Page 138 of Inevitable Endings
The room is so quiet I can hear the soft tap of Ada’s fingers against the tablet.
‘‘They faked my death,’’ Aslanov says, his voice hard now, his mouth curling into something bitter. ‘‘Made sure the right people thought I was gone. Afterwards, they loaded me onto a plane. I didn’t know where I was going. Could barely stay conscious.’’
He exhales slowly, like dragging the memories up is costing him.
‘‘When I woke up... I was in a cell.’’ He glances up, locking eyes with me. ‘‘Petrov was there too.’’
I keep my voice steady as I lean in a little closer. ‘‘Where is Petrov now?’’ I ask. ‘‘Did he have anything to do with it?’’
Aslanov’s face barely changes, but something flickers behind his eyes — something old and heavy.
‘‘No,’’ he says shortly. ‘‘He’s dead.’’
The words hit the room like a dropped stone.
‘‘He asked me to kill him,’’ Aslanov adds, voice rougher now, like the memory scrapes something raw inside him. ‘‘Before they could.’’
He swallows hard, the muscles in his throat working, and for a moment, he doesn’t look like The Devil everyone’s so afraid of, just another man who’s been through hell and came out dragging pieces of it behind him.
I stiffen before I can stop myself, the cold crawling a little higher up my spine. Across the table, even Dominik’s steady mask cracks, just for a second, his brows pulling together in something that almost looks like shock.
Karpov twitches in his seat, shifting like he can’t quite get comfortable, the weight of it pressing too hard on old instincts.
‘‘Because of him I was able to escape, they wanted to end us both.’’
I feel it; the way my heart dips heavy in my chest, the way something aches sharp and unwelcome behind my ribs. But I press it down, shove it into the back of my mind.
Ada taps a key, and the wall-mounted screen behind her flickers to life, casting a pale, ghostly glow over the room. The scanned documents, grainy, marked with age and secrecy—fill the space with an eerie weight.
‘‘We want to ask you about Nick.’’
Aslanov shifts slightly, his shoulders tightening as he glances up at the screen. His eyes narrow, reading fast, taking it all in with that same razor-sharp calculation he’s never quite managed to hide.
I watch him closely. Watch how he absorbs every detail like it’s ammunition, his whole body coiling tighter the longer he stares.
‘‘We found these buried deep,’’ I say, my voice sounding rough in the heavy air. ‘‘Tied to people you might know... or might have crossed without realizing it.’’
I can see the moment Aslanov’s gaze snags on the names; onN.K., the smudged-out‘Sal’,andLorenzo. His jaw clenches almost imperceptibly.
‘‘Anything you recognize?’’ Ada asks, voice careful, non-threatening.
Aslanov keeps staring at the screen, like he could burn the information into his skull if he just looked hard enough. His wrists flex slightly against the restraints, a barely-there twitch of muscle, as if his whole body is fighting the instinct to move, to act.
Ada shifts, pulling up another screen, the side-by-side comparison of the annotations.
‘‘We couldn’t find anything concrete on Nick King,’’ she says, her voice low. ‘‘Like he doesn’t exist. No files, no servicerecords... nothing. But we found the name Lorenzo, multiple times. And these two handwritten notes, the ones mentioning N.K. and Lorenzo...’’
She taps the screen lightly. ‘‘I ran them through analysis. Same handwriting. Same person.’’
The room holds its breath.
For a long moment, Aslanov doesn’t move. Then, finally, he breaks the silence, his voice rough and sure, slicing through the thick air.
‘‘These two men are indeed one man,’’ he says. His eyes flick to Dominik, something dark and certain sparking behind them.
‘‘And his name is Antonio Lorenzo,’’ he finishes, his mouth curving into something that isn’t quite a smile, it’s anger.
‘‘The Gambino mafia boss.’’
