Chapter 9 - THE SECOND DEVICE
Fire investigators entered the Birchwood ruins two days later.
They found the first explosive device near the gas line.
Pavel’s detonator triggered it after Sophie escaped.
The second device had not activated.
It was hidden beneath the floor of Sophie’s apartment.
Unlike the first, it was connected to a pressure sensor beneath her bedroom stairs.
If Sophie had returned after the initial fire, the second explosion would have killed her.
The plan anticipated survival.
Someone wanted certainty.
Callahan showed Sophie the photographs inside a secure interview room.
She stared at the twisted metal.
“Pavel knew about this?”
“We don’t know.”
“Viktor?”
“Possibly.”
“Nikolai?”
“No evidence.”
She looked toward the glass where Nikolai waited with Kolya.
The boy had been discharged and refused to go anywhere without Sophie.
Dmitri sent a message offering a meeting in Geneva.
Nikolai planned to travel.
Kolya overheard.
“You’re leaving again.”
“I will return.”
“That’s what you said before.”
Nikolai crouched.
“I need to stop the person who ordered this.”
“Send someone else.”
“There is no one else I trust.”
Kolya looked toward Sophie.
“Send her.”
Sophie raised both eyebrows.
“No.”
The child crossed his arms.
“You trust her.”
“That does not mean she travels into danger.”
“You did.”
Nikolai sighed.
Children had a brutal talent for exposing hypocrisy.
Sophie looked at the evidence board.
Viktor expected Nikolai.
Dmitri expected business.
Neither expected a waitress to understand the financial records.
But Sophie had managed Birchwood’s books for six years. She knew debt, suppliers, shell billing, missing deposits, and forged expense categories.
Not at an international level.
Enough to notice patterns others dismissed.
“I’ll go,” she said.
Nikolai immediately refused.
Callahan supported him.
“You are a civilian witness.”
“I am already named in their plan.”
“That is why we protect you.”
“Protection failed Kolya inside the estate.”
Nikolai flinched.
Sophie continued more gently.
“Dmitri thinks I’m irrelevant. That may be useful.”
The federal team arranged the operation with Swiss authorities.
Sophie would not attend the direct meeting.
She would review records from a secure hotel room while Nikolai wore a transmitter.
Kolya stayed with Talia at a protected location under police guard.
Before Sophie left, he handed her the paper bag.
It had dried stiff and wrinkled.
“What is this for?”
“You kept it safe.”
She placed it inside her carry on bag.
Geneva looked too clean to contain betrayal.
Snow covered the distant mountains. Glass banks reflected the lake. Men in expensive coats crossed quiet streets as if crime required noise to exist.
Nikolai met Viktor inside a private dining room.
Dmitri arrived twenty minutes later.
He resembled Nikolai around the eyes but carried warmth more easily. The kind of warmth that made strangers trust him.
Sophie watched the live feed from another building.
Dmitri embraced his brother.
“Niko.”
Nikolai did not return the embrace.
“Where is the drive?”
Viktor placed it on the table.
“Where is the money?”
Nikolai transferred a small verification payment.
The drive opened.
Sophie received a mirrored copy.
Folders filled the screen.
Payments.
Contracts.
Encrypted messages.
She searched Kolya’s name.
Then Elena.
Then Birchwood.
A file appeared.
LARSEN TERMINATION.
Inside was the second bomb invoice.
The payment did not come from Dmitri.
It came from a Chicago holding company Sophie recognized.
Birchwood Property Renewal LLC.
The company had tried to purchase her diner six months earlier.
She refused.
Its registered agent was Lou Bennett.
Her cook.
The man who had stood behind the counter and warned her about Nikolai.
The man who knew the building’s gas lines, basement, stairs, and service tunnel.
Sophie stopped breathing.
Lou had not been an innocent employee.
He had helped select her diner as the place where Kolya and Sophie would die.
A message inside the folder read:
If the first event fails, clear the property and remove Larsen. Development begins immediately.
Birchwood had been valuable land.
Dmitri’s network planned to buy the entire block for a freight terminal.
Sophie’s refusal made her useful as both scapegoat and victim.
Her phone rang.
Chicago number.
She answered.
Lou’s voice came through.
“You should have taken the purchase offer.”
Sophie looked toward the live feed.
“Where are you?”
“Close to the person your mafia friend forgot to protect.”
A photograph arrived.
Kolya and Talia were asleep inside the safe house.
May you like
Lou stood behind them holding a gun.
Continue to the next part: Sophie must choose between warning Nikolai and keeping Lou on the phone while he prepares to abduct Kolya for the third time.
