Chapter 4 #2
Kolya sits near the magazine rack pretending to read an article about the best day hikes.
Lean where Albert is massive, his angular features are framed by dark hair tucked under a cap.
He has eyes the color of steel with hints of green that miss nothing.
He used to burn rubber on Los Angeles freeways, a street racer who thought speed would outrun debt until the Bratva showed him otherwise.
Now he’s mine. He drives better than anyone I’ve ever seen and has pulled us out of more than one trap with a wheel in one hand and a gun in the other.
Restless, sarcastic, and always armed, Kolya is the opposite of Albert’s silence, but their loyalty is the same.
Neither Albert nor Kolya glances at me.
The man orders a latte and tries to draw Sage into a conversation that wants to be longer than coffee requires.
He smiles. He shows teeth. He makes a comment about mountain vistas and the sort of property that looks better once you own it.
Her answers remain polite and indistinct.
She nods once, twice, and slides the drink across the counter with the firm finality of a woman who can close a door without ever touching a handle.
“Enjoy your day,” she tells him.
He takes the hint and pivots without protest. His eyes lift to the reflection in the window first, then he turns his head just enough to be certain he has read the room correctly. He leaves quickly. Kolya tosses a look at Albert and follows a heartbeat later.
I feel Vega press his side to my boots. He breathes out through his nose and rests his chin on my shoe. The need to put a hand on him is ridiculous and immediate. I do it anyway. He settles. So do I, but only on the surface.
I’m here because I want to look at her. I’m here because I don’t believe in coincidence.
Both things can be true. The man from yesterday may be running errands for a rival.
Or maybe he’s in town to keep an eye on ski lots for investors with no idea what monsters truly own land in places like this.
Perhaps he’s a test to measure my patience.
I treat him as all three until proof insists on a narrower definition.
Sage’s last name lives under my tongue like poison.
Bellamy. It carries old business and older grudges.
The last time I heard that name, my father was still standing on two good legs, and enemies pretended to be friends.
Whether it is coincidence or design, I haven’t decided, but in the Bratva, there are no harmless names, and Bellamy already tastes too familiar to dismiss.
Misha is digging. He knows where to look and who to bother.
I want facts, not rumors. Until I have them, I will tolerate uncertainty and treat it like an adversary sitting across a table, smiling as if we share the same meal.
My phone hums once against the table, a quiet summons I don’t ignore. I glance at the screen. It’s Misha. Lifting it with unhurried ease, I press it to my ear. “Da?”
“I have threads,” he says. His voice carries the same flat calm whether he’s discussing a menu or a murder. “Not a rope yet.”
“Give me the info,” I demand.
“Sage Bellamy inherited the business three years ago. The mother, Evelyn, died after a long illness. Medical bills on the sister stack high. No red flags in the books, and if there are any, they are tucked well. The father, Thomas, disappeared when Sage was small and is listed dead when she was nine. The record is neat where it should be messy and messy where it should be neat.”
I watch her laugh at something the young employee says.
The sound is quick and unguarded, and I feel it along my ribs like a touch applied without permission.
I close my eyes for a fraction, and it’s enough to pull a face from a part of my mind that is kept closed.
My mother, in a winter garden with dark hair pinned at her nape, breath turning to mist, and green eyes that never once looked away when my father pushed a room into silence.
“Continue,” I instruct.
“Old names circle close to the family,” he adds. “Nothing written down in neat ink, but enough proximity to stir gossip in its time. The town keeps tidy records and untidy memories. A few of the old men at the bar talk as if every bloodline in Aspen Ridge crosses another you’d rather it didn’t.”
“Bellamy,” I murmur.
“The surname moves through our history,” Misha replies. “I’m not declaring anything. I’m underlining a word and asking you to look at it.”
“Keep digging.”
“I already started,” he confirms, and I can hear the brief scrape of a chair on his end, and the sound of a door closing.
“The man Kolya is tailing. He just followed him south past the river. The car is clean. Out-of-state plates registered to a rental group that plays nice with two different fronts. We’ll know more this afternoon. ”
“Good.” I pause. “And her?”
“Yes,” he says. “You want Sage Bellamy’s file to grow teeth. It will, or it won’t, and I will tell you either way.”
I end the call and let the quiet of the café return. Vega lifts his head and studies my face with eyes that shouldn’t be capable of comprehension but often look like they hold it anyway. I scratch behind his ear, and he relaxes again, satisfied for now.
A family comes in and brings the cold air with them.
The children press their faces to the pastry glass and leave fingerprints like smudged constellations.
The older woman in the corner changes pens and moves from blue to black ink.
The room returns to its steady rhythm, cups lifted and set down, laughter low, and spoons clinking.
I take one sip of the Americano. It’s very good, but it doesn’t soothe the edge inside me that needs sanding. I set the cup down and watch her again.
When the lunch wave softens, I stand. The chair legs scrape, and conversations pull inward for a moment. It happens wherever I go. I approach the counter, and she refuses to retreat.
“You didn’t drink the coffee you ordered,” she comments. “You only sat with it and stared at me until it got cold.”
“I drink when I want to,” I answer.
“Maybe order later then,” she replies. “It would be a shame to waste Alfio’s finest roast just to make a point.”
