Chapter 2 - The Whispered Secret
The world inside Le Rêve came to a screeching, silent halt.
My hand instinctively moved toward the waistline of my apron, where the small antique ring hung secretly on a thin silver chain beneath the black fabric—the only piece of my past I still carried. It belonged to my father, who hadn't just been a sick old man in a hospital bed, but a former senior intelligence officer who vanished from public service fifteen years ago.
Natalia stared at me, her chest heaving as if she had just seen a ghost walk through the front doors of the restaurant.
"Natalia, what are you talking about?" Dominic barked, switching back to English, his arrogance flaring into angry confusion. "She's just a damn waitress playing word games!"
"Shut up, Dominic," Natalia snapped softly, her voice carrying an authority that instantly silenced the powerful American mafia boss.
Dominic’s jaw dropped in absolute shock. In all his years of running organized crime rackets across New York, no one had ever told him to shut up in public—especially not a woman.
Natalia stood up from the table. She was tall, slender, and dressed in a dark velvet blazer that screamed old European money and deadly power. She walked around the table, stopping mere inches from me.
"Answer me," she whispered in Russian, her voice trembling slightly. "Are you Nikolai Volkov's daughter?"
I took a deep, steady breath, calculating my options in a split second. The cover I had built for four years—working double shifts, living in a tiny studio, hiding from the shadow world my father once inhabited—was crumbling before my eyes.
"My father's name is Nikolai," I replied smoothly in Russian. "And who are you to ask about him in a public dining room?"
Natalia let out a breath that sounded like a sob and a laugh combined. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a small leather card holder, and flipped it open just enough for me to see the silver seal inside.
It was the seal of the International Diplomatic Security Directorate—the very agency I had served before my father's mysterious downfall and sudden illness.
"I am Director Natalia Petrova," she murmured. "Your father didn't go rogue, Elena. He was framed by the very men Dominic Pierce works for."
Behind us, Dominic slammed his glass onto the table, shattering the stem. Clear liquid and crystal shards sprayed across the white linen.
"What the hell is going on here?" Dominic snarled, rising from his seat, his massive frame towering over the table. "You brought me here to talk about the shipping terminals, Petrova! Who is this girl?!"
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Natalia slowly turned her head to look at Dominic, her expression cold enough to freeze hell over.
"This 'waitress,' Mr. Pierce," Natalia declared in clear, resounding English that rang across the silent restaurant, "is Senior Cryptographer Elena Volkov. And she just saved your life by correcting your security codes before my agents raided your convoy."
