Chapter 25 Nikolai
I'd done this to her.
I'd broken this beautiful, sharp clever woman and made her into someone who flinched when I got too close.
The words rose in my throat, desperate to escape: Your mother knew my father. They were lovers, maybe more. Viktor betrayed us both. And I married you because I thought using you would lead me to him, but now I don't know if I can go through with it because you've become –
“Nothing,” I said instead, “Never mind,”
Her smile faltered for a second and she looked disappointed but it all disappeared.
"Okay," she said quietly
I stood, needing to put distance between us before I did something irreversibly stupid.
Like telling her the truth or pulling her into my arms and never letting go.
Like choosing her over the revenge I had spent years planning.
I leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her forehead.
Her skin was warm against my lips, and she smelled like vanilla and candy.
“Good night, Marlena,”
“Good night,”
I walked away, forcing myself not to take another look back.
My office was dark apart from the city lights that came in through the window.
I closed the door behind me, locked it and stood there in the silence.
Then I punched the wall. Once, twice,three times. Pain raided my knuckles. My skin split and blood welled up.
I punched it again anyway. The physical pain was cleaner and clearer than the emotional type. At least, it was something I could control.
My hand throbbed as I wrapped it in a cloth from my desk drawer, the white fabric quickly turning red.
I was sure I'd broken something. A knuckle or two, maybe but it didn't matter.
I sat in my chair, staring at my bloody hand, and let reality crash over me.
On Thursday, I had the meeting with Pavel, the first real lead in years. Everything I’d worked for was finally coming together. But Marlena – she'd found the photos and read through the files and documented everything in her phone.
She was becoming more to me than I'd ever expected.
She was my waking thought. Her welfare bothered me but I couldn't care about that right now. I needed to focus on revenge.
And not on her smile.
Thursday. Pavel. Viktor.
That's what mattered.
Everything else was just noise, even if that noise sounded suspiciously like my heart breaking.
Marlena's pov
I waited for three hours after Nikolai left.
I spent my time pacing in my room, checking my phone and listening for the sound of the elevator that would mean he'd come back but the penthouse remained silent.
Anton had left with him. I'd watched from my window as they both got into the black Mercedes and drove away. Irina was gone for the day. The other staff had finished their shifts.
So I was alone, finally.
The keycard felt like fire in my pocket as I rode the elevator up to the forty-sixth floor.
I'd stolen it last week from one of the cleaners, a young woman named Sofia who always left her supplies unattended while she took smoke breaks on the terrace.
She probably hadn't even noticed that it was missing.
The elevator dinged, doors sliding open to reveal a heavy steel door with a biometric scanner beside it.
My heart hammered so hard against my rib, I feared it might crack them.
This was it. The forbidden floor. The place Nikolai had explicitly told me never to enter.
The place where he kept all his secrets.
I swiped the keycard.
The scanner beeped red. Access denied.
Shit.
I tried again, holding the card steadier this time.
It beeped again, but it was still red.
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold the card.
Come on, come on.
It turned green at the third try.
The lock clicked, and the door swung open with a hydraulic hiss.
Cold air rushed out, making me shiver.
I stepped inside before I could lose my nerve.
The forty-sixth floor was nothing like the rest of the penthouse. There was no marble and no designer furniture
It was just one massive room that looked like something out of a spy movie.
The walls were covered in screens, at least twenty of them, all glowing in the darkness. Maps tacked up with red pins marking locations.
Whiteboards filled with notes in Nikolai's sharp handwriting, filing cabinets lining the far wall and in the center of it all, a massive desk with three computer monitors.
My breath caught.
Every single screen showed the same man.
Different photos. Different angles. Different years, judging by the backgrounds and clothing but the same man.
Viktor Rousseau.
My father.
Except he looked different in each photo. He had different hair color, different facial structure, like he'd had surgery to change his appearance over and over.
One photo showed him with blonde hair and a beard. Another with dark hair and no facial hair at all. A third with silver hair and glasses that changed the shape of his face.
Cold sweat broke out across my back despite the air conditioning.
How many faces did he have? How many times had he changed himself to stay hidden?
I moved closer to the screens, my legs unsteady.
Beneath each photo was information: dates, locations, known associates. A timeline of his movements over the past fifteen years.
Nikolai had been tracking him this entire time.
My eyes scanned the walls, taking in more details.
Financial records showing money laundering through art galleries – my forgeries, I realized with a sick twist in my stomach.
Surveillance photos of people I didn't recognize. Names circled in red. Lines connecting one person to another in an intricate web and there, on the desk, a thick file.
The label read: ROUSSEAU BAIT PROTOCOL
My name was written underneath in bold letters:
MARLENA ISABEL ROUSSEAU
My hands shook as I picked it up the heavy file and opened it.
The first page was a timeline:
Year 1: Establish surveillance on Marlena Rousseau
Year 2: Map her forgery network
Year 3: Confirm connection to Viktor through Elena
Year 4: Wait for optimal leverage point
Year 5: Execute marriage protocol
Five years.
He'd been watching me for five years. He'd been planning this and waiting for the perfect moment to trap me.
I flipped to the next page, tears already blurring my vision.
PROTOCOL OBJECTIVES:
1\. Marry Marlena Rousseau to create public connection
2\. Leverage media attention to draw Viktor from hiding
3\. Use Marlena's emotional vulnerability (brother's illness) to ensure compliance
4\. Monitor all communication for contact from Viktor's network
5\. Eliminate Viktor Rousseau upon capture
The words swam in front of me.
Use Marlena's emotional vulnerability to ensure compliance.
I really was just a chess piece. A tool. A weapon he'd carefully positioned and deployed.
Tears fell onto the paper, making dark spots that spread across the typed text.
My fingers fumbled for my phone and took photos frantically.
My hands kept shaking as I took the photos.
The last page was a handwritten note in Nikolai's angular script:
Subject shows strong protective instinct toward brother. Primary leverage point confirmed. Emotional manipulation will be more effective than physical coercion. Recommend maintaining distance to prevent attachment complications.
Attachment complications.
That's what I was – a complication he'd tried to avoid.
I took a photo of that page too, my vision so blurred I could barely see the screen.
Then I closed the file, put it back exactly where I'd found it, and ran.
The elevator ride down felt like falling.
My legs barely carried me to my room. I locked the door, slid down to the floor, and sat there with my back against the wood.
My chest heaved, trying to pull in air that felt too thin.
I pulled up the photos on my phone, scrolling through them with numb fingers.
The phone felt heavy in my hands.
I could send these photos to someone. The FBI agent, Damien Cross, or the media. Or I could just post them online and watch Nikolai's perfect facade crumble.
I could destroy him the way he'd destroyed me.
But then what?
Viktor would disappear again. Nikolai would retaliate. Luka's treatment would stop and I'd lose everything.
No.
I needed to be smarter than that.
If Nikolai had taught me anything over these past months, it was that revenge required patience.
Strategy. The willingness to play a long game.
He'd spent five years setting his trap for Viktor.
I could spend five weeks setting mine for him.
I looked at the photos again, this time with clearer eyes.
I was going to fight back.
And when I was done, Nikolai Volkov would realize he'd made one critical mistake in his perfect five-year plan:
He'd underestimated me.
I wiped my face, took a shaky breath, and started making notes.
Every piece of informa
tion from that war room. Every name, every date, every connection.
If Nikolai wanted to play games with people's lives, fine.
I'd learned from the best and now it was my turn.
I would use this information to fight back somehow.