Chapter 9 - THE MAN WHO HAD BEEN WATCHING FOR A YEAR
Tomas hadn't started following me because of Viktor.
He had been waiting for me long before table nine.
That changed everything.
Viktor's people searched public records and discovered Tomas had quietly paid an investigator to monitor my mother after she contacted Viktor.
Then my mother died.
The surveillance shifted to me.
“Did Tomas hurt her?”
The question came out before I wanted it to.
Viktor's expression stayed careful.
“We don't know.”
“She had cancer.”
“Yes.”
“So don't turn this into something it wasn't.”
“I won't.”
That mattered.
He didn't feed my fear.
He didn't make a dramatic accusation without evidence.
He simply opened another file.
Tomas had visited my mother's hospital twice.
Both visits were recorded in visitor logs.
I had never known.
“Why?”
“We need to ask him.”
“We don't know where he is.”
Viktor looked toward his security chief.
Apparently, that had changed.
Tomas's car had been found near LaGuardia.
Empty.
His phone remained inside.
It looked like he had fled.
But Viktor didn't believe it.
“Men like Tomas don't disappear without taking leverage.”
“What leverage?”
He looked at me.
I understood.
Me.
Viktor moved me that night to a secured townhouse.
I hated it.
Not because it was luxurious.
Because there were guards outside every door.
I had spent years caring for my mother, working double shifts, negotiating bills, and solving problems alone.
Being protected felt suspiciously like losing control.
Around midnight, Viktor found me in the kitchen eating cereal from an expensive porcelain bowl.
“You have a chef,” I told him.
“You requested cereal.”
“I wasn't requesting it.”
“Then I misunderstood your relationship with the cereal.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
For one minute, the fear disappeared.
Then I noticed blood on his cuff.
“Are you hurt?”
“Not mine.”
He saw my expression.
“Nothing serious happened.”
“That sentence is not comforting.”
He sat across from me.
Then he did something unexpected.
He apologized.
“For bringing this into your life.”
“You didn't. Grandma did.”
“She appears to have been extremely efficient.”
I smiled.
Then the security alarm sounded.
Every guard moved at once.
A package had been left outside.
No return address.
Inside was my mother's missing necklace.
May you like
And a note.
ASK VIKTOR WHAT HIS FATHER DID TO ILONA.
