Chapter 4 - THE NIGHT THOMAS DIED
Roman Belov did not answer his phone.
That was the first problem.
The second was that his apartment was empty.
No clothing in closets.
No medication.
No passport.
No laptop.
Not fled that morning.
Prepared.
Detective Chen said that mattered.
Alexei said nothing.
He had been discharged to a private medical floor under guard, doctors furious that anyone wanted to discuss business while his airway was still swollen.
He ignored them until Sophie sent him a drawing.
A stick figure in a hospital bed.
A pink stethoscope.
A large blue scribble labeled BAD MOUTH.
At the bottom:
DON’T EAT SHRIMPS.
Alexei laughed so hard he coughed.
Then asked Dmitri to frame it.
I heard that from a nurse.
I did not go see him.
Not yet.
I had moved Sophie and me into a temporary apartment arranged through the police victim-services network and paid for by my own emergency savings until Alexei’s lawyers insisted his company cover reasonable relocation costs.
I refused at first.
Then my attorney, Maria Shaw, said:
“You are allowing pride to make housing decisions while someone has threatened your four-year-old.”
I hated her immediately.
Which meant she was probably good.
I accepted direct reimbursement handled through counsel.
Not a Petrov safe house.
Not his guards inside.
Police patrols.
Alarm.
Temporary protection.
Choice.
That mattered.
---
The old Thomas Rowan case reopened formally.
The plate sequence from the dashcam led to a fleet title once assigned to Dmitri.
Records showed transfer to a shell leasing company eight weeks before Thomas died.
That company’s manager:
Roman Belov.
Not proof Roman drove.
Not proof Roman ordered anything.
But enough for warrants.
The SUV itself had been destroyed in a warehouse fire eighteen months later.
Of course.
Insurance records called it electrical.
Maybe.
No need to turn every fire into conspiracy before evidence.
Detective Chen kept saying that.
I was learning to appreciate her refusal to give me the villain I already wanted.
Then one old Petrov mechanic came forward.
Luis Ortega.
He remembered the SUV.
Not because of Thomas.
Because Roman’s driver brought it in the morning after the crash with damage to the front passenger corner.
The work order disappeared later.
Luis kept a photograph because he had been fighting with management over unpaid overtime and documented every vehicle assignment.
Petty labor dispute.
Preserved evidence.
History is sometimes saved by people being irritated.
The image showed:
Cracked headlight.
Scraped bumper.
Dark red transfer.
Thomas’s car had been maroon.
Again.
Not proof alone.
Enough.
Luis identified the driver as Anton Rykov, Roman’s longtime security contractor.
Anton had died two years ago from pancreatic cancer.
No interrogation coming.
But his bank records still existed.
A deposit of $75,000 arrived two days after Thomas died.
From:
BRIDGE NORTH CONSULTING.
Owner:
Roman Belov.
My stomach turned.
Maria said:
“Payment is not confession.”
“I know.”
I hated knowing.
But facts must survive anger.
---
Then police found Roman’s medical appointment.
Not in his apartment.
In the office of Dr. Ilya Sokolov.
Alexei’s personal physician.
Appointment:
Two days before Alexei collapsed.
Purpose:
“Family consultation.”
Sokolov initially said it concerned Roman’s blood pressure.
Records did not support that.
Under questioning, he changed his story.
Roman asked about Alexei’s allergy.
Specifically:
How fast anaphylaxis could become fatal.
Whether a backup injector was always effective.
Whether shellfish proteins remained dangerous when mixed into processed foods.
My stomach went cold.
Chen did not share procedural detail beyond what was relevant.
Good.
Sokolov claimed he thought Roman was asking because Alexei had recently complained about inconsistent emergency kits.
That explanation sounded ridiculous.
Maybe it was.
Then investigators found a message on Sokolov’s phone.
ROMAN:
Need trainer identical to A’s current brand. For demonstration.
SOKOLOV:
Why?
ROMAN:
Security drill.
Dr. Sokolov obtained a trainer.
He gave it to Roman.
He insisted he did not know it would replace Alexei’s medication.
That was now part of the investigation.
Sokolov’s license was suspended pending review.
Alexei fired him immediately.
No private punishment.
Good.
I noticed.
Maybe because I was watching for whether Alexei would call men instead of lawyers.
He did not.
---
The kitchen evidence became clearer.
Sergei Levin, the security officer who entered during the camera outage, admitted Roman told him to reset the camera hub after an “encryption fault.”
He did.
He did not know the outage would coincide with the tea.
Nina Borodin, the cook, said Nadine Kessler had brought a new honey jar from pantry storage.
Nadine said Roman had delivered a gift basket the previous evening containing “farm honey.”
She assumed it was from one of Alexei’s business partners.
The jar was placed in kitchen.
No one remembered seeing Roman enter the kitchen that day.
Then exterior camera showed a catering van arriving at 1:48.
It belonged to a company Roman’s foundation used.
