Chapter 5 - Lessons in Survival
Damian taught me how to identify a tail before breakfast.
He did not begin with guns.
That surprised me.
He began with doors.
“Whenever you enter a room, know two ways out.”
We stood inside an empty conference room beneath the Volkov headquarters in Midtown.
Glass walls.
Long table.
No windows that opened.
I pointed to the main door.
“And?”
“The service door.”
“Good.”
“What if that’s locked?”
“Then I break the glass.”
“With what?”
I picked up a steel chair.
His eyebrow lifted.
“That works.”
Next came cars.
Then elevators.
Then crowds.
Then phones.
“Never answer questions from unknown callers that reveal location.”
“I know that.”
“You told Cassandra’s caller you were home.”
I frowned.
“I said nothing.”
“You said, ‘Who is this?’”
“That doesn’t reveal location.”
“The acoustics did.”
I stared at him.
“You could tell?”
“Yes.”
“You’re irritating.”
“Yes.”
The lesson continued.
He taught me to notice parked vehicles with running engines.
People whose clothes didn’t match the weather.
Shoes.
Hands.
Reflections in windows.
The direction feet pointed even when faces looked elsewhere.
By noon, I had learned something important.
Damian Volkov did not survive because he was fearless.
He survived because he assumed everything mattered.
“You notice too much.”
I said.
He handed me a bottle of water.
“You noticed Cassandra’s hand.”
“That was obvious.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“Two hundred people missed it.”
“They chose to.”
“Exactly.”
That stayed with me.
At one, Elena summoned us upstairs.
“I have news.”
Damian looked suspicious.
“That sentence never improves my day.”
“I remember something.”
She handed me an old photograph.
It showed Elena.
A younger Damian.
A man I assumed was his father.
And another couple.
My parents.
I stopped breathing.
My father stood beside Damian’s father.
My mother beside Elena.
The picture had been taken at some kind of community dinner.
“What is this?”
Elena’s voice softened.
“Your father saved my husband’s life.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Seventeen years ago.”
“A freight elevator malfunctioned at one of our buildings.”
“Gabriel was part of the repair team.”
“He realized the brake system had been tampered with.”
“Tampered?”
Damian leaned forward.
“You never told me that.”
“I didn’t know until afterward.”
Elena continued.
“Your father stopped the elevator before it dropped.”
“Your father and mine became friendly afterward.”
Damian looked at the photograph.
“My father knew Gabriel Reyes.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you recognize Sofia?”
“I met Gabriel twice.”
“And Rosa once.”
“Fifteen years changes faces.”
She touched the edge of the picture.
“And grief changes memory.”
I sat down.
“So my father was connected to your family before his death.”
“Yes.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
“If Gabriel discovered sabotage at a Volkov property and Rosa discovered suspicious transfers at Vale Meridian…”
I completed the thought.
“They may have been looking at the same thing.”
The room became quiet.
Elena whispered, “Yes.”
Damian immediately called his investigation team.
Records from seventeen years ago were ordered.
Maintenance logs.
Insurance reports.
Personnel files.
Financial correspondence.
My father’s death had opened a door.
Now everything behind it was moving.
At four-thirty, we received another message about Richard.
A location.
Abandoned warehouse in Red Hook.
One hour.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT HIM BREATHING.
I read it.
Then looked at Damian.
“No.”
He said.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You were about to.”
“It says me.”
“It says alone.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“What if they kill him?”
“What if they kill you?”
“That isn’t an argument.”
“It is to me.”
Something in his voice made the room still.
Elena looked away.
I did not.
“To you?”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He did not answer.
That was an answer too.
But there was no time for it.
We went to Red Hook.
Not alone.
And not stupidly.
Alvarez coordinated with NYPD.
Damian’s security entered from the river side.
I remained in an armored SUV three blocks away.
I hated every second.
At 5:42, shots were reported.
At 5:46, one of Damian’s men was injured.
At 5:51, police entered.
At 5:55, Damian stopped answering his phone.
That was when I got out of the SUV.
The driver caught my arm.
“Ms. Reyes.”
“Let go.”
“Mr. Volkov said—”
“I don’t care.”
I crossed the street.
Sirens filled the air.
Police vehicles blocked the warehouse entrance.
I saw Alvarez.
“Where is Damian?”
He swore when he saw me.
“You were supposed to stay in the car.”
“So is he alive?”
“Yes.”
I exhaled.
“Richard?”
Alvarez’s face changed.
That answer was enough.
They found Richard in a back office.
Alive.
Barely.
He had been beaten.
