30. Roman
ROMAN
The Volkonsky mansion feels different now.
When I was a boy, this was home—before my mother died, before my father moved us across the city to the new estate and left the old house to gather dust. These halls felt endless then, corridors that stretched into shadow, doors that led to rooms I was never permitted to enter.
The house was a kingdom, and my father was its king.
Dmitri took it for himself while I rotted in Siberia. Moved Vera into the rooms my mother once walked, made the place his own. And even after I returned from exile, even after I killed him and claimed it back, something about it still felt like it belonged to someone else.
Not anymore.
I stride through the front entrance with Vera at my side, and the staff parts before us like water around a stone.
No one meets my eyes. No one asks questions. They’ve heard what happened at the church, and then at the last meeting. They know which way the wind is blowing.
Good. They should know.
We make our way to Dmitri’s office without speaking. The afternoon light filters through the heavy curtains, casting long shadows across the floor.
I settle behind the desk and start pulling out the financial records again.
Somewhere in Dmitri’s records is proof of what I already know; the charges that sent me to Siberia were manufactured. I don’t need another accusation. I need something undeniable, something written by Dmitri’s own hand.
Konstantin can’t stop us this time.
Dmitri wouldn’t have let something that important out of his reach. It has to be somewhere in this house. He was many things, but he was never careless with his secrets.
Vera drifts toward the bookshelves, her fingers trailing along the spines. She’s been quieter than usual, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. I don’t blame her.
“The ledger has to be here,” I say, more to myself than to her. “If it wasn’t at his apartment, it has to be somewhere in this house.”
She doesn’t respond. She’s frowning at the wall, her head tilted slightly to one side. Her eyes are distant, focused on something I can’t see.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
She moves toward the large painting that hangs behind the desk: some ugly oil of a Volkonsky ancestor on horseback, his face stern and unyielding. The frame is ornate, gilded with real gold leaf that’s started to flake in places.
“Something about this painting has always bothered me. Dmitri never let anyone touch it.”
I glance at her as she runs her fingers along the edge of the frame. Her touch is light, though her brow furrows in concentration.
“The staff tried to straighten it once. He nearly broke a maid’s wrist.” She pauses, studying the frame. “It’s crooked. It’s always been crooked. After that, no one dared straighten it again.”
That catches my attention. Dmitri was never particularly concerned with the aesthetics of his home. He left such details to the staff and never gave them a second thought.
Except for this painting.
I stand, moving around the desk to join her. The painting is large, nearly four feet across, and heavy. When I was younger, I used to stare at it during the long hours Dmitri and I spent in this room.
“Let me see,” I say.
Together, we lift the painting off the wall. It’s heavier than I expect, the weight of the frame pulling at my shoulders as we ease it down. Vera steps back while I lean it carefully against the side of the desk.
The spot where it hung is darker than the surrounding wallpaper, the faded outline of its shape clearly visible against the rest of the wall.
The pattern of the wallpaper is slightly different here, the colors more muted where years of sunlight have bleached the surrounding areas but left this patch protected.
There, set into the wall behind where the painting hung, is a safe.
I stare at it for a long moment. It’s a Volkonsky Security model. Top of the line, or it had been when our father bought it, back when Dmitri and I were boys.
I recognize it.
Dmitri must have had the damn thing moved here and installed behind the painting after I was exiled.
I remember him bragging about it when we were sixteen, drunk on vodka and his own self-importance.
“Even you couldn’t crack this one, brother. Dad had it made special. It’s unbreakable.”
I’d wanted to punch him then. I want to punch him now, except the bastard is already dead.
“Can you open it?” Vera asks. Her voice is quiet, like she’s afraid to hope.
I crouch down, studying the lock. The biometric scanner is new. Dmitri must have upgraded the safe after he took possession of it, programming the scanner to recognize his fingerprints and his alone.
That won’t help me.
But the keypad is original.
And that I remember.
I think back to that night. Years ago, before the betrayal, before everything fell apart. Dmitri sat slumped in his chair, a glass of vodka in his hand. He was feeling generous, magnanimous. He thought he was untouchable.
“You’ll never guess the code, Roman. It’s something you don’t even remember.”
Except I do remember. I remember the medallion our father gave my mother, the one she wore every day until she died. I found it in her jewelry box after the funeral. On the back was the inscription our father had engraved there in delicate script: Irina, my love. Until the end of time.
Beneath it, a date.
March 15th.
The day he gave it to her.
My hand hovers over the keypad. The numbers glow softly in the dim light of the office, waiting. I input the code: 0315.
For a moment, nothing happens. I can hear Vera’s breath catch beside me.
Then the safe beeps. The lock disengages with a heavy mechanical click, and the door swings slowly outward.
Vera makes a sound beside me. “How did you know that?”
“Dmitri was a sentimental fool.” I reach inside the safe, my fingers closing around the single item within: a leather-bound ledger, thick with pages and heavy with secrets.
The leather is cool against my palm as I pull it out. The cover is plain, but the weight of it speaks to the contents within. This is what I’ve been searching for. This is the proof I need.
My hands are steady as I open it. The pages are filled with Dmitri’s cramped handwriting, dates and amounts and names arranged in neat columns that speak of obsessive organization. I flip through, scanning the entries.
Human trafficking. Shipment after shipment, women and children moved through the port like cargo.
There are dozens of dates and destinations, payoffs to officials who looked the other way.
The scale of it is staggering, hundreds of millions of dollars flowing through Dmitri’s network over the course of years.
My stomach turns, but I force myself to keep reading. This is what I need.
Then I see something else, too.
There are payments to Anton. Regular, substantial payments that coincide perfectly with the dates of my framing. Not just payments but detailed descriptions of services rendered.
Surveillance on my movements. Fabricated evidence planted in my quarters. Witnesses bribed to testify against me.
The entries are meticulous, each one dated and initialed by both Dmitri and Anton. They read like a corporate ledger, all cold efficiency and businesslike precision, as if arranging the destruction of a man’s life was no different from arranging a shipment of contraband.
This is it.
The ammunition I need to destroy Anton and secure my position once and for all.
There, on the final page, written in Dmitri’s hand just days before his death: a plan.
The elimination of Roman Volkonsky.
The words blur before my eyes. I read them again, then a third time, letting the full weight of their meaning sink in. This isn’t just proof of Dmitri’s crimes. This is proof of Anton’s complicity, not just in my framing, but in everything that came after.
Anton wasn’t just Dmitri’s underboss. He was his co-conspirator from the beginning.
Vera reads over my shoulder, her breath warm against my neck. Her hand finds mine, squeezing tight.
“Oh my God,” she says quietly.
I don’t respond. I can’t. The rage that’s been building inside me since I returned from Siberia crystallizes in this moment.
Anton helped Dmitri destroy me. Anton helped Dmitri plan my death.