“I’ve been building a case for six years,” Nikita said. “Not against you. For you.”
“Papa,” she said.
Yes, she thought. But not the way you mean.
Nikita Von James had always been the quiet one in the family, the kind of quiet that made people uncomfortable. Not because she was shy—she wasn’t—but because she listened. She listened to the rustle of secrets in the walls of their old Victorian house, to the whispers her mother pretended not to hear at night, to the tiny, frantic heartbeat of the mouse trapped under the floorboards. nikita von james
Leonid’s hands trembled. For the first time in her life, Nikita saw her father cry. Not the loud, dramatic grief of movies. The quiet, drowning kind. The kind that happens when you realize you sold your soul for nothing.
Samir left. Nikita finished her degree. And then she went home.
Not in a diary—diaries could be read, could be used. She wrote in code, on loose sheets of music paper, hiding the words between the staves of Chopin nocturnes. Her mother, who drank sherry from morning until the world blurred into something bearable, never noticed. Her father assumed she was just practicing piano. “I’ve been building a case for six years,” Nikita said
And in the end, Leonid Von James—fixer, killer, father—did the only truly brave thing he had ever done. He signed.
Her father, Leonid Von James, was a fixer. Not the heroic kind. The kind who made problems disappear. People, mostly. But also evidence, loyalties, memories. He worked for a man named Sokolov, whose face was as smooth and empty as a porcelain mask. Nikita had seen him once, at a charity gala. He had patted her head and said, “Such a polite girl.” His fingers had been cold.
“Sokolov killed Mama. Not the stairs, not the sherry. He sent a man. I have the witness statement. I have the medical records they tampered with. I have everything.” Yes, she thought
By sixteen, Nikita had catalogued seventeen names, five locations, and three dates of “shipments” that didn’t appear on any legitimate manifest. She had learned to pick the lock on her father’s study, to photograph documents with a disposable camera, to replace them so perfectly that even his paranoia didn’t twitch. She had also learned that her mother’s “accidental” fall down the stairs two years ago had been no accident. It had been a warning. To Leonid. Stay in line.
She was practicing something else entirely.
Her father blinked. “What?”
She also met a boy. His name was Samir, and he was gentle in a way that terrified her. He brought her tea without asking. He noticed when she hadn’t slept. He once said, “You look like you’re carrying something heavy. You don’t have to carry it alone.”