Chapter 23 Nikolai
"I know," I said, and watched her world shatter.
Marlena stood frozen in the center of my war room, staring at Viktor's face on the screen like she was seeing a ghost.
In a way, she was.
"You've been hunting my father," she whispered. "This entire time. The marriage, the contract, everything—it was all about him."
"Yes."
The word hung between us, brutal and honest.
She turned to face me, her green eyes wide and wounded. "How long have you known he was my father?"
"Three years. I found the connection when I was tracking his money laundering operations through art fraud networks."
"And you married me to get to him."
"Yes."
Another truth, another knife twist.
She wrapped her arms around herself like she was trying to hold her pieces together. "Tell me why. Tell me what he did that made you destroy my life to get to him."
I'd known this moment would come eventually, had prepared myself for it, but standing here watching her break, the words felt heavier than I'd anticipated.
"Sit down," I said.
"I don't want to sit –"
"Sit. Down." My voice came out harder than intended. "You wanted the truth. I'm giving it to you. But you're going to sit while I tell it."
She moved to the chair by my desk, her movements mechanical, and I stood by the window overlooking Manhattan, gathering fifteen years of rage into something coherent.
"I was fifteen years old when my father was arrested," I began, my voice flat and cold. "Dmitri Volkov. Russian mob, arms dealing, money laundering –the works. He'd built an empire on blood and corruption."
I turned to face her. "Your father was his partner. Viktor Rousseau. They worked together for years, running weapons through Europe, laundering money through art dealers and auction houses."
Marlena's face had gone pale, but she said nothing.
"Then the FBI closed in. They had evidence, witnesses, everything they needed to bring down the entire operation." I moved closer, watching her reactions. "But Viktor made a deal. He testified against my father in exchange for immunity. Gave them every detail of Dmitri's operations, every connection, every crime."
Fifteen years ago.
The lawyer's office smelled like old books and expensive cologne, and I sat in a chair too big for my fifteen-year-old frame, listening to words that didn't make sense.
"Your father was murdered in prison yesterday," Mr. Petrov said, his voice careful and measured.
"Rival gang, settling old scores. I'm very sorry, Nikolai."
I didn't cry. Couldn't cry. Just stared at the man across the desk while my world collapsed.
"There are arrangements to be made," he continued. "Your father's assets are frozen pending investigation, but there's a small trust fund your mother can access –”
"Who did it?" My voice came out rough, older than my years. "Who ordered the hit?"
Petrov hesitated. "The prison investigation suggests –"
"I don't care what the investigation suggests. I want to know who's responsible."
He looked at me for a long moment, then pulled a file from his desk. "Viktor Rousseau testified against your father. His testimony sealed the conviction, made Dmitri vulnerable in prison." He pushed the file toward me. "The hits came from old enemies, but Rousseau put him there.
Without that testimony, your father would still be free."
I opened the file and saw Viktor's face for the first time. Handsome. Charming. A man who smiled while destroying families.
"Where is he now?" I asked.
"Witness protection, presumably. He disappeared after the trial."
I closed the file carefully, my hands steady despite the rage burning through me. "Thank you, Mr. Petrov."
Six months later, I found my mother hanging in our apartment.
The note was short, written in her elegant script on cream stationery.
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 stood there in that apartment, fifteen years old and completely alone, holding the note while paramedics worked around me.
Viktor Rousseau hadn't just destroyed my father. He'd destroyed my mother too. Convinced her to testify, promised her protection, then disappeared while she drowned in guilt.
And I was left with nothing but rage and a promise I made standing at her grave.
I would find Viktor Rousseau. I would make him pay for every life he'd destroyed. And I would do it slowly, carefully, making sure he suffered the way I'd suffered.
No matter how long it took.
"I spent fifteen years building this," I said, gesturing to the war room around us. "Every business deal, every connection, every dollar earned – all of it was in service of one goal. Finding Viktor and destroying him.”
Marlena's hands shook in her lap. "And I was just a tool. A way to draw him out."
"You were perfect bait. His daughter, married to the son of the man he betrayed. Viktor's been watching you for years, obsessed with you from a distance." I moved closer, standing over her.
"Marrying you was the only way to make him surface. The only way to make him vulnerable."
"So you blackmailed me. Forced me into this marriage. Used my brother's life as leverage." Her voice cracked. "All so you could get revenge on a man I haven't seen since I was eight years old."
"Yes."
The admission should have felt triumphant. This was the moment I'd been working toward, the truth finally laid bare.
Instead, watching Marlena sit there with tears streaming down her face, I felt something uncomfortably close to regret.
She looked up at me with those green eyes that had started to haunt my dreams, and I saw the exact moment she understood the full scope of what I'd done.
Not just married her under false pretenses. Not just used her as bait.
But destroyed any possibility that what had grown between us could ever be real.
"Get out," she whispered.
"Marlena – "
"Get out!" She stood abruptly, her voice breaking. "Get out of this room, out of my sight, just get away from me."
I should have left. Should have given her space to process.
Instead, I stood there watching her fall apart, watching her pale face crumple with betrayal and pain, and I realized with cold certainty that I'd just made
a terrible mistake.
Not in telling her the truth.
But in letting myself care what she thought of me after she knew it.