Page 40 of Vengeful Embers

“I know it’s Russian and made by Ofiliya Zorin,” he tells me.

The name strikes me like lightning.

“Does she have a daughter named Lidiya?”

“I don’t know. Why?” he asks.

“The birth certificate…” I hesitate. “It’s for Lidiya Zorin. Born in Moscow in 1998. It’s the same date as my birthday.”

Silence.

“And you think it’s yours?” Konstantin says. “Any reason for that?”

“You mean other than it was hidden in my father’s things and has my birth date on it?” I laugh.

“I mean, do you have any reason to doubt who your parents are?” Konstantin clarifies.

“I never knew my birth mother,” I admit. “My father said she died during childbirth.”

“And now you find a birth certificate with your birthday, no parents listed, hidden in a puzzle box with a photo of a woman no one will talk about.”

“Yes.”

Another pause.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Konstantin says. “If you answer a few questions. Honestly. I’ll help you look into it.”

“What makes you think you’ll have better luck than we did?” I ask skeptically. “So far, all we’ve managed to do is nearly get arrested by the RMSAD and then abducted by some woman who warned us to stop digging and put us on a plane back to Vegas.”

“Wait, what?” Konstantin asks, concern etched in his voice. “Start at the beginning with the RMSAD. And how do you even know about them?”

“Gavriil made an appointment for us to meet a friend of his at the hospital who was going to let us into the hospital records room,” I explain. “But then, when we got there, the RMSAD were waiting for us. Gavriil told them we were there for a sonogram, and they believed us. But I had to get a sonogram.”

“Is that what you were really doing at the hospital?” Konstantin queries.

“Yes.”

“Are you pregnant?” he asks.

“Yes.”

More silence.

“I’ll help you find your mother,” Konstantin says. “But I want something else in return.”

“What?”

“End things with Gavriil.”

“I have already,” I tell him. It’s not an outright lie. We ended things a few months before he married Irina about nine years ago. “But I still work at the Ember Club.”

“Fine. But the affair ends. I’ll know if it doesn’t,” Konstantin warns.

“Why do you want me to end things with Gavriil?”

“You deserve better,” Konstantin says, his voice firm. “I don’t want to see you get hurt, and staying with him will end that way.”

“I told you, it’s already over,” I assure him. “Gavriil is helping me find my birth mother.”

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