A delivery worker carried two boxes inside.
One held flowers.
The other never appeared in inventory.
The worker had used false identification.
More planning.
Still no Roman.
His phone went dark six hours before Alexei collapsed.
Flight records showed no international travel under his name.
Cars at his property gone.
He was hiding.
Dmitri said:
“Roman has places nobody knows.”
Alexei, by video from hospital, replied:
“You know some.”
Dmitri’s face hardened.
“I knew old places.”
“Then give them.”
“All of them?”
Alexei looked at him.
“All.”
That single word changed something.
Dmitri gave police addresses used historically by Petrov associates:
A hunting cabin in Wisconsin.
A warehouse office near Joliet.
An apartment above a closed restaurant.
A farm owned through a cousin.
Harper? No. Wrong story. I corrected myself. Too many tales about dangerous families have the same rooms.
This one was mine.
Emily Rowan.
Sophie’s mother.
Thomas’s widow.
I watched Alexei hand over pieces of his own system and understood he was not only helping find Roman.
He was exposing himself.
That did not absolve him.
But it cost him.
Costs are informative.
---
The deepest wound came from Thomas’s cloud archive.
A folder called:
EMILY — OPEN IF NEEDED.
Inside was one audio recording I had never heard.
Date:
Four days before he died.
Thomas:
“Em, I think Petrov himself might know.”
I stopped breathing.
He continued.
“I met him today.”
Alexei looked at the floor when Chen played it.
Thomas said:
“He thanked me for pulling him out of the fire. I told him about the video without giving details.”
My heart pounded.
“He told me to forget it.”
I turned toward Alexei.
His face was white.
Thomas continued:
“He said, ‘You have a daughter. Be a father.’”
The room went still.
I stood.
Alexei said:
“Emily—”
“No.”
My voice shook.
Thomas continued:
“I think he meant warning.”
He laughed nervously.
“Maybe threat. Hard to tell with men who own warehouses and armed SUVs.”
My eyes filled.
Then:
“I told him if someone killed Varga, being a father is why I can’t pretend I didn’t see it.”
That was Thomas.
Stubborn.
Kind.
Infuriating.
The recording ended.
I looked at Alexei.
“You told him to forget it.”
“Yes.”
“You knew he had evidence.”
“I knew he had seen something.”
“You knew Roman might be involved.”
“I suspected.”
“And your advice was to be a father.”
Alexei’s voice broke.
“I thought I was saving him.”
“By telling him to shut up.”
“Yes.”
The word landed.
I wanted him to defend himself.
Then I could hate the defense.
He did not.
He said:
“I was wrong.”
My anger rose anyway.
“Thomas went home and made a recording because he could not tell if you threatened him.”
Alexei closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“No, you know now.”
Silence.
I continued.
“You stood in front of a paramedic who saved your life and used his daughter to make silence sound responsible.”
Alexei’s eyes filled.
Dmitri looked away.
I did not.
“He died four days later.”
“I know.”
“Did you order anyone to watch him?”
“Yes.”
My stomach turned.
“Who?”
“Dmitri.”
I looked at him.
Dmitri’s face went gray.
Alexei continued.
“I told Dmitri to make sure Roman’s people stayed away.”
Dmitri said:
“I assigned two men.”
“Did they?”
His jaw tightened.
“They lost Thomas after his shift the night he died.”
I stared.
“How?”
“One car had a tire slashed. The other was diverted by a false report that someone was following Sarah—”
He stopped.
Wrong name.
He corrected immediately.
“Following you.”
My skin went cold.
“What?”
Dmitri looked ashamed.
“A caller reported a man outside your apartment. My people went there.”
I remembered.
That night.
Thomas had texted:
Stay inside. I’ll explain later.
I looked through blinds and saw no one.
The report was fake.
Roman created a distraction.
Thomas was left alone.
“Did you tell police?”
“Not then.”
“Why?”
“Because our surveillance was illegal.”
There.
Again.
Private protection creating silence.
I laughed bitterly.
“You were protecting us so secretly that when it failed, nobody could investigate it.”
Dmitri nodded.
“Yes.”
No defense.
The pattern became unbearable.
Thomas hid evidence to protect us.
Alexei hid suspicion to protect his organization.
Dmitri hid surveillance to protect us.
I had simplified Thomas’s death for Sophie to protect her.
Protection everywhere.
Truth nowhere.
Then Chen’s phone buzzed.
She read.
Her face changed.
“What?”
“We found Roman.”
My heart stopped.
“Where?”
“Not Roman himself.”
She turned the phone.
A traffic-camera image.
Roman’s car entering a private rehabilitation facility outside Lake Geneva.
Date:
That morning.
Registered patient under another name.
Who was he visiting?
Chen said:
“Anton Rykov’s widow.”
The dead driver’s wife.
Roman had not gone there to hide.
May you like
He had gone to close another old door.
And for the first time, police were ahead of him.
