Disclaimer: I don't own the Grisha Trilogy and its characters – it belongs to Leigh Bardugo. I do not own the Shadow & Bone TV series, which was developed by Eric Heisserer for Netflix and based on Leigh Bardugo's books.
For the Darklina Halloween Fest.
cw godfather/goddaughter and murder.
I have no real idea about the FBI recruitment criteria, but it would probably be difficult for a Russian emigrant to become a high-ranking FBI agent – please just suspend your disbelief. Also, apologies for the inevitable inaccuracies in the descriptions of the investigation.
It takes three deaths before the detectives realise they're dealing with a serial killer and pass the case on to the FBI, where it is assigned to Aleksander's team.
The victims are all women, but there are no immediately obvious similarities apart from that.
Different ages, body types, races, wealth, religious affiliations and employment.
It takes a little more investigation for them to realise one thing the women have in common – they've all either recently avoided jail time or just been released from insultingly light sentences for various criminal actions.
"Could be a vigilante," Zoya suggests one evening, "looking to punish them for their sins."
The first had been embezzling heavily from the charity she worked for. The second had killed two teenagers in a car accident while driving under the influence of alcohol. The third had been dealing drugs to customers as young as ten and eleven.
"The victims aren't killed violently, though," says Nadia, "different methods but all pretty quick and with no signs of torture."
"There's some hesitance," David adds, "they know what they're doing, but more in theory than in practice."
"Mmm," Aleksander nods, "that probably means these are their first kills. Still, they aren't sloppy or leaving evidence behind, which suggests they have been planning very carefully. These kills are the work of someone intelligent, who has probably researched a great deal about crime scenes and how to avoid leaving evidence behind."
They dig around into local court records for the relevant cases, trying to see if there is someone – a judge, court official, lawyer, reporter or witness – who might have been involved in all three trials.
There is nothing, though. The three cases aren't particularly similar and there doesn't appear to be any overlap when it comes to personnel or witnesses involved.
"Widen the search," Aleksander suggests, "look for newspapers who ran stories about all three cases and which reporters might have written or researched for the articles."
They still have no real leads when a fourth body turns up.
"Shot, stabbed, drowned, and now poisoned. Have we found a recent case involving Ms Brum?"
"She was a doctor who had apparently been making her patients worse so that she could swoop in, save them and look like a hero."
"Was she prosecuted?"
David shakes her head, "on paid leave while they investigated further – they hadn't concluded anything for sure before she died."
"That information would be harder to find than court cases," Nadia notes, "we could ask the hospital if there were any information requests made, or reporters sniffing around."
Aleksander sighs, "we'll send someone over, but my gut tells me we won't find anything that way – whoever this unsub is, I don't think they're going to make it easy for us to identify them."
"Well, we need to make some progress soon," Zoya huffs, "the press is all over this and so far we've got pretty much nothing."
Aleksander sends a silent apology to Alina for another evening that she'll be left on her own.
She understands, though. His job is a demanding one, late nights a guarantee at least three or four times a week, often more.
"Right," he tells his team, "let's go over the evidence again."
A fifth body is discovered less than two weeks later, the victim having been suffocated.
Aleksander sends Alina a message, telling her that he'll be late home again, and assigns different tasks to his team.
Then, he settles down with the files and decides to go over them yet again, hoping to find something they've missed.
David raises his hand one evening, four days after the most recent murder, "I think I … I might … I have something … maybe."
They're all tired, running on take-out and coffee, and Aleksander just waves at him to get on with it.
"I took the names of the victims, trying to see if there was any pattern to that, and I found this."
He writes all the names out on the whiteboard, highlighting the first letter in each.
Sylvi Winter
Aditi Hilli
Sabina Garin
Hanne Brum
Alys Van Eck
"It spells out Sasha," David adds unnecessarily.
Aleksander can hear the rest of the team speculating about what it means. Is Sasha the name of a woman the unsub loved, or someone they hated? One of them is already calling their technical analyst to see if they can get a list of women named Sasha in the area.
He doesn't need to listen to their speculations, though. Aleksander knows the significance of the name Sasha. And, combined with a mental re-examination of some of the facts of the case, it makes him fairly confident about who their unsub is.
Aleksander keeps his Russian heritage as quiet as possible. It's known, of course, but in an organisation like the FBI, it's best to just draw as little attention to it as possible.
His colleagues and friends here in Washington DC call him Morozov or Aleksander or, very occasionally, Aleks. But there is only one person in this country who refers to him by the diminutive of Sasha, a name he otherwise only hears when he returns to Russia to see his mother, Ivan and Fedyor.
He lets the conversation continue, adds in his own (false) theories so that it doesn't seem like he's hiding anything.
When it reaches midnight, he insists everyone goes home so that they can get at least a few hours of sleep.
Then, Aleksander gets into his car and drives home in a daze.
Alina's light is still on.
She'd chosen to study Art at Georgetown so she could stay at home and commute, and where most freshman are regularly out socialising and partying, the reason she stays up late is usually to work on one of her paintings.
Tonight, however, she's curled up in her armchair reading The Anatomy of Motive.
