“Silas,” I greet.
“Lastra.”
We shake hands briefly, and he glances round the busy casino. “Is there somewhere else we can talk?”
“My office. Follow me.”
When I open the door, Bambi shoots out like a trapped animal. Head down. Pink-hair obscured by a black hoodie. She’s dragging her backpack behind her and sniffing like she’s been crying. As I go to catch her, her head jerks back, and I can see that her eyes are red too.
“Let go of me!”
“Jesus Christ. What the hell is wrong with everyone tonight?”
She stares up at me and bites her lip. “I did something, and Viper’s pissed about it.”
“What did you do? Steal his favourite knife? Anyway, he can’t be mad at you, it’s your birthday.”
“Here.” She shoves a folded piece of paper into my chest. “Message for you. I just spoke to Thiago. He’s going to take me back to the house.”
“Good idea,” I say, sliding it into my pocket, “considering you’re about eight years underage for this place. And make sure he stays with you until Viper turns up.”
She bites her lip again. “She’s really nice, Frankie,” she says quietly.
“Who is?”
But she’s already walking down the hallway to a waiting Thiago who’s circling a car key impatiently around his finger. Shaking my head in frustration, I beckon Silas in and gesture to the chair opposite mine.
“Drink?”
He shrugs. “Sure.”
Pouring out two more whiskeys, I deliver one to his hand as I circle the desk and take a seat. From the bleak expression on his face, I’m regretting not keeping hold of both.
“Tell me about Ada first.”
“Like I said in the message, she finished up her dance lessons and went home. Checked the front gate cameras half an hour ago. No Semenov.”
“Security?”
“Still twenty-strong, but I know of another way in if you’re persistent.”
I think of the Colombian sitting in the room next door and shake my head with a grimace. “My son?”
I watch him drain his drink and position the glass on my desk carefully. “Alex Semenov. Born fourteen years ago.” He reaches into his folder and tosses two black and white photographs onto the desk of a young boy standing on a street next to an SUV.
I wait for a jolt of recognition, but nothing. My parental connection to this kid is null and void.
“Is he in school?”
“Home tutored. Doesn’t live with Semenov. Has an apartment in the same block with an Eastern European woman called Ana-Maria who's looked after him ever since he returned from Russia last year. There’s something else. Semenov has him training every day in his private gym. Don’t ask me how, but I managed to get some DNA samples and they just came in.” He takes a piece of paper out of his folder and places it down on top of the photographs. “It’s indisputable. He’s not Semenov’s son.”
“No shit,” I breathe, staring at the columns of indecipherable words and numbers, yet in my head, I can hear the unmistakable whistle of another bomb dropping.
Silas swipes his hand across his jaw and then the motherfucker explodes.
“Sorry, Frankie, but he’s not your son, either.”
CHAPTER 31
FRANKIE
I’m struggling to process his words as he hands me a second piece of paper.
“What do you mean he’s not mine?”
“Look at the table for yourself. There are certain genetic markers that have to be present for you to be the biological father. They’re not here, Frankie.” He taps the piece of paper. “See?”
Did you lie to me, Ada?
Did you just break my world in two?
With a curse, I screw the piece of paper up and chuck it at the door. “Fuck your results. I never asked you for this. How the hell did you get hold of my DNA anyway?” Rising from my chair, I lean over my desk and grind my knuckles into the polished surface. “This is bullshit, and you know it.”
There’s a knock and my new assistant, Nancy, comes bustling into the carnage. She pauses when she picks up on the atmosphere, but she doesn’t have the smarts to back the hell up and wipe her footprints clean. “Mr. Lastra? Your guests in the private gaming room have left. They said to tell you they’d be in touch tomorrow.”
“Go home, Nancy,” I say coldly. “It’s nine p.m.”
“Only if you’re sure…?” Her megawatt smile starts to flicker as I continue to glare at her. “F-fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Frankie, you need to calm down,” says Silas as the door shuts again. “We’ve known each other a long time and you’ve been good to me, so this isn’t easy on me either.” He stops to take a breath. “There’s more.”
I bite back a bitter laugh. “You mean it gets worse?”
“Ada isn’t Alex’s mother, either.”
No.
What?
Silas takes a deep breath. “You and Ada had a son fourteen years ago, but he died the day he was born… I’m sorry.”
Sorry.
A lazy word that’s fifty percent truth. Fifty percent lie. It’s something that people say when they’ve run out of all the other fucking words.
In a daze, I watch him slip another piece of paper in front of me. The subject line catches my eye, and then the walls of pain start closing in:
Hospital Report.
Deceased infant.
“How?”
Another word. This one has so many answers, but they all lead to the same conclusion.
My son is dead.
Our son is dead.
“The cord became trapped around his neck during labour. Baby was in distress, but she didn’t get to the hospital in time. Ada lost so much blood she was in and out of consciousness for four days.”
Was this your doing, Semenov? Was this the next punishment for us? Killing our son and nearly killing Ada?
A sudden wave of shock and fury has me driving my fist into my desk. If I’d been there, I could have done something. I could have—fuck. I drop my head as those red walls push me closer and closer to the edge.
Two days.
That’s all the time I had to know of his existence.
Never touched him. Never held him. Never had the chance to make it right.
“The same hospital reports a child went missing four days after your son was born.” Silas trails off, leaving me to deduce the rest.
Alex.
“You mean Semenov stole some other kid to pass off as ours?”
That’s when it hits me.
She doesn’t know.
Ada doesn’t know her child is dead.
The pain isn’t just a wall now, it’s a fucking sledgehammer.
“It was an easy lie to conceal. Ada hasn’t been allowed to see him since the day he was born. By tricking her into thinking he was alive, Semenov has used the boy to control her for fourteen years.”
I’ve lost a son twice in two minutes. Is this some sort of a sick record?
“She discharged herself against medical advice after the birth and was sent to live on the outskirts of London.”