Chapter 21 Nikolai
The security alert came through at 2:07 AM.
Motion detected. Forty-fifth floor. Study.
I pulled up the feed on my laptop, already knowing what I'd see.
Marlena.
She stood outside my study door, two hairpins in her hand, working the lock with practiced precision.
I should have stopped her, gone downstairs and confronted her.
Instead, I watched.
The lock gave. She slipped inside, using her phone's flashlight to navigate the darkness carefully, moving like someone who'd done this before.
She went straight for my desk and opened drawers, searching for something specific.
What are you looking for, Marlena?
Then she found the locked drawer.
My chest tightened. I'd left that drawer accessible on purpose – the lock complex enough to seem secure, but not impossible to pick – because I'd known this moment would come eventually.
She'd start asking questions and digging, and I needed to control what she found.
It took her five minutes to crack it, which was longer than I'd expected. She was good.
The folder came out. She opened it, and I watched her face change as she read through the evidence that I'd been tracking her for years.
Her hands shook as she kept reading, kept digging deeper.
Then she found the photograph.
Elena and Dmitri. Moscow 1995.
Her reaction was visceral. She went completely still, staring at the image like it had burned her.
Then her face crumpled and she looked confused and horrified.
All the things I'd expected to see but hadn't prepared myself to witness.
She flipped the photo over, read the inscription, then took pictures with her phone.
Smart girl. She was documenting evidence.
She put everything back carefully, locked the drawer, and left the study like a ghost.
I closed the security feed and sat in the darkness of my office, guilt twisting in my chest like a knife.
She deserved the truth but the truth would destroy everything.
Not just my plan for Viktor. Everything between us; the fragile, complicated thing that had started to grow despite the lies we'd built it on.
If she knew the whole truth, she'd never forgive me and I wasn't ready for that yet.
My phone rang at seven AM. It was Marcus calling.
"Tell me something good," I said without greeting.
"Viktor's network is responding." His voice carried an edge of excitement. "Your marriage to Marlena has them talking. One of Viktor's old associates reached out through a secure channel."
My pulse quickened. "Who?"
"Won't say yet. But they want a meeting. They claim to have information about Viktor's current location."
"It could be a trap."
"Of course it's a trap." Marcus laughed. "But it's also exactly what we've been waiting for. Viktor knows you married his daughter. He's making a move."
The pieces were falling into place. Finally.
Fifteen years of planning, and the bait was working.
"Set up the meeting," I said. "But maximum security. I want –"
"Already on it. Location will be neutral ground, public enough to discourage violence."
"When?"
"Next week. I'll send details once they're confirmed."
After he hung up, I should have felt triumph and satisfaction that the plan was working.
Instead, all I felt was conflict because using Marlena had been simple when she was just a means to an end.
Now she was something else. Something I didn't have a name for.
I avoided her all day, staying on the forty-sixth floor, working, planning and trying to focus on Viktor instead of the guilt eating at me.
But by evening, I couldn't help myself.
I pulled up the security feed to her room.
She sat on the floor by the window, her laptop open, but she wasn't looking at it.
She was crying, quietly
Her shoulders shook. She pressed her hand to her mouth, trying to muffle the sounds and I sat there, one floor above her, watching through a camera like the monster I was.
Every instinct screamed at me to go to her and explain.
To tell her the truth about Elena and Dmitri, about why I'd chosen her, about the connection between our families that went deeper than she could imagine but I couldn't because the truth would lead to questions I couldn't answer yet and revelations that would destroy her completely.
She wasn't ready and I wasn't ready to lose her, so I stayed where I was, watching her break, hating myself more with every passing second.
This was the price of revenge. I'd always known there would be a price.
I just hadn't expected it to feel like this.
My phone buzzed as a text from Marcus came in.
Meeting confirmed. Next Thursday. Location and details to follow. This is it, Nikolai. Everything we've worked for.
I stared at the message, then back at the security feed.
Marlena had stopped crying. Now she just sat there, staring out at the city, her face empty.
I'd done that to her. I'd broken something inside her that might never heal.
And for what? Revenge on a man who'd destroyed my family decades ago?
Justice for my mother, who'd died believing she'd failed me?
At what point did the cost become too high?
The answer should have been simple but watching Marlena sit there alone, drowning in lies I'd fed her, I wasn't sure anymore.
The plan was working. Viktor was responding. Everything I'd built toward for fifteen years was finally coming together but the woman one floor below me – the woman I'd married as bait – was falling apart and I was the reason why.
I closed the security feed before I could do something stupid.
Like going to her and telling her the truth or like choosing her over revenge because I'd already made my choice.
Fif
teen years ago, standing at my mother's grave, I'd chosen this path.
And I would see it through, even if it destroyed us both.