell him I don't negotiate with men who threaten waitresses."
My heart stopped.
Until that moment, I had been nothing more than a convenient translator.
Now the most feared man in New York had made my safety part of his negotiations.
The scarred Russian leaned toward me.
"What is your name, little girl?"
"Natalya Petrov."
His smile disappeared.
The thinner man stopped tapping his fingers.
For three terrifying seconds, neither spoke.
Then the scarred man whispered something in Russian.
"Viktor Petrov's daughter?"
My fingers tightened around the poetry sheet.
I hadn't heard a stranger say my father's full name in seventeen years.
"How do you know my father?"
The man's expression changed.
He looked toward his companion.
Then back at me.
"Your father was a very talented translator."
I felt the blood drain from my face.
"My father is dead."
The man laughed softly.
"That is what we were told."
Adrien turned toward me.
"What did he say?"
I could barely breathe.
"He knows my father."
The booth fell silent.
Adrien's chief lieutenant, Salvatore, shifted closer.
The scarred man reached into his jacket.
Immediately, Adrien's security team tensed.
But the Russian withdrew only a photograph.
He slid it toward me.
A man stood outside a brick building in Brighton Beach.
Dark hair.
Tired blue eyes.
A familiar crooked smile.
My father.
Viktor Petrov.
I hadn't seen his face anywhere except old family photographs since I was seven.
My knees weakened.
"Where did you get this?"
The Russian's smile returned.
"Ask Moretti."
I slowly turned.
Adrien's expression had become unreadable.
"What does he mean?"
Adrien looked at the photograph.
Then at the scarred man.
"I have never met her father."
The Russian laughed.
"Perhaps not. But your organization benefited from what happened to him."
My stomach twisted.
"Stop talking around me. Tell me what happened."
The thinner Russian suddenly stood.
"We have said enough."
His companion grabbed the poetry sheet.
But I held it down.
Something near the bottom had caught my attention.
An unusual sequence of Russian words.
I recognized it immediately.
Not from a book.
From a lullaby my father used to sing.
The willow bends where the northern stars disappear.
My father had invented those words.
They weren't Pushkin.
They weren't Lermontov.
They were his.
I looked up sharply.
"Who wrote this?"
The scarred man froze.
"Give it back."
I shook my head.
"Who wrote the last verse?"
Adrien's eyes narrowed.
"Natalya?"
My voice trembled.
"These aren't ordinary coded poems."
I looked at the Russian.
"They contain something personal."
The man reached for the page.
Adrien caught his wrist.
"Sit down."
For a moment, I thought someone would draw a weapon.
Then the scarred man slowly leaned back.
His smile had disappeared.
I examined the remaining marks.
The final verse contained a date.
November seventeenth.
The date my father disappeared.
And beneath it, hidden among the Russian words, was a name.
Not Henderson.
Not Moretti.
Mine.
NATALYA PETROV.
Then I found the final sentence.
I translated it aloud.
"The forty-seventh poem belongs to the daughter."
Adrien looked at me.
"What does that mean?"
Before I could answer, the scarred Russian whispered something that made my blood turn cold.
May you like
"Your father didn't leave you a grave, Natalya."
"He left you the key to destroying everyone at this table."
