But Dmitri had no time to think about history. If he didn’t deal with the present, he wouldn’t have a future.
Vladimir had always told Dmitri that when he died, trust no one but Mr. Laborov. Dmitri had never taken this too seriously, since he, like everyone else, thought his uncle would live until 90 or 100 years old. But now that illusion was gone, and he remembered the advice Vlad had given him.
Sergei came to Tampa right after the assassination and met with Dmitri at a pro football game, a place where they knew security was too tight for a murder to happen.
It was halftime. The stadium was more or less quiet. Many fans were in the bathroom or buying hot dogs and beer.
“Dmitri, it’s time you found out the truth. Maybe you should have known long ago…”
“The truth about what?”
“To begin with, when your aunt Rebecca died last year, that was no ‘one car accident’ as the news reported. She was run off the road by two trucks working together. They fled the scene.”
“What? But who? Who did it?”
“It’s a classic CIA maneuver, though by this point many organizations know how to do it. We talked to a witness, the only witness, whose honest account never made it into the official story. We know the police report was altered by higher ups. The witness was intimated into changing his testimony. We just haven’t figured out who did it yet.”
“You lied to me? Why?”
“Your uncle didn’t want you to know. He didn’t keep much from you, but he knew you had a bond with your aunt, even though you only met her a few times. Well, a few times that you remember. The truth is, you knew her much better once. She raised you until you were four. You remember your nanny?”
“My nanny, yes, of course, Katya? What about her?”
Sergei raised a single eyebrow, as if to point out Dmitri was missing the obvious.
“Wait, she was my aunt? She was Rebecca? But…”
“You didn’t see her again until you were ten years old, so you didn’t remember her well. She’d taken a different name by then. She’d also changed her hair color from blond to black, started wearing glasses and gained a bit of weight. No child would have recognized someone like that. She visited only in secret.”
“Why?”
“We didn’t know if anyone wanted to kill her. I doubt it, not so long after they killed your dad. When a family is taken out, it’s usually done all at once, as you know, not years later. She wasn’t involved in this life anymore.”
“Then why the secrecy?”
“Rebecca was too worried to risk bringing her kids on her visits, and she didn’t want them to know anything about the mafia, about her past. Plus, it was a long trip from Florida to Russia, but she also had some aunts and cousins living in the Motherland still. She’d stop in Moscow for a weekend, then come by Saratov for a few days.”
“Wait. Florida? Rebecca lived in Florida? Where, Miami? Until when? Didn’t she die in New York on her way back from Australia? Or that was all lies too?”
“She was killed in New York, but she was on her way back from visiting Russia. She lived right here in Tampa all those years. Rebecca and her girls were in Florida even when you and your uncle came back over, four years ago.”
“And Australia, that was pure bullshit?”
“Rebecca requested we tell you she'd moved to Australia, so you wouldn't look for her. She didn't want to see Vlad either, not here in the US. But he'd send her packages of money sometimes. When she came to Russia last year, I had business in Italy. I saw her before I left. She stayed in the Veselov mansion for a few days at the end of her trip, like usual.”
“Well, what happened?”
“I always suspected Ivan was behind it, but I didn’t have proof. He’s spent a lot of time in the mansion the past few years, and he was there at the same Rebecca was. I didn’t even know what his motivation to kill her would’ve been. Something personal maybe… But considering what’s happened now, I believe she must have found out something Ivan didn’t want her to know, likely something about his plot to kill Vlad.”
“And what did my uncle believe? Even though he mocked Ivan, he always had a soft spot for that imbecile.”
“Yes, Vlad was too lenient with Ivan. But he did suspect him, after Rebecca was murdered. Yet I think he was hesitant to kill him without evidence. He also wanted to find out who else was involved. Vlad avoided Ivan for the past year. Even when he went back to Saratov, he kept it a secret from Ivan - from everyone but you and me. He didn’t even go to his own house on that trip, just a hotel and your grandmother’s grave. And yet somebody knew he was there…”
“I can’t understand why he didn’t tell me anything. This was about more than that childhood stuff, my aunt and all that. This was about the Bratva, about business. I had a right to know.”
“He didn’t tell you, because he knew you’d want instant revenge. Like your father, you’d kill everyone before they could talk. If there was a coup in the works, Vlad wanted to catch every rat at once. But nothing happened, until now. Ivan might have wanted to lay low for a while after killing Rebecca.”
“Rebecca… Why didn’t she stay out of this, away from the whole family? Visiting Russia, but ignoring me, when I was right here… Some bond we had - she wanted to hide from me? How do I know you’re not lying now, about her, about everything?”
“I’m too near death to lie anymore, Dmitri. Rebecca always cared about you, but when she found out you were deep into the Bratva too, she couldn’t risk letting you back into her life, not when you lived so close. She had to protect her daughters.”
Her daughters.
Those two words hit Dmitri like gunshots.
The sparkling green eyes. The angelic laughter. These thoughts tore through Dmitri's mind.
Her name, though, I don’t remember that. They must have changed it, too. They changed everything. And those chandelier earrings I noticed her wearing the night she sat down beside me at Sultan’s, they belonged to my aunt, her mother.
Sonya is my cousin.