“It’s never needed to be, until now.”
I look at Thea.
Kolya’s jaw clenches, but he says nothing.
“Gentlemen, allow me to present to you Teodora Fetisova, the last surviving member of the Fetisov family, and the true heir to the Fetisova Bratva.”
CHAPTER 26
THEA
Gabriel just told a room full of Russian mobsters that I’m Teodora Fetisova, the last surviving daughter of a murderedpakhan,the heir to a syndicate that was supposedly wiped out twenty years ago.
The room is still.
No one shouts. No one stands. No one says a word.
They all just sit there, staring.
My heart is hammering so hard, I can hear it in my ears. I force myself to breathe and keep my hands flat on the table. Despite the calmness in the room, I’m more scared than I’ve ever been in my life.
Kolya says nothing. He just stares, the same as the rest of them. What he’s thinking, I have no idea.
Gabriel is still standing, his posture relaxed. One hand rests on the back of my chair, the other gesturing calmly as he speaks.
“I have documentation,” he says, sliding my folder across the table. “Birth certificates. DNA analysis. And police reportsconfirming that a five-year-old daughter was unaccounted for the night of the murders.”
Kolya shifts in his seat. Ivan reaches over, picks up the folder, and flips it open. He slips out one of the documents. As he looks it over, his expression gives nothing away.
“This,” Petr says, shaking his head, “is a serious accusation, Gabriel. Are you implying that Kolya murdered the Fetisov family? And that he’s been lying to all of us for the past twenty years?”
“I’m saying that the evidence speaks for itself.”
Kolya scoffs. “Evidence.” His voice drips with disdain. He hasn’t moved from his seat or given any indication that he’s worried about what’s happening. “You bring some woman to our council, dress her up, manufacture documents, and call it evidence?”
“The DNA doesn’t lie,” Gabriel says. “She isn’t just some woman. You’ve known for a while now that she was alive, Kolya.”
He waves a hand in the air dismissively. “DNA proves parentage,” he retorts. “It doesn’t prove who murdered whom. Let’s say that the DNA evidence isn’t manufactured, that you didn’t simply pay off a lab to fabricate it. Let’s just make that huge assumption and say that this woman is indeed Lev Fetisov’s daughter. How does that prove that I killed her family? Where is your evidence of that?”
He scoffs, shaking his head, as if this is all a complete waste of his time, nothing more than an annoyance.
Anger like I’ve never known burns inside of me. But I stay silent. I have to.
“This matter, awful though it may be,” Kolya goes on, “was sorted out years ago. A syndicate in Moscow was found to be responsible. They hired local thugs who did the deed. End of story.”
Gabriel opens another folder, removes a few documents, and slides them across the table. Kolya reaches over and takes them, coughing a bit as he does so.
“Financial records,” Gabriel says. “Payments made from accounts linked to your organization in the weeks before the massacre. Payments to men who had access to the Fetisov household.”
“Circumstantial,” Kolya says immediately. “It proves nothing.”
“Witness testimony?—”
“From a woman whom you’ve been paying for years,” Kolya interjects. “Your witness has financial incentive to say whatever you want her to.”
I look around at the men seated at the table. Maxim is still reading. Petr is frowning. Vlad leans back in his chair, watching Kolya with an expression I can’t make out. Sasha sits at Kolya’s side, as if waiting for the order to attack. The other men regard one another in silence, as if trying to find cues on how they should feel about what they’ve just learned.
“The code is clear,” Gabriel says, his voice hardening. “The murder of apakhanand his family voids all authority obtained through that action. If Kolya orchestrated the Fetisov massacre?—”