Chapter 23
TERESA
A few days later…
I’m supposed to be finishing Vlad’s Amsterdam deck, but my screen is hijacked by a dozen browser tabs, all of them variations of finding missing people.
Where the hell is Jack? And what the hell happened that night at the gala when he’d run off again?
I’ve tried old college friends, fake-Facebook aliases, even an ancient LiveJournal handle. Nothing. Jack has managed what some people only dream of—a perfect digital blackout.
I nibble the end of a pen. The office is half-empty as holiday vacations have thinned the staff. Outside the window, the East River carries slabs of gray ice.
My phone pings—unsecure e-mail notification. I click. Subject line—WINTERFOX UPDATE. That’s my PI’s code name for Jack. The message is short:
Found him. Crestline Inn, Room 26.
104 Frelinghuysen Ave, Newark, NJ.
Photos attached.
—Baines
I open the first photo. Jack is standing outside a two-story strip motel the color of cigarette ash, bare bulbs flickering over the walkway. He looks thinner than I remember, hair tucked under a beanie, cigarette hanging from his lips. He looks older, brittle, but like still my brother.
The second photo shows the neon sign with the info from the email. Crestline Inn—Weekly Rates—Free HBO. The kind of place you go when you don’t want to be found.
I feel an ache in the center of my chest. We should be having Sunday dinners, sharing sibling group texts, parents bragging on Facebook. Instead, I’m in a skyscraper fortress while he’s in a roadside purgatory.
I tap open the transit app. Newark Penn Station is an easy ride on NJ Transit, maybe forty minutes tops.
From there it’s a short rideshare to Frelinghuysen Avenue.
My thumb hovers over the itinerary button.
Vlad and Dmitri are both in Midtown. If I tell them, they’ll lock the situation down, probably with guns first and questions never. Jack might bolt, or worse.
He’s still my brother. I have to try.
Decision clicks into place. I shove the laptop into my tote and grab my wool wrap from the back of the chair. The office lights feel accusingly bright as I head for the elevator.
Downstairs, the lobby guard offers a polite “Happy New Year, Ms. Winslow,” and I muster a smile that probably looks like indigestion.
Outside, the air is knife-sharp. My breath ghosts as I zip the wrap tight and hurry toward the Fulton subway entrance.
Ice crystals sparkle on the pavement like glitter.
I glance at the curb and see my guard detail in a black sedan. The two of them are chatting in the front seat, one of them pointing at something across the street. With their attention diverted, I turn and quickly walk in the opposite direction, hoping they didn’t notice me.
The train station smells of hot pretzels and brake dust. I swipe through the turnstile, snag a timetable, and board a Jersey-bound train. The car is mostly commuters wearing that late-December fatigue, everyone ready for a calendar reset.
I claim a window seat, press my forehead to the glass, and watch Manhattan slide away, the skyline turning to warehouses, warehouses giving way to marshland patched with dirty snow.
I open the photos again. Jack’s shoulders are hunched and he looks nervous. A calendar reminder interrupts. Draft to Vlad by 5 p.m. Not happening.
Another flare of nausea. Third time today. Just nerves, I decide, and focus on the frost blooming across the window as the train barrels toward everything I hope to fix and everything I’m afraid I’ll break.
The rideshare drops me in a cratered parking lot behind Newark’s freight yards—nothing but cracked asphalt and half-frozen puddles reflecting a flickering neon sign.
Wind carries the faint reek of diesel and fryer grease in from the highway ramps.
Room 26 sits at the far end of the balcony.
A plastic wreath droops on the door, red ribbon half shredded from the wind.
I knock, three brisk taps that sound braver than I feel. The door opens two inches, security chain catching. Jack’s face appears in the gap—sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, face pallid.
“Teresa?” He blinks like he’s seeing things. “What are you—”
“Open the door, Jack.”
He hesitates for a beat, glances back into the room, then slides the chain off.
Inside, a blast of stale heat and cigarette funk hits me.
The room is tiny, paneled in fake wood, bedding patterned with moons that look more like coffee rings.
An old TV plays a daytime quiz show. The unmade bed is untouched. He’s been pacing, not sleeping.
“You followed me.” He says it like an accusation, though he backs up and lets me step in anyway.
“I hired a PI.” I close the door, the soft click feeling eerily final. “I wanted to know why my brother was playing waiter at a Bratva gala. But more importantly, why you ran.”
Jack rubs his jaw, cigarette trembling between his fingers. “I was there because I wanted to keep an eye on you. Maybe talk you into coming with me.”
“In the middle of a ballroom full of mobsters? Why there?”
He shrugs. “What the hell else was I supposed to do? Vlad’s place is like a military fort. No way I’m getting near you otherwise.”
“Then why run?”
His eyes flick to the floor. “Because I thought Vlad spotted me and I panicked. And then,” he grimaces, “those guys showed up.”
“The ones who grabbed me,” I say, the memory burning fresh.
“Yeah.” He drags hard on the cigarette, like it might erase the shame on his face. “I didn’t plan for that. I didn’t even know they were there. I swear, Teresa, I screwed up. I’m sorry.”
I want to trust him. God help me, I want to.
