Chapter 44 Marlena
The guards at the gate didn't shoot me, which I took as a good sign.
Instead, they surrounded me with weapons drawn, their flashlight beams blinding as they searched me roughly. Hands patted down my sides, my back, my legs. They found the pistol in my waistband immediately and confiscated it with satisfied grunts. They missed the knives in my boots, just as Katya had predicted. Men always underestimated how many places a woman could hide a blade.
They also missed the tiny earpiece buried deep in my ear canal. I kept my breathing steady as one guard shined his light directly in my face, studying me with cold eyes.
"She's clean," he said finally in French. "Take her to him."
Two guards grabbed my arms and marched me up the driveway toward the villa's main entrance. The same entrance I'd walked through hours earlier for the auction, back when I'd been Marie Laurent, wealthy art consultant, with Nikolai at my side and a plan that had fallen apart spectacularly.
Now I was just Marlena again. Viktor's daughter, walking into the monster's house alone.
The villa looked different at night, lit from within by golden light that should have been beautiful but instead felt sinister. I could see movement through the windows, shadows of more guards patrolling inside. Viktor had fortified his fortress after our escape, turning it into a prison designed to keep people in as much as out.
The front doors opened and I was shoved inside roughly, stumbling but keeping my balance. The marble floors gleamed under crystal chandeliers and the walls were still lined with priceless art, as if the firefight earlier had never happened. Someone had cleaned up the blood and broken glass with remarkable efficiency.
Viktor waited in the grand living room, exactly where I expected him to be. He stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the gardens, holding a glass of red wine that caught the light like blood.
He'd changed clothes since the shooting, now wearing an expensive smoking jacket over tailored slacks. He looked relaxed and comfortable, like he was entertaining an expected guest rather than the daughter he'd tried to kidnap hours earlier.
He turned when I entered and his smile was slow and satisfied, the expression of a man who'd just found a lost toy he'd been searching for.
"Marlena," he said, my name rolling off his tongue with disturbing familiarity. "I knew you'd come back to me."
The guards released my arms and stepped away, though they remained positioned at every exit.
I was completely trapped. But that was fine. That was the plan.
I kept my face calm despite the nausea churning in my stomach and walked further into the room with my head high, refusing to show fear even though it sang through my veins like poison.
"You look just like your mother when she was young," Viktor continued, studying me with those predatory eyes. "The same fire, the same stubbornness. Elena was beautiful at your age, before prison broke her spirit."
The casual cruelty of his words made my hands curl into fists at my sides, but I forced them to relax. Don't react. Don't give him anything.
"She's dead," I said, my voice flat. "She died three years ago in prison while you were living here in luxury."
"Is that what you believe?" Viktor moved closer, swirling his wine. "How tragic. All these years you've been mourning a ghost."
My heart stuttered in my chest but I kept my expression neutral. In my ear, so faint I could barely hear it, came Katya's voice through the comms. "Basement level. Moving toward the cells."
They were inside. They were going for my mother. I just needed to keep Viktor talking, keep him focused on me.
"Would you like some wine?" Viktor asked, gesturing to a bottle on the nearby table. "It's a 1982 Bordeaux. Your mother always appreciated good wine."
"No, thank you," I said, my voice steady despite everything.
"Suit yourself." He took another sip, watching me over the rim of his glass. "You're wondering why I asked you to come. Why I didn't just take you by force when my men found you outside."
"You didn't ask. I chose to walk in here."
"Did you?" His smile widened. "How delightfully naive. You walked in because you had no choice, my dear. Because you know I have something you want."
My pulse quickened but I kept my face blank. Don't let him see. Don't let him know how badly the words cut.
"Your mother," Viktor said, watching my reaction carefully. "Elena is alive and locked in the basement below this very room. She's been my guest for years now, kept safe and comfortable. Well, as comfortable as circumstances allow."
The world tilted sideways and my knees went weak. I'd known it was true, Katya had told me, but hearing it from Viktor's mouth made it real in a way that shattered something inside me. My mother was alive. She'd been alive all this time, locked in this basement while I thought she was dead and buried.
I swayed slightly, my vision blurring at the edges, and Viktor's smile turned triumphant.
"There it is," he said softly. "The hope and horror mixed together. It's quite beautiful, really."
I forced myself to stand straighter, to breathe through the shock. In my ear, Nikolai's voice came through, rough and urgent. "Found her. Extracting now."
They had her. They were getting my mother out. I just needed a few more minutes.
"Why?" I managed to ask. "Why keep her alive?"
"Leverage, initially." Viktor set down his wine glass and moved even closer, close enough that I could smell his expensive cologne. "To ensure certain parties kept their mouths shut about things they shouldn't discuss. But over the years, she became something more. A reminder of what I'd lost, of the family I could have had if circumstances had been different."
"You abandoned us," I said, my voice shaking now despite my efforts to control it. "You let her go to prison for your crimes. You left Luka and me to starve."
"I had no choice," Viktor said, and something almost like regret flickered in his eyes. "The authorities were closing in. Viktor Rousseau had to die so Laurent Moreau could live. But I never stopped watching you, Marlena. I kept tabs on you and your brother from a distance, made sure you survived even if I couldn't be there in person."
"That's not love," I spat. "That's surveillance."
"Sometimes they're the same thing." He reached out to touch my face and I jerked away. His hand dropped but his expression hardened. "I'm offering you a choice now. The same choice I'm offering your mother. Stay with me forever, become part of my new life, and she lives. We can be a family again, the three of us. Or leave, try to run back to Nikolai Volkov and his revenge fantasies, and she dies for real this time. I'll put a bullet in her head myself."
The ultimatum hung in the air between us and I felt the weight of it crushing down on my chest. This was what he wanted, what he'd always wanted. Not just me, but ownership. Control. The ability to say he'd won.
In my ear, Katya's voice came through again. "Clear of the villa. Moving to extraction point."
They were out. My mother was safe. The mission was complete.
Gunshots erupted outside the windows, sharp cracks that shattered the tension in the room. Viktor spun toward the sound and his face went from confident to confused in seconds. More shots, closer now, followed by shouting in Russian.
Nikolai and Katya were making noise, drawing the guards away, creating chaos to cover their escape.
I smiled, slow and deliberate, letting Viktor see every ounce of satisfaction I felt.
"You lose this time," I said.
Viktor's face transformed in an instant, the cultured mask dropping away to reveal the monster underneath. His skin flushed angry red and his eyes went cold with rage. His hand moved to his jacket pocket and I knew what w
as coming before he even pulled it out.
A gun. Small. Deadly. Pointed directly at my chest.