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19. Could haves and Maybes

September 2026,
Ovzdusia, Soare-Luna Kingdom

Alyanna

"I refuse to believe this!" I snapped. "You cannot go around tarnishing people's names based on assumptions. And do not forget that this is my father that you're talking about."

I refused to believe that Dad was involved in criminal activities. He was a good man and he couldn't have been doing business with mafia families. He had too much conscience for that. And it wasn't like he needed the money. Our family had been blessed with a life full of comfort.

"I know it might seem hard to believe, Alya, but these are not assumptions; they are calculated deductions," Mikhail said.

"Are you going to let him keep spewing this bullshit?" I asked Andrei, annoyed that he was choosing this moment to remain silent.

He was more than ready to bite Jay's head off almost an hour ago. He was ready to go toe to toe with Kate until she agreed with him. He insisted that we have a 'family discussion' over and over so that we could talk about things privately, without the presence of my friends. And here we were, having the private family meeting that he wanted but he had yet to speak a word even after Mikhail had basically slandered our father's name by saying Dad was dirty.

"Do you have more concrete proof?" Andrei lifted his head and asked Mikhail.

"On my way here, I went through the gallery's financial records," Mikhail answered and lay a briefcase on the table in front of us. "Alaric wasn't very famous in his early days and barely made any profits. He made decent money but most of it was poured into paying the rent of Belmont Hill and upgrading the space."

"Dad owned it for as long as I can remember." I corrected him.

"He leased it," Mikhail said. "It's all in here if you want to double-check." He tapped the briefcase.

I frowned. I didn't know that. But I didn't need to double-check the facts. I could trust him to say the truth, at least in this case.

"It's understandable for you to not have all the facts straight. You were a child and adults don't really talk about these things with children," Mikhail said gently to not hurt my feelings. But the way he said it made me feel like a child and that annoyed me greatly. I crossed my arms and gestured for him to carry on with what he was saying.

"But after he started doing business with those families, his sales increased, and the value of his artwork went up. The paintings that used to sell for a few thousand started selling for tens and then later hundreds of thousands. He started making so much money that in a couple of years, he was able to buy Belmont Hill. A few of his latest works even sold for millions of dollars."

I opened my mouth to reason it but Mikhail didn't give me an opportunity to do so.

"And yes, you can say that he grew organically or that people just started to appreciate his talents around the same time and that it was all just a coincidence. But the only people who appreciated his work for a while were people in business with Moretti Holdings. Only after his paintings reached the hundred thousand dollar mark did the other, common folk realize that Alaric had talent and they started buying his artwork too. If you still call all of these things a coincidence then you're blind."

I looked at Andrei, waiting for him to say something. Anything. But he kept looking down, deep in his thoughts.

When he finally met up and looked at Mikhail, he had a somber expression on his face. "Do you think his death could have been related to this?" he asked in a rough voice.

Tears scalded my eyes. No. It couldn't be.

"His death was an accident." It was. We knew this. But the brothers seemed to have begun pondering over this. "Why would anyone want to harm the person who is helping them out? It's like killing the goose that lays golden eggs." I was grasping at straws here. "They couldn't be this dumb, right?"