Chapter 4 - Sergei Kolov Came Through the Front Door
Sergei Kolov requested a meeting before I could request one.
He arrived at my office forty-eight hours after Emma’s attack with two lawyers and no bodyguards.
That was deliberate.
He wanted witnesses.
He wanted legitimacy.
Sergei was fifty-eight, silver-haired, immaculate, and irritatingly calm.
He placed a photograph on my conference table.
The silver lighter.
“That is not mine.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You were thinking it.”
“Yes.”
He almost smiled.
Then he slid another photograph forward.
An old image from 2009.
A younger Marco Bellini standing beside several Castellano security men.
Three wore snake patches on their jackets.
I looked at Sergei.
He leaned back.
“The snake was not originally ours.”
I already knew the older history in pieces.
My father’s security crews once used a coiled-snake emblem internally.
Sergei’s uncle copied it later as mockery during a port war.
Over time, newspapers associated the snake with Kolov.
Nobody cared who used it first.
Sergei did.
“Your Marco kept souvenirs,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Because twenty years ago he tried selling information to both families.”
My entire body went still.
Sergei’s attorney shifted slightly.
I looked at him.
“Careful.”
Sergei remained calm.
“I am being careful. That is why I came with lawyers.”
He produced bank records.
Old.
Swiss transfers.
Shell companies.
Payments tied to a courier identified only as MB.
Not proof.
But enough to hurt.
“You expect me to believe Marco betrayed my father?”
“I expect you to verify it yourself.”
Then Sergei said something I didn’t expect.
“Someone wants you angry.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because angry men from families like ours are predictable.”
He gestured toward Manhattan beyond the glass.
“You retaliate. I retaliate. Police flood both organizations. Contracts freeze. Lenders panic.”
“And someone else benefits.”
“Exactly.”
He stood.
“One more thing.”
I waited.
“Your housekeeper was not attacked because she wears your crest.”
“What makes you certain?”
“Because if I wanted to send you a message, Dominic…”
He buttoned his jacket.
“…you would not need a wounded girl to translate it.”
I hated that he was right.
After he left, Lucia called.
Emma had remembered another detail.
One attacker had kept asking:
“Where’s the copy?”
Not:
Where’s Castellano?
Not:
Tell Dominic.
The copy.
May you like
The attack had never been primarily about me.
Emma had simply been the easiest route to Noah’s evidence.
