Chapter 5 Nikolai
0005 - Nikolai
The war room was silent except for the hum of computers.
From the forty-sixth floor, the skyline of Manhattan seemed almost peaceful – a cruel contrast to the storm I carried inside.
Six screens lined the wall, each one tracking a different thread of Viktor Rousseau's ghost trail. Fifteen years of hunting and somehow this man was still a shadow.
I leaned back into my chair as my eyes scanned the data I had memorized a thousand times.
My phone buzzed. Marcus.
“Tell me something I don't know,” I said without greeting.
“Good morning to you too, Sunshine,” He said, “Viktor's shell company just moved two million through a gallery in Athens. Same MO as Monaco.”
“Auction house?”
“Private sale. High-end forgeries, apparently." There was a pause. "Your wife's specialty.”
I didn't react to the word, “wife,”
“Already in your inbox. But Nikolai –” His tone shifted. “We've been chasing smoke for months. If he's this careful, maybe we need to reassess the approach.”
“The approach is working.”
"Is it? Because from where I'm sitting, you just married a woman to use as bait, and Viktor hasn't taken a single bite."
"He will." I ended the call before he could push further.
Marcus was right about something – Viktor was careful.
He'd spent the past five years underground, building new identities and erasing old ties.
But he had one weakness – Marlena.
I pulled up the file that I had compiled on her from three years of surveillance.
She didn't know her father was alive. She thought he had abandoned her and let her mother rot in prison while he disappeared.
But I knew the truth – Viktor was watching her obsessively.
He had people monitoring her in Paris, tracking her jobs, her brother's medical records.
But he had never made contact or revealed himself to her.
But he was always there – and now, she was here in my home and wearing my ring.
She was like bait on a hook and I was waiting for the shark to bite.
I switched to the internal security feed.
Camera twelve: Marlena's bedroom.
She was sitting on the floor of her closet, hidden behind designer dresses she'd probably never wanted. In her hands: that ratty leather jacket from Brooklyn.
She held it like a lifeline.
I should've had it burned with the rest of her old clothes. It was a liability – a reminder of who she used to be.
But I'd let it slide.
I watched her bury her face in the worn leather, shoulders shaking.
Something in my chest tightened but I ignored it.
She was a means to an end. Nothing more.
I switched cameras.
Fifteen years ago
The apartment was too quiet. I knew something was wrong the moment I stepped in. My mother always had music playing – Celine Dion, actually.
She said it reminded her of home.
But today; I heard nothing.
But today: silence.
"Mom?"
No answer.
I dropped my backpack by the door, that teenage annoyance already forming. She was probably in her studio or lost in one of her paintings.
“Mom, I'm home. What's for –”
My body went rigid at the doorway. She was hanging from the ceiling fan.
My brain could not process it. Her face was purple and swollen. Her eyes were open but not seeing.
A chair lay on its side beside her.
I don't remember screaming or calling 911 – only the feeling of falling into a void that had no bottom.
I found a note on the kitchen table.
My dearest Nikolai,
I'm so sorry. I can't live with what I've done. Your father is dead because of me. I testified. I broke our family. I destroyed everything.
Forgive me.
I love you. Always.
\- Mama
I read it seventeen times before the paramedics finally arrived.
She blamed herself for testifying. For trying to save us from my father's world.
And the man who'd convinced her to do it? The man who'd promised her protection, promised her safety, promised her that destroying my father would save our family?
Viktor Rousseau.
He'd used her. Manipulated her. And then he'd disappeared, leaving her to drown in guilt.
I was fifteen years old, standing in a New York apartment with my mother's body and a rage so pure it turned my blood to ice.
And that day, I made a promise – Viktor Rousseau must pay.
He would pay for my father, my mother and everything he had taken from me and I'd spend the rest of my life making sure he suffered before he died.
I blinked, pulling myself to the present.
Fifteen years later, and I was closer than I'd ever been.
And all because of Marlena. I pulled up camera twelve again.
She'd stopped crying. Now she was just sitting there, staring at nothing, looking small and lost in that massive closet.
She had her mother's eyes. I'd noticed that the first time I saw her surveillance photos. Elena Rousseau had been beautiful once before prison broke her, then Viktor’s betrayal hollowed her out.
Marlena has that same beauty but hers was still intact, for now.
My phone buzzed again. This time, it was a text from Irina.
Miss Rousseau barely touched her dinner. Should I be concerned?
I typed back, No.
Let her sulk. It didn't matter. She'd signed the contract. She was mine for the next year.
After that? She'd disappear with her brother and ten million dollars, and I'd finally have Viktor's head on a spike.
Clean and simple.
So why the hell was I watching her on this camera feed?
I switched the feed to camera nine: the gym.
Julian had put her through hell this morning. I'd watched the whole session, noting how she'd struggled, how she'd wanted to quit but didn't.
She was stubborn, which was good. Weak baits didn't attract sharks.
"Sir?" Anton's voice came through the intercom. "Mr. Sterling is here for the seven o'clock briefing.”
I glanced at the time. Six fifty-eight.
He was a control freak, just like me.
“Send him up,”
I closed Marlena's feed and pulled up the financials and by the time Marcus walked in, I was back in business mode.