No One Could Serve the Foreign Tycoon — Until the Waitress Switched Languages!
Chapter 4
Emma didn’t sleep that night.
Alexander had taken her to a secure apartment overlooking the river. The place belonged to one of his companies and had no sign outside.
She sat at the kitchen table while rain streaked the windows.
The brass key rested beside her hand.
For hours she tried to remember anything unusual about her father.
His notebooks.
His habits.
His old desk.
His favorite chair.
The locked drawer in his study.
Then she remembered something.
A phrase.
Her father had once told her when she was twelve:
“Some doors are not locked to keep people out.”
Emma stood suddenly.
Alexander looked up.
“What?”
“My father’s desk.”
They drove to Emma’s childhood home before sunrise.
The house had been sold after Daniel’s death, but Emma still had a key.
Inside, dust covered the furniture.
She walked directly to the old study.
The desk remained.
Emma opened the drawers.
Nothing.
Alexander watched.
“Try the bottom.”
She pulled the drawer completely out.
Behind it was a narrow wooden compartment.
Emma stared.
“I never knew this was here.”
The brass key fit.
A click sounded.
Inside lay a small black notebook.
Emma’s hands shook.
Alexander didn’t touch it.
“You open it.”
She did.
The first pages contained numbers.
Dates.
Shipping routes.
Names.
Then she found a page written in Russian.
Her father had written:
If Emma finds this, tell her the truth before anyone else does.
Emma stopped breathing.
The next line was worse.
The accident was not an accident.
She covered her mouth.
Alexander stepped closer.
“Keep reading.”
The next page contained several names.
One was Victor Carter.
Emma’s uncle.
Another was Alexander Volkov.
But beside Alexander’s name was a single word:
Protected.
Emma looked up.
“My uncle was involved.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew.”
“I suspected.”
She turned another page.
At the bottom was a sentence written in English.
The person who ordered my death sits closer to Emma than she thinks.
Emma’s eyes filled with tears.
“Who?”
Alexander looked at the page.
“I don’t know.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
They both froze.
Emma whispered, “We’re not alone.”
Alexander raised one finger.
Silence.
Another creak.
Then footsteps.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Alexander closed the notebook.
“Take it.”
“What?”
“Take the notebook.”
He moved toward the staircase.
Emma whispered, “What are you going to do?”
“Find out who followed us.”
A shadow crossed the hallway.
Alexander disappeared from view.
A second later, there was a struggle.
Emma heard a grunt.
A heavy object struck the wall.
Then silence.
“Alexander?”
No answer.
Emma grabbed the notebook.
The front door opened.
A man stepped into the study.
Emma knew him.
She had seen him at her father’s funeral.
Her uncle Victor.
He smiled sadly.
“Emma.”
She stepped backward.
Victor closed the door behind him.
“You should never have opened that drawer.”