“You think I am here to make a point.”
“I think you’re here to make many,” she says. “I haven’t decided yet which one annoys me most.”
“Make a list,” I tell her. “We can rank them.”
Her lips curve despite the effort she makes to keep an annoyed appearance. It’s not victory, only the relief of seeing the storm for what it is. She glances at Vega.
“He likes you.”
“He likes pastries,” she answers, but her tone softens when her fingers slide along the top of his head. “And attention.”
“He has both,” I tell her. “Today.”
“Is that a threat?”
“An observation,” I note, and allow a pause, then give her the part she earned last night when she stood in my way and refused to pretend fear was the only language available. “You could decide it is a kindness if it helps you breathe.”
“I breathe fine,” she huffs, although her throat betrays one small swallow. “You make me angry, that’s all.”
“It’s mutual,” I reply flatly.
She tilts her head as if I have surprised her. The edge in her gaze loosens, then returns. She slides a towel across the counter and wipes a ring of moisture I can’t see from where I stand. Busy hands speak truths mouths are not ready to give away.
“You aren’t from here,” she states. “I can tell by the suit and your posture. Plus, your dog behaves like he’s in the military.”
“You are very observant,” I answer.
“I need to be,” she says. “This place doesn’t run itself.”
“Nothing worth keeping ever does,” I confess, and surprise myself with the honesty of it.
She studies me for a second that feels longer than it is. The rain drums and the room breathes around us.
“Is there anything else you want besides an Americano you won’t finish?” she asks at last.
“I want a list of the men who have spoken to you this week and why they thought they should,” I say harshly, and the words are too blunt and too true.
She laughs once, but not with delight. “You want what?”
“I saw one yesterday. I saw one an hour ago,” I remark, my voice quiet enough that it doesn’t travel and hard enough that it doesn’t invite argument. “They are not locals.”
“Tourists talk to baristas,” she replies sarcastically.
“Not like that,” I answer. “Not with that purpose behind their teeth.”
“What purpose do you imagine?” she asks, her hands landing on her hips.
“I don’t imagine,” I tell her. “I identify.”
“And what have you identified about me, exactly?”
“That you are in the center of something you do not see yet. And that you think you can carry it until it stops moving.”
Her chin lifts. “I always have.”
“Knowing how to carry doesn’t protect you from what chooses to climb on you.”
Silence takes one breath between us. She doesn’t look away, and neither do I.
“Stop trying to manage me,” she snaps, her arms folding as if to shield herself. “You’re a stranger who thinks he owns the room.”
“I own many things,” I say. “The room is not one of them. Not today.”
“Then drink your coffee and let me run my business.”
I don’t smile. “We’ll revisit that.” I slide a hundred-dollar bill onto the counter, the movement unhurried, precise. Her eyes widen as I turn away, the air between us charged, the bill left behind like a quiet reminder that I don’t wait for change.
I return to my corner. Vega hesitates in the aisle and looks back, stubborn animal that he is, but he follows when I call his name. The Americano tastes better on the second sip, but I still don’t finish it.
The rain deepens as the afternoon leans toward evening.
The door opens and closes, allowing cold to creep along the floor.
When the rush dips again, Albert slips out.
Kolya returns, texts me three details that will turn into ten by nightfall and takes another seat by the window without ever acknowledging me.
My phone vibrates once more. Misha again.
“Tell me you have more than threads,” I demand.
“Threads that begin to braid,” he replies.
“An old contact remembers a contractor who moved money for men who liked the illusion of clean hands. The contractor’s name appears on a few old corporate records from the nineties.
Nothing overtly criminal but the companies tie back to Barinov fronts.
The contractor had a name, Thomas Bellamy.
Your girl’s family lived in our circle, whether they knew the edges of it or not. ”
“Do not call her my girl,” I grit out, and the warning surprises both of us.
“Noted,” he says dryly. “The point remains.”
“Point accepted,” I reply. “No definite conclusions. Proximity only.”
“For now,” he states, and I can hear him light a cigarette even though he promised to quit.
“One more thing. A couple of old timers at the bar remember her father as a man who minded his own business until he stopped showing up at all. Farmers have better memories than bookkeepers. I will press again tonight and see what else turns up.”
“Do it,” I say. “Carefully.”
“I am always careful,” he mutters, and ends the call.
Kolya slips out before I do, vanishing into the rain.
I stand, and Vega rises with me, his body a constant that anchors the rest of the chaos that lives in my world.
Misha’s words still sit in my mouth like ash, the neat little inventory of names and invoices that do not line up the way honest lives should.
Threads are becoming braided. A contractor’s name stamped next to Bellamy on a ledger that should have been clean.
I walk to the door with Vega at my side.
I don’t leave because I want to stay and watch her, even if that’s closer to the truth than I’d like to admit.
I leave because information is an enemy that must be chased down.
If her family stands where Misha suggests, then every polite smile, every stiff-lipped answer she gives will be a map I intend to read until the truth shows its shape.
Outside, the rain smells like iron and pine.
Vega pads in front of me and then back, an arc of loyalty that keeps me centered.
I don’t turn back to look through the café window.
What I hold are only threads, thin ties linking Sage to my world.
But I know what to do with threads. I pull them tight until they braid into chains.