Page 69 of Enigma: The Final Chapter
After I confessed about where I learned my new words from did Uncle Tobias unearth my masterpiece. Ever since the day he discovered my family portrait of him, Dedushka, and me, the table was no longer adorned with a tablecloth. My uncle didn’t want my artwork hidden by an ugly tablecloth. That day was over fourteen years ago, but it still holds a special place in my heart.
I motion my head to the hallway. “You can put your bag in the spare room. It’s the third door on the right.”
Hugo’s lips curl into a grin before he enters the hall with his overnight bag. He packed as lightly as I did.
Even after an exhausting day full of tears, fear, and heartbreak, I head straight for my uncle’s office in the garage in the backyard, not wanting to waste any time. The flight to this side of the country was horrific, but thankfully uneventful. Although I’m confident Hugo’s hands will forever have my nails embedded in them.
Dust filters through my nose when I crack open the glass sliding door of my uncle’s office. This was my favorite room in the entire Brahn residence, not just because it has beautiful views of Tiburon esplanade down below, but because anytime my uncle was home from an assignment, we spent the majority of our time in here. He’d assign me my own case files that I had to work on during school holidays. I was his personal assistant/partner. Here is where my love for law enforcement was ingrained into my blood, and my fondness for investigating flourished.
That’s why I blurted out those cruel words to Isaac yesterday. I wanted to be an FBI agent from when I was ten years old, but Uncle Tobias would never allow it. He said it ran too much risk of my real identity being discovered. The repercussions for people finding out my identity wasn’t a risk he was willing to take. That was the sole reason I didn’t join the FBI until after he passed. And even though I'll always choose Isaac over my career, part of the dreams I had from when I was a little girl vanished when I agreed to become his wife, but he's worth the sacrifice. He willalwaysbe worth the sacrifice.
Snubbing the tears welling in my eyes, I head for the locked side room where Tobias stored all his case files. It doesn’t take long for me to work out the four-digit lock code that secures the door from prying eyes. It is the date he officially bought me.
“Holy cupcakes,” I murmur when the overhead tube lighting flicks on in the stuffed room.
Walls upon walls of document boxes stretch as far as the eye can see. Every surface of the single garage is covered with moldy, wet boxes. The glimmer of an orange hue on one of the boxes gives away the reason why the room has a moldy smell. A tile in the roof is cracked, exposing the room to the elements.
After shrugging off my jacket, I throw it over an office chair before moving the drenched boxes out from beneath the hole in the roof. The cartons crumble under my touch, ruined after being subjected to elements the past three years.
By the time I hear Hugo calling my name, I’ve saved half the documents in the first two drenched boxes. The other half is completely destroyed. They’re nothing but soggy papers with smears of black ink swirled on them.
Hugo walks into the room with a grin etched on his face. “I was getting worried you were trying to get me fired again.”
When I stick out my tongue, his grin enlarges. The curve in his lips bends downward when he spots the soaked boxes. “What’s this room?”
“Years of hard work wasted.” I drag a box of ruined documents out of the room to be dumped onto the curb for waste collection. “Uncle Tobias never relied on computers. He said they were too risky. I guess he never met a cracked tile before.”
Hugo chuckles before he helps me lift another saturated box onto the office desk to rummage through.
Three hours later, our hands are covered with black ink from salvaging the documents we could, and Hugo’s tummy is grumbling.
“I’ll climb up onto the roof tomorrow morning to patch the hole the best I can, but you might want to get a professional out to look at it.”
A smile tugs my lips high. “Thanks. I guess I should feed you then, to make sure you don’t fade away before tomorrow morning.”
He chuckles a hearty laugh. “I don’t think there’s much chance of me fading away.”
No, there isn’t. Hugo is so well-built, his physique can’t even be hidden in a long-sleeve shirt, jacket, and loosely hanging jeans.
“Give me a second to get the box I originally came in here for, then I’ll order us some pizza from Maria’s.”
As I pace toward the aisle of boxes, my heart beats faster with every step I take. I glide down the wall of documents seeking the right number. My uncle coded his files according to the names of his targets and the dates he associated with them. So my file from when I was sold would be I09P01 because my name was Isabelle Popov and he purchased me in September 2001.
My heart stops beating when I come face to face with the box I'm searching for. Through shaking hands, I carefully remove the box marked O01P14 and pace back to Hugo. His eyes flick down to the box for several heart-thrashing seconds before they shift back to me. A cloud of suspicion taints his gaze, but he remains quiet as he removes the box from my grasp and walks back to the main residence.
After calling in an order for two large pizzas to be delivered, I grab a quick shower to freshen up before sauntering back to the eat-in kitchen. My breath snags when I discover Hugo rummaging through my uncle’s files. He has several FBI folders marked with a red ‘Confidential’ stamp opened and spread across the wooden dining table. His brows are pulled together so tightly, a deep crease has embedded in his forehead, and his hand that isn’t grasping a document is fisted into a tight ball.
“What are you doing? You can’t go through that. Those files are highly confidential.” I rush toward him and snatch the documents out of his hand.
“Confidential?” His brow cocks high into the air. “You’re invading his privacy, and you're worried about confidentiality. Is this why you came here? Searching for answers to questions he can’t answer yet?”
I don’t reply to Hugo’s interrogation. I just gather the documents and photos spread across the table while ignoring the brutal ache stabbing my chest so painfully, I can’t breathe.
“If you want answers, you should keep asking them, not go behind his back and investigate him.”
“I’m not investigating him—”
“Then what do you call it, Izzy? You’re looking into his past, digging through hispersonallife.”
