Chapter 2 The shadow

The Shadow

The clatter of the keyboard was usually a sound of comfort, a sound of order being imposed on chaos. Today, it felt like a futile attempt to nail down nothing. Katerina sat at her desk, the Neva Imports file open on her screen, but her focus was shattered. The image of the falcon lighter was burned into her mind, and all she could see on the screen was the falcon.

She’d spent the morning trying to normalize it. It’s just a piece of evidence, she told herself, an expensive trinket lost in a fire.

Yeah, it's too expensive to be a lost item. It's freaking gold but still, it's just a trinket.

But the logic bounced off the cold, hard kernel of fear it had planted in her gut. It was a fear that felt old. It's like watching a horror movie and just the demon is about to appear, the power goes out. Like that, but worse, she couldn't point out exactly where the fear was coming from. It just felt like... something bad was going to happen.

“Any progress?”

Mr. Henderson’s voice made her jump. He was hovering by her cubicle, his face pale and shiny under the office’s fluorescent lights.

“Still reviewing the fire marshal’s preliminary,” she said, exhaling. “There are some… inconsistencies.”

Henderson leaned in, lowering his voice. “The clients called again. They’re pushing for a settlement, and full value I tell you.” He wiped his brow with a crumpled handkerchief. “Perhaps… perhaps it would be best to expedite this one, Katerina. Some fires are just fires.”

She looked up at him. He looked... scared. He was scared. Was he feeling the same thing as her. The foreboding sense of doom.

It probably wasn’t just the usual pressure from a wealthy client. Henderson is an asshole, an asshole with ego for head. She's never seen the man this uneasy over a case, and that only made her own unease sharpen into a knife point.

“A swift settlement for a ‘total loss’ based on a ‘likely’ cause?” she looked away, yawning. “That’s not exactly our standard, is it, sir?”

Henderson shook his head. “Don't do this Volkova. Just… wrap it up, I'm the boss, you're not.” He retreated to his office like a crab scuttling back under a rock.

The conversation left a bad taste in her mouth. Defiance, a stubborn streak she rarely indulged, flared inside her. If he was this nervous, then obviously there was something shady going one, something that made her uneasy, and obviously it was something to find out.

She gulped in her energy drink and dragged her seat closer to the desk. Dimming the brightness on her system to keep the gossips away.

Henderson would flip if he finds out.

She spent the next hour digging deeper into Neva Imports’ corporate structure. It was a Russian doll of shell companies—one owned by another, registered in places like Cyprus and the Cayman Islands. It was sophisticated, designed to obscure. But Katerina was a bloodhound when it came to paperwork and finding a link wasn't that hard. A tiny thread connecting Neva to a larger, shadowy parent company called “Vostok Holdings.” A company that had no visible business, just a name, a registered name.

Now that's shady. She took a couple of pictures with her phone and turned off the system.

Needing air, she decided to grab a late lunch at a cafe a few blocks away, a place she went to for some piece and quiet and privacy to investigate whatever bothered her. The “Weeping Fig” was all warm wood and the rich smell of coffee. She found her usual spot in the corner, opened her laptop, and tried to lose herself in the puzzle.

She’d been there for twenty minutes when she felt a prickle on the back of her neck, the unmistakable feeling of being watched. She casually glanced around. The cafe was half-full, a student with headphones, a couple murmuring over their pastry, an older woman sitting alone by the window, elegantly dressed in a cream-colored coat, reading a newspaper.

The woman looked up and caught Katerina’s eye. She offered a polite smile. Katerina gave a tight nod and looked back at her screen, her heart beginning to thud.

Coincidence? She fucking hopes.

A few minutes later, lost in her investigation she didn't know when the woman approached. “I’m so sorry to bother you,” she said, her voice carrying a soft, melodic Russian accent. “But is this seat taken? Everywhere else is quite full.”

Uh... Wasn't she seating by the window?

Besides, there were several empty tables. Or maybe she was thinking much about it.

“Uh...no, go ahead,” she replied.

The woman sat beside her, smoothing her coat. She was beautiful in a severe way, with sharp cheekbones and eyes the color of winter sky. She continue her book or look at her phone, and just sat, sipping her tea, her presence quite unsettling.

“You are working very hard,” the woman said after a moment, her gaze flicking to Katerina’s dimmed laptop screen, which was filled with the Vostok Holdings data.

“Thanks?,” Katerina replied, clicking the screen shut.

“A difficult job, I imagine. Piecing things together. It requires a special mind.” The woman’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “You have been in London long?”

This wasn’t small talk. “A while,” Katerina deflected, starting to pack her things. The sanctuary of the cafe had vanished. “I'm sorry, do I know you?”

“It is a good city to get lost in,” the woman continued, her tone conversational. “To start over, a good place to get away from the past obviously… but then again, one can never run from those things. It can find you, anyway.”

Katerina squinted her eyes. She swore if this woman turned out to be a tarot card reader, and was just finding a way to spook her she'd make sure all the mugs ok the table get smashed on her head.

She stood up abruptly, the legs of her chair scraping loudly against the floor. “um...sure, I—I uh...I have to go.”

The woman simply nodded, that faint, knowing smile still on her lips. “Of course. Be careful, my dear. The rain has made the pavements very slippery.”

Katerina practically fled, the woman’s words echoing in her ears. One can't run from the past? What the fuck was she saying? Oh, she really thought London's crazy people rate was at one percent.

She held her bag tightly and looked bag to make sure the crazy woman wasn't following, and thankfully she wasn't.

Well, home it is.

She reached her building and climbed out of the car, fumbling with her keys in the lobby. Her hands were shaking. Upstairs, she double-locked her door and leaned against it, breathing heavily.

“This is such a weird Tuesday.”

She took in a deep breath and only then did she notice the new scent in the air. She ran out of incense last night and didn't light any of the scented candles.

Sniffed the air. Okay, this...this wasn't lavender or citrus or rose, it's a more subtle, expensive scent. She looked around, finding the source only to land her gaze on her small kitchen table, centered perfectly on the polished wood, was a single photograph.

It was the photo she had taken on her phone, she walked closer to it. It was the close-up of the gold falcon lighter.

Her blood ran cold. She hadn’t printed it. Obviously she was too tired from last night and almost drowned herself in the bathtub to ease the crippling fear.

And she hadn’t shown it to anyone.