“And I wanted to show you this.” He exhales smoke toward the ceiling, ash drifting onto the carpet like gray snow. Then he rummages under a pillow and pulls out a battered envelope, sliding it across the scarred dresser toward me. “Evidence.”
Inside are grainy telephoto shots. Vlad near a private jet on a snow-covered runway, the date reading six years ago. Another shows him shaking hands with a blonde mechanic outside Winslow Air’s maintenance hangar. The next photo is of our parents boarding their plane the week before it crashed.
My stomach flips as vertigo sharp as the first drop on a roller coaster takes over.
Dad’s laugh echoes a clipped memory: Just a quick hop to Miami, mi hija. We’ll bring you back some key lime pie.
“Angeloff’s network owns that hangar,” Jack says quietly. “He funded the sabotage. Same crew that killed Maxim. You’re sleeping with our parents’ killer.”
Air whooshes out of me. I stare at the photos until their edges blur. Vlad’s face is younger, colder, but it’s still him. Could he really have orchestrated that disaster?
“Where did you get these?”
Jack’s shoulders twitch. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is it’s evidence that your precious Vlad isn’t what he seems. And my guy who provided them says he has more… for a price.”
There it is—money. Always money. I notice faint track marks peeking out from his cuff. Old alarm bells clang. “So, you sell me a horror story, I bankroll your habit?”
His eyes slide away. “It’s not like that.”
Silence swells. I press the envelope to my chest, heartbeat thudding against cheap paper. “If Vlad did this, I need real proof. Not grainy pictures of him at a business he owns. He could have been there for legitimate reasons.”
Jack steps closer, breath sour with coffee and cigarettes. “Help me pay the broker. We can push Vlad out of the picture, figure out a way to get our company back from Volkov. We do that, we get our inheritance back. We can start over, be normal finally.”
Normal. The word sounds laughable inside these nicotine-stained walls.
He reaches for my wrist, his grip a little too tight, and instinct flares. I yank free, lifting my phone just enough for him to see Dmitri’s contact photo. “One word,” I warn, “and Vlad’s people flood this motel.”
Jack’s bravado deflates. He backs up, hands raised. “I would never hurt you.”
“You already did.” My voice is shaky, but the words land. I tuck the envelope into my purse. “I’ll think about the money. No promises.”
Before I can say anything else, a hot surge rolls through my stomach. The room tilts, the ashtray reek and cheap air-freshener colliding like bad liquor.
“T? You okay?” Jack’s voice tunnels.
“I’m fine,” I lie, hand over my mouth.
Another wave hits and I bolt for the bathroom. I lock the door, clutching the sink as another wave of nausea kneads my gut. The mirror is streaked, but I can still see my reflection. My skin looks blotched, mascara smudged under one eye. Pull it together, Teresa.
The smell of mildew sets me off. I lunge to the toilet just in time, breakfast and nerves spilling into rust-stained porcelain. Acid burns my throat as tears spring to my eyes.
I rinse my mouth, splash water on my face, and try to breathe through the lingering queasiness. When I open the door the TV is silent. The air feels pressurized. Jack stands in the center, hands raised, a matte-black pistol kissing the hinge of his jaw.
Vlad and Dmitri are in the room too.
“What the…” The words fall out dumbly.
Dmitri holds the gun, expressionless. Vlad is beside him—no visible weapon, yet somehow, he appears more lethal. Jack’s cigarette dangles from his mouth, ash long and ready to fall.
“Teresa,” Jack croaks when he sees me. “Tell them.”
Vlad doesn’t take his eyes off Jack. “Explain,” he says quietly, though the undertone could split steel.
My pulse slams. “I hired a PI to find Jack. Thought it best to come and talk to him by myself.”
Dmitri gives me a once-over, making sure I’m not hurt. He presses the muzzle harder and Jack winces.
“Your brother tried to run when we arrived,” Vlad says. “Only cowards and those guilty of something run.”
“Enough. Both of you. Let’s just—”
“Quiet, solnishka.” Vlad’s eyes still don’t leave my brother. “I want to know what the hell is going on.”
He subtly tilts his head, and Dmitri moves without a sound, holstering the gun just long enough to grab Jack by the back of the neck and shove him into the desk chair. The cuffs click home before Jack can draw another full breath.
“Get your hands off me!” Jack thrashes, but Dmitri pins my brother in place, Jack glaring up like a cornered fox.
Without warning, Jack goes for the jugular.
“Tell her, Vlad. Tell her how you killed our parents, sabotaging their plane so you could move in on everything. Tell her the truth about Maxim’s murder.
You think I don’t see you for what you are? ”
The room contracts around his words. Vlad stands stone-still, hands loose at his sides, but his eyes… there’s a moment, one terrible moment, where I think he might put a bullet in my brother right then and there.
Instead, he blinks slowly, then turns to me. “Are you alright? I heard you in the bathroom.”
“I’m fine,” I reply curtly, though my stomach’s still doing uneasy flips.
“Good.” He looks back at Jack, his expression unreadable. “Now, what to do about this brother of yours.”
The tension in the room is so thick it’s almost visible. The only sound is the faint tick of the baseboard heater. I can’t tell if the next moment will end in blood or something far worse.