“Yes, Livvy, maybe. Soon.” But it will never happen now.
His mind goes to his pending parole board hearing and what Roksana told him about Stirling Harrison’s death. He’s been set up—his chance of parole is doomed. They’ll tie Harrison’s death to the mob. The parole board will say that Zagorsky remains a threat, that he’s still connected to criminals on the outside. Semy has always been suspicious of where the tip came from that led to his and Milo’s arrests in that drug bust. Now, after Roksana’s news that the paraplegic and his wife have been burned to death, he’s certain. Oly.
Oly tipped off the cops and put him in here.
Oly ordered the death of Stirling Harrison. Which means Oly intends for him to remain here.
Oly is also the one providing protection on the outside for Semy’s wife and his daughter, Mila, and his little Livvy. Oly bought them big houses side by side on the mountainside overlooking the city. He provides them with bodyguards, security cameras, servants—they want for nothing.
We always take care of family, he’d said. Right, Semy? The implication being, Do not talk, and all will be fine with your wife and your progeny on the outside. Oly is probably also screwing his wife. Bile rises up the back of Semy’s throat as something else strikes him—maybe the bastard is fucking his daughter, too. That would be his style. That would be his revenge for Ana and the twins—for Semy letting one escape. Inhaling deeply, he says, “Everything is happy at home? And safe?”
“Yes, Gampy!” At the sound of that spirited little voice, his mind is made up. He must do what he is about to do so that Livvy can continue to grow up safe. Or she will be killed. Like Mila. Like Ana. Like Roksi will if she does not stop hunting. For his red “brother” is ruthless.
Semy hangs up. He makes his second call. To his lawyer, Viktor Abramov. Prison officials are not supposed to listen in to an inmate’s calls to his lawyer. As Abramov’s phone rings, Semy knows he is signing Roksana’s death warrant. The irony is not lost on him. After all these years, she’s not the one who escaped. She’s come full circle. The little floating shoe has found her after all these years. Mila’s ghost is drawing her twin home . . . and now their father will get her in the end.
It all goes back to the beginning.
CHAPTER 48
Oly listens to the voice coming from Kelvin Maximum Security Institution. It’s being relayed via a complex rerouting system through his law firm’s Vancouver office. He stands at his office window, computing the incoming information while he watches his guests disembark from three of his boats that have docked in time for cocktails—a twenty-five-foot Welcraft, a thirty-foot Grady White, and a twenty-five-foot Trophy. His guests are all men, and they’re garbed in the all-weather suits supplied by his high-end luxury fishing lodge.
Judging by the apparent weight of the coolers his guides are offloading, his staff managed to put his guests onto a good run of winter springs, halibut, or maybe Coho. Across the steel-gray water, on another island also owned by him, wreathes of mist finger through conifers that grow dense on slopes. A bald eagle circles lazily up high. He hopes his guides also managed to locate the orca pod sighted offshore yesterday. His guides carry the catch toward the stainless-steel cleaning stations at the end of the dock. Tonight’s meal of lobster and Alaskan king crab is being prepared by his chefs. The women are ready to give massages—and more, should guests desire—in the spa. His is one of the oldest and most established luxury fly-in fishing lodges along the Pacific Coast. A guaranteed five-star West Coast experience. The sea has always been the source of his bounty.
“What name did she give?” he says quietly.
“Roksana.”
“She knows her old name?”
“She’s starting to remember things. She recalls me—remembers that I gave her those high-tops with air pockets in the soles. She says there is old evidence from the cradle case crime scene currently being retested using new DNA technology. The RCMP have already matched her DNA to the dismembered foot. And fingerprints from the cradle already led her to Milo.”
A sinister prescience fills his gut, of things coming full circle. Of inevitability. He reaches down and fingers the bone letter opener on his desk. “So . . . she’s been to see Milo?”
“I . . . don’t know for certain.”
“This is why loose ends can never be left, Semy.”
“This is why I am calling you.”
“What is her name?” he says again. “She must have an adoptive name.”
“She only said Roksana.”
Some of his guests are coming up the gangway now, making their way toward the main lodge building. The tallest guest, the one with black hair, the man from Dubai, is the guest he most needs to talk business with. The irony of that man’s presence here on this day that Semy is calling is not lost on him—it was the man’s cousin from Saudi Arabia who’d wanted Ana and the twins all those years ago.
He repeats, “What name did she sign into Kelvin with? What did her ID badge say?”
“I didn’t see her badge.”
“Where does she live? What is her profession?”
“I . . . it was a shock to see her. I didn’t ask. She didn’t say.”
He swears to himself but says very calmly, quietly, “That’s all right. Relax. We’ll sort it all out. I appreciate the call.” He pauses. “What does she look like?”
“Like Ana. Just like Ana. I thought it was Ana come back. But her hair—”
“I know.” Her hair is the color of his own hair but darker. Same pale skin as his own. Pale-gray eyes like his. It was these features in duplicate that had intrigued his client from Saudi Arabia. The prince had paid top dollar for the twins. He’d had to return the payment when he was unable to deliver them. Thanks to Semy.
“How tall?” he says quietly.
“About five nine. Slender. She has the scar across the left side of her mouth.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing—nothing that she isn’t already remembering.”
“Thank you, Semy.” He pauses, thinking that all those years ago, when he read in the papers about the angel’s cradle child and learned that she had no memory or language, he’d thought he was safe. He’d let it go. He shouldn’t have. “Goodbye, Semy.”
He hangs up. His gaze goes to his bookshelves, to a framed photo. Ana. At sixteen. Her tummy rounded with his progeny. His possession. Ana was the one he’d kept for himself for a while and who surprisingly bore him daughters in duplicate, which had intrigued the narcissist in him. For a time. Until a better offer came along. And then Ana had crossed him. She would not have been able to do it without Semy.
His guests are entering the lodge now. No time to waste. He goes to his desk, unlocks a bottom drawer, and from it he removes a fresh burner phone. He will discard the phone once the contract he’s about to initiate is concluded. A separate phone for each contract. Always.