Chapter 7 - The Woman in Booth NineWe ran.
Mikhail reached the diner before everyone else, his coat flying behind him like a black flag.
The scream had come from Nancy, my overnight waitress, who had arrived late because of the flooded bus route. She stood near booth nine, both hands over her mouth.
A woman sat there.
Soaked.
Shaking.
Alive.
For a moment, I thought it was Ana, back from the dead.
But this woman was younger, with blood at her hairline and a bruise blooming across her cheek.
She looked at Mikhail and tried to stand.
One of his men lifted his weapon.
“Don’t,” I snapped.
The woman collapsed back into the booth.
“Mikhail,” she whispered. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
His face went white with rage.
Not shock.
Recognition.
“Lena.”
Misha came down behind me and froze.
“Aunt Lena?”
The woman began crying.
Mikhail stepped toward her. “You have ten seconds to tell me why you are in this diner.”
Lena pressed a trembling hand to her ribs. “Because your brother knows.”
“Knows what?”
She looked at Misha.
Then at me.
Then back at Mikhail.
“That Anya left proof.”
At his wife’s name, the entire diner seemed to tilt.
Mikhail’s dead wife was not just memory here. She was the locked room everyone feared opening.
“My wife left nothing,” he said.
Lena shook her head. “She left the music box.”
The key in Mikhail’s hand seemed suddenly heavier.
“And you knew?”
“I found out tonight,” Lena said. “After Roman called Irina. They were celebrating too soon.”
Mikhail’s expression did not change, but every guard in the diner subtly repositioned.
Roman.
A brother.
Irina.
A sister-in-law.
Family.
Blood eating blood.
“What proof?” I asked.
Mikhail glanced at me, warning me not to step deeper.
I ignored him.
Lena looked grateful and terrified. “Proof that Anya’s accident wasn’t an accident. Proof that the same people who killed her are now trying to take Misha.”
Misha made a tiny sound.
Mikhail turned at once, but the damage was already done.
His son had heard everything.
“You told me Mama’s car slipped,” Misha whispered.
Mikhail closed his eyes.
“I thought it did.”
“No,” Lena sobbed. “You were meant to think that. Everyone was.”
The diner door rattled in the wind.
Locked.
Still, all of us turned.
A black sedan idled across the street, headlights off.
Not one of Mikhail’s SUVs.
Lena saw it and started shaking harder.
“They followed me.”
Mikhail looked to his men.
“Take my son upstairs.”
“No!” Misha screamed.
But this time Mikhail’s voice cut like steel.
“Now.”
As a guard lifted the boy, Misha reached for me.
Not his father.
May you like
Me.
And the look on Mikhail’s face told me that hurt him more than any bullet could.