Two ribs broken.
One hand fractured.
But he was conscious.
An ambulance took him to Bellevue.
Three attackers escaped through a tunnel leading toward the water.
One was arrested.
The arrested man carried a prepaid phone.
On it were messages from a number connected to Vale Meridian’s corporate security division.
Not Cassandra.
Someone higher.
Victor.
Richard finally spoke the following morning.
Damian arranged for me to listen from behind glass.
Alvarez sat beside Richard’s hospital bed.
“Why did you meet Cassandra Vale?”
“She paid me.”
“For what?”
“Information about Sofia.”
My stomach clenched.
“How long?”
“Three months.”
Three months.
Before the gala.
Before Elena.
Before everything.
“What information?”
“Shifts.”
“Address.”
“Family.”
“Her mother.”
“Why Sofia?”
Richard began crying.
“I don’t know.”
“They gave me ten thousand dollars.”
“Then twenty.”
“They said she was connected to an old employee.”
“Rosa Reyes?”
“Yes.”
“Did Cassandra tell you why?”
“No.”
“Victor?”
Richard looked toward the door.
Fear consumed his face.
“He’ll kill me.”
“Victor Vale?”
“He kills problems.”
The words entered the room like smoke.
Richard continued.
“They wanted to know whether Rosa had kept anything.”
“Anything what?”
“Records.”
“Documents.”
“Proof.”
My heart slammed.
My mother.
The old apartment.
The cut mattress.
The emptied cabinets.
They had not been threatening us.
They had been searching.
Alvarez leaned closer.
“What proof?”
Richard shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“They thought Sofia might have it.”
Behind the glass, Damian looked at me.
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Think.”
“I am thinking.”
Then I remembered my father’s toolbox.
The one thing he left me.
Rusty red metal.
Heavy.
Stored in the back of our apartment closet for fifteen years.
I had never opened the bottom compartment because the latch was jammed.
My mouth went dry.
“Damian.”
He saw it in my face.
“What?”
“The toolbox.”
We returned to the apartment with police.
The toolbox was gone.
Everything else remained destroyed.
But the toolbox was gone.
Alvarez searched the closet.
The floor.
The building hallway.
Nothing.
I pressed both hands against my forehead.
“I should have opened it.”
“You had no reason.”
Damian said.
“What if the proof was inside?”
“Then whoever searched knew enough to take it.”
“Which means they have it.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
He crouched beside the closet.
Then reached into the wall behind it.
His fingers touched something.
He pulled out a tiny brass key.
Taped behind the baseboard.
I stared.
“That wasn’t there.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
He handed it to me.
The key was old.
A number had been engraved into one side.
319.
Alvarez took a photograph.
“Bank box?”
“Locker?”
Damian asked.
Marco, standing in the doorway, suddenly spoke.
“Train station.”
We turned.
“What?”
He pointed at the key.
“Dad used to take me to Grand Central.”
“He said he had a magic box there.”
I stared at him.
“You remember Dad?”
“Barely.”
“I remember the ceiling.”
“The stars.”
“And a wall of boxes.”
Damian was already moving.
Grand Central’s old storage systems had been removed years ago.
But after three hours of searching property records and archived leasing systems, Damian’s people found something.
Locker 319 had existed in a privately operated luggage storage facility beneath a nearby building.
The company shut down fourteen years ago.
Unclaimed contents were transferred to a bonded storage warehouse in New Jersey.
Most were destroyed.
Some were auctioned.
One box had been held because annual storage fees continued to be paid anonymously.
Locker 319.
My father’s.
Someone had been paying to preserve it for fifteen years.
The payment was due every April.
The anonymous payment had arrived six months earlier.
In cash.
From Manhattan.
We drove to New Jersey the next morning.
The storage manager required identification.
Legal paperwork.
And the key.
The lock opened.
Inside was one metal case.
No money.
No jewelry.
No weapon.
Documents.
Hundreds of pages.
Account numbers.
Wire transfers.
Company names.
Photographs.
And a small cassette recorder.
My father’s handwriting covered the first page.
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, ROSA WAS RIGHT.
I stopped.
My knees weakened.
Damian caught my elbow.
I did not pull away.
Below that sentence, my father had written another.
THE VALES ARE STEALING FROM THE VOLKOVS, BUT MONEY ISN’T THE WORST PART.
I looked at Damian.
His face had gone colorless.
We turned the page.
One name appeared again and again.
Mikhail Volkov.
Damian’s father.
May you like
Beside it, my father had written two words.
HE KNOWS.