"Sasha!" she grins at him when he steps into her room, "you're back earlier than I expected."
Aleksander just looks at her. His goddaughter, who came to live with him when her parents died not long after her fifteenth birthday.
He's known her for her whole life, has seen her grow from baby to toddler to child to teenager to young woman.
Intelligent and talented and sweet. She coos over every dog they meet, volunteers at soup kitchens, donates to charities, teaches their neighbour's daughter to play piano, and paints murals at the local nursing homes and group homes.
He tries to think about whether there were any signs he missed, but he can't recall anything concerning.
"What's wrong?" she asks him, confused by his silence.
"Alina … where were you on 12th January?"
She laughs, "that was almost four months ago, Sasha. I've got no idea, but I can check my –"
"What about 2nd February, 15th March, 21st April or 3rd May?"
His goddaughter frowns at him. She recognises those dates – anyone who has been paying minimal attention to the news recently recognises those dates.
"Sasha … what are you asking?"
He begins to pace.
"The first letter of the first names of each of the victims spell out Sasha, a nickname of mine that no one in this country uses except for you. The victims were all found with a miniature reproduction of a van Gogh painting – he is your favourite artist."
"Sasha," she shakes her head, "loads of people love van Gogh. And there are 10,540 people in the US with the name Sasha, so it's not like it's a super rare name."
"How do you know that?"
"Know what?"
"10,540 people named Sasha in the US. It's not exactly a common fact, Alina. It's something you have to research."
She shrugs, and it's only because he knows her so well that he can tell her shoulders are tense, "I got bored and looked up some stats one evening. There are apparently 14,840 people called Alina."
"This isn't a joke," Aleksander hisses, "and it's not a game."
"I know that," she retorts, suddenly as cold a winter's storm.
"Alina … Alinochka … talk to me, please."
"You're always away," she whispers after a few moments.
"What?"
"For your cases. You travel so much and I know that you try and call, but with your work and time-zones it never seems to work out. And if you're here then you're still busy and distracted. I just … sometimes it seems like you only pay attention to your work."
Aleksander moves slowly, brushes a hand over Alina's hair.
His goddaughter. The girl he helped raise. The young woman he is responsible for.
He tries to remember the last time they'd had a meal without it being interrupted by one of his work calls. Can't recall the most recent weekend they were able to go to a museum or art gallery together. He's always tried hard to make time for Alina but, thinking back on it, he realises he hasn't made the effort he should have since Alina started classes at Georgetown.
"You wanted to get my attention?"
Is it really as simple a motive as that? His Alina, feeling lonely and insecure, kills fivepeople, seemingly without remorse, just to make him see her.
"I … I didn't want to do it."
Tears drip down her face. He's never been able to bear seeing her cry, so he tugs her up so he can take her seat and pull her into his lap, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.
"I just … I tried to bring it up a few times, but we always got interrupted. And then I thought, maybe if you saw a message in one of your cases then you'd have to talk to me."
"Alinochka …"
"They were bad people," she mutters, almost to herself, "I checked, Sasha, I really did."
He hushes her, rubs comforting circles on her bare arms. Truthfully, it's something of a lukewarm defence – she's right that none of the victims were pillars of society, but their sins were also not exactly the sort of thing that tended to have a death sentence attached.
What can Aleksander do, though?
Those women are already dead and gone. There is nothing anyone can do to bring them back.
However, Alina is still here, and the thought of her being locked up for life, of being tarred with the same brush as the sick and twisted serial killers he's seen over the years, is terrifying.
And what if she's put in the same facility as some of the prisoners he's helped lock away? Prison is a dangerous enough place, but there would be a target on her back thanks to her connection to an FBI agent.
Aleksander cannot let her go to prison. He won't let that happen.
"I need you to tell me everything, Alinochka," he orders her sternly.
She does as she's told, explaining how she found and killed her victims, the way she disguised herself, where she got the van Gogh reproductions and where the murder weapons are now.
Although he finds himself horrified by her actions, he cannot help but be a little proud too. She's covered her tracks extremely well, leaving no trace as far as he can tell. There shouldn't be any reason for anybody but him to suspect Alina has anything to do with these murders.
"Are you going to send me away, Sasha?" she asks when she's finished her clinical description of Alys Van Eck's murder.
She sounds so despondent and fragile, reminding him of how she'd been in the days immediately following the car accident that had killed her parents.
He shakes his head, "no, Alinochka, no, of course not."
Alina is the most important person in the world to him, the very best thing in his life. And he will do whatever it takes to keep her safe and happy, even if he damns himself to Hell in the process.
"No more, though," he adds, "you must swear to me that this is all over, Alinochka."
She nods fervently, eyes bright, delicate fingers clutching at his tear-stained shirt.
"I'm going to take care of this, Alinochka," he promises her, "I'll sort it all out."
Her grip on his shirt tightens and, before he can even think to stop her, Alina stretches up and kisses him.
It's messy and the angle is awkward and this is your fucking goddaughter, for fuck's sake.
He should pull away. He should stop this right now, especially considering their topic of conversation.
Instead, he only cups her cheeks and shifts position slightly so he can kiss her more comfortably.
