Chapter 5 - THE MOTHER WHO HAD ANOTHER NAME
Elena had buried Marina Petrov in Providence.
She remembered the rain.
The closed casket.
The priest mispronouncing her surname.
The small funeral because Marina had few friends in America.
Cancer, Elena had been told.
Fast.
Aggressive.
Unfair.
Now a photograph showed her alive less than two years before Elena’s supposed funeral.
No.
The dates were wrong.
Elena looked closer.
“This photograph is fourteen years old.”
Ronan checked the metadata.
“Yes.”
Relief arrived too quickly.
Then left.
Fourteen years ago Elena had been twenty.
Damien had not met her yet.
But Viktor Vasic had known her mother.
“Why?” Elena whispered.
Gabrielle looked uncomfortable.
“You need to ask Ronan.”
Everyone turned.
Ronan’s face hardened.
“No.”
Damien stood.
“What do you know?”
Ronan said nothing.
Elena’s voice became cold.
“If you tell me one more time that you were protecting me, I may throw something.”
Ronan sighed.
“Marina Petrov wasn’t your mother’s legal name.”
Elena felt the floor shift.
“What was it?”
“Marina Kovac.”
Damien stopped.
The surname meant something to him.
“What?” Elena asked.
He looked toward her.
“Kovac ran dock unions in Boston in the nineties.”
Ronan nodded.
“Your maternal grandfather was Anton Kovac.”
Elena had never heard the name.
“My grandfather was a mechanic in Belgrade.”
“No.”
“Then who was Anton Kovac?”
Ronan sat down.
“A port labor organizer who became an intermediary between shipping families, unions, and organized crime.”
Elena stared.
“My mother lied about our entire family?”
“She was trying to separate you from it.”
“Did Viktor know her?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“They grew up in the same neighborhood after immigrating.”
Damien looked stunned.
“My father knew Elena’s mother before either of us were born?”
“Yes.”
“How well?”
Ronan hesitated.
Elena’s stomach tightened.
“How well?”
“Very.”
That answer had too many meanings.
Gabrielle stepped in.
“Don’t make her guess.”
Ronan looked at Elena.
“Viktor and Marina were engaged.”
The room went silent.
Elena laughed.
Once.
Because nothing else made sense.
“My mother was engaged to my husband’s father?”
“Before Viktor married Damien’s mother.”
Damien sat down.
“Jesus.”
Elena pressed one hand to her forehead.
The baby kicked.
“Why did they break up?”
“Anton Kovac.”
“My grandfather?”
“He wanted Marina married into another family.”
“Which family?”
Ronan’s face changed.
“The Vasics’ rivals.”
Gabrielle whispered:
“The Radics.”
Elena knew the name.
Everyone in Boston shipping knew it.
Radic Atlantic Freight.
Collapsed after a federal racketeering case twenty-five years earlier.
“Who was Marina supposed to marry?”
“Petar Radic.”
Elena looked at Damien.
He looked equally lost.
“Did she?”
Ronan shook his head.
“She ran.”
“With my father?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“With someone else.”
Elena felt her lungs tighten.
“Who?”
Ronan looked down.
“Your father.”
“At least tell me his real name.”
“Marko Petrov.”
That part was true.
“He worked docks. He wanted nothing to do with the families.”
Elena breathed again.
Something normal.
Almost.
“What does this have to do with Viktor’s death?”
Ronan pulled out an old file.
“Years later, Viktor and Marina reconnected.”
“Romantically?”
“No.”
“Do you know?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Ronan looked at Damien.
“Because I was there.”
Damien frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“I worked security for Viktor before I worked for you.”
Elena had known that.
She hadn’t known this.
“Marina came to Viktor because Stefan was asking questions about Anton Kovac’s old accounts.”
“Why?”
“Because the Black Ledger wasn’t Viktor’s.”
Everyone froze.
Gabrielle leaned forward.
“What?”
Ronan looked at Elena.
“The original ledger belonged to Anton Kovac.”
Her grandfather.
“He documented payoffs between dock unions, shipping companies, city officials, and criminal crews.”
“Then Viktor had it.”
“He inherited a copy.”
“How?”
“From Marina.”
Elena’s heart pounded.
“My mother gave it to him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To keep it away from Stefan.”
Elena stood.
“Why would Stefan care about my grandfather’s ledger?”
Ronan looked at her stomach.
Then away.
Elena saw it.
“No.”
Damien noticed too.
“What are you not saying?”
Ronan took a long breath.
“When Stefan discovered Marina had kept another copy, he tried to find her.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
Elena’s blood went cold.
The year her mother died.
“How?”
Ronan’s voice lowered.
“By using her daughter.”
Elena’s hands went numb.
“What did he do to me?”
“Nothing.”
“Then what?”
“He arranged for you to meet Damien.”
Silence.
Damien stood.
“No.”
Ronan nodded slowly.
“Elena and Damien meeting at the Port Foundation fundraiser was not accidental.”
Elena stared at her husband.
Their first meeting.
The spilled wine.
The argument about redevelopment.
The dinner afterward.
The life that followed.
All of it suddenly had someone else’s fingerprints on the beginning.
“Who arranged it?” she whispered.
Ronan answered.
“Stefan.”
Then Elena’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
A man’s voice said:
“Hello, little Elena.”
Her blood froze.
She had never heard that voice.
But Damien knew it.
His face went white.
May you like
Stefan continued:
“Ask your husband why he never told you who introduced us.”