Aleksander loves his goddaughter, has done since the moment Anton put her into her arms and she wrapped her tiny little fist around his pinky finger.
He isn't sure exactly when that love shifted and changed, became something less platonic, but the actual realisation of this change comes to him in this very moment, as she groans happily into his mouth, one of her hands deftly unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt so she can press her hand against his bare chest.
Aleksander has never been able to deny Alina and he's not about to start now. A small part of his mind is screaming at him – this is fucked up, it's fucked up and wrong and she's killed five people – but Aleksander finds it surprisingly easy to ignore that little voice.
They've been trained to disassociate slightly from the crimes they investigate. They aren't heartless, but they have to be able to do their job and that isn't possible if they're constantly disturbed or depressed or sickened by what they've witnessed. That training makes it easier now, allows him to avoid thinking too much on how they came to this and what Alina – with her sunshine smile and warm heart – has done.
"Will you stay with me tonight, Sasha?" she asks breathlessly once they've broken apart, her cheeks flushed a pretty pink, "please."
There's so much he needs to do. Plans forming in his mind to fix this whole situation so that they can move on.
How can he resist, though? She's doe-eyed and pouting, warm and pliant in his arms.
"Alright, Alinochka," he agrees with no real resistance.
His plans can wait until tomorrow. For now, he wants nothing else but to have Alina curled up in his arms.
11 May 2023
SERIAL KILLER DIES IN CONFRONTATION WITH FBI
The van Gogh killer – named as DC resident Mal Oretsev, 23 – has died in a shootout with FBI agents after they confronted him at his hunting cabin.
A spokesperson for the FBI stated that evidence taken from the cabin confirms that Oretsev was responsible for the deaths of five women local to the DC area, although no details about motive have yet been released.
Agents zeroed in on Oretsev as a suspect following a new connection that was identified after the death of Alys Van Eck, 20. A surveillance team followed him for several days before concluding that he was close to choosing his next victim.
The FBI's attempts to detain Oretsev peacefully were unsuccessful and a shootout ensued after he shot at law enforcement officers with an automatic weapon. Two officers sustained minor injuries and were later treated in …
One month later
"I can't believe you're retiring!"
"I'm not retiring, Nazyalenskya. I'm simply switching jobs so I can actually have my weekends and evenings back."
"So boring," she wrinkles her nose.
"You'll understand eventually," he tells her.
Aleksander had been just like her once, married to his job, chasing the thrill of solving cases. There comes a time, though, when the horrendous hours and interrupted holidays get to be too much and you want to take a step back.
There comes a time, he thinks, when a person realises how damaging their constant absence can be to those they love best.
This new role – teaching at the Academy, and occasionally consulting where necessary – will allow him to spend more time with Alina. Hopefully, she will never again feel forced into taking such drastic measures.
Alina herself is tucked under his arm, having refused to leave his side during the whole leaving party.
Aleksander is hyper-aware of her warmth and the way she is pressed up against him. It makes him a little nervous, worried that his team – well-trained federal agents – will somehow be able to read the truth in his expression.
Malyen Oretsev had been the perfect fall guy, and his team have shown no signs of questioning the evidence trail that Aleksander had carefully planted. It had been Zoya who had made the shot that killed Oretsev and, although the official investigation is still in process, everyone agrees that it was a good shot. The killings have stopped now and, as far as the FBI are concerned, the case is closed.
Still, Aleksander wonders whether anyone on the team thinks it is strangely convenient, the evidence they had discovered after the fifth death, suddenly going from nothing to enough to nail Oretsev to the wall in the matter of a few days.
And even if they aren't concerned about the case, can they tell that something has shifted between Aleksander and Alina? Are they going to confront him about the way his goddaughter – over two decades his junior – is clinging to him?
Perhaps he is simply paranoid, though. He and Alina have always been close and no one seems to think there is anything out of the ordinary in the way she sticks close to him.
"When do you start your new position?" asks Nadia.
"Not until September," he says, "Alina's just finishing up her exams and then we're going to travel in Europe for the summer. It's been too long since we had a proper holiday."
He then leaves Zoya, Nadia and David giving Alina tips on the best places to visit in Europe while he slips away to his office to collect a final box, the last of the items he hasn't yet carted home.
After checking he has everything, he spots a few files relating to their recent cases that are being left behind for Zoya – who is taking over his role – to finalise the reports.
Aleksander flicks open the one on top and finds himself looking down at a glossy photograph of Malyen Oretsev.
He expects to feel a flicker of guilt – the young man had been convicted of a number of petty crimes in the last seven years, and was certainly not an upstanding citizen, but he had not been guilty of anything like the five murders that Aleksander had pinned on him – but he finds that he feels nothing at all except satisfaction at a job well done.
Maybe that is what this whole incident has taught him. Aleksander has always assumed he would uphold the law, even if someone close to him was the criminal in question. As it turns out, that isn't the case at all.
As it turns out, Alina is the exception to the rule.
He closes the file, determined to forget all about Malyen Oretsev.
Aleksander will choose Alina every single time.
Always.
Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it.