“For this.” He gestured at the screen, where Anka’s last known location blinked mockingly. “She played me. Again.”
The rage that filled him was white-hot and pure, burning away any lingering confusion about his feelings. She’d doneexactly what he’d accused her of, used her charm to manipulate his men and escape just like she’d manipulated him four years ago.
“Track her phone,” he ordered, already reaching for his jacket.
“Viktor—”
“Track her fucking phone, Kostya.”
Kostya pulled out his laptop, fingers flying over the keys. “Got her. She’s in the Meatpacking District, looks like she’s moving between shops.”
Shopping. She’d escaped from his compound, evaded twenty-four-hour security, and gone fucking shopping like this was some kind of vacation. The audacity of it made his vision blur with rage.
“Get me eyes on her location,” he said, heading for the door. “And prep a team. We’re going hunting.”
Twenty minutes later, Viktor was sitting in the back of an SUV watching live surveillance footage of his wayward wife on his tablet. She was browsing through a boutique on West 14th Street, trying on sunglasses and chatting with the sales clerk like she didn’t have a care in the world.
She looked happy. Genuinely, radiantly happy in a way he hadn’t seen since... since before. Since those early days when they’d meet in coffee shops and bookstores, when she’d light up at the sight of him like he was the best part of her day.
The memory hit him like a sucker punch to the gut. He remembered this version of Anka, carefree and spontaneous, who would drag him through vintage shops and used bookstores, making him laugh at her terrible jokes and ridiculous observations about the people around them.
She’d bought a vintage leather jacket in a shop not far from here, he remembered. Had insisted he help her pick between the brown one and the black one, modeling them both with exaggerated poses that had made him want to drag her into the dressing room and remind her exactly how beautiful she was.
He’d chosen the brown one, and she’d worn it every time they met after that. Said it was her good luck charm.
He wondered if she still had it.
“Boss?” The voice belonged to Marcus, his head of security. “What’s the play here?”
Viktor forced himself to focus on the present, on the woman who’d lied to him and manipulated him and was currently making a mockery of his security system. Not the girl who’d worn his jacket and kissed him like he was her whole world.
“She needs to learn that there are consequences for her actions,” he said, his voice cold and controlled. “Set up a kidnapping scenario. Make it look real, but don’t hurt her. Just scare her enough that she thinks twice before pulling this shit again.”
Marcus frowned. “Sir, are you sure that’s—”
“I’m sure. She wants to play games? Fine. Let’s play.”
He watched on the tablet as his men took up positions around the boutique. Professional, coordinated, invisible to casual observation. Anka had no idea what was coming.
She left the shop carrying several bags, with that same carefree smile on her face as she window-shopped her way down the street. For a moment, she looked so much like the womanhe’d fallen in love with that his chest ached with the loss of something he’d never really had.
Then he remembered Simon’s hands on her waist, her fingers on his chest, and the pain transformed back into anger.
The grab happened fast and clean. Two men approached her from opposite directions, one bumping into her hard enough to make her stumble while the other caught her arm in a grip that looked helpful from a distance. A black sedan pulled up to the curb, and they started steering her toward it.
Viktor expected her to panic. Expected her to scream or fight or do any of the things a normal civilian would do when faced with what appeared to be an abduction.
Instead, she started talking.
Even through the grainy surveillance footage, he could see her lips moving, her expression shifting from startled to concerned to almost... friendly? She wasn’t fighting his men. She was fucking chatting with them.
“What the hell is she doing?” he muttered.
As if in answer to his question, one of his men laughed. Actually laughed, his professional demeanor cracking as Anka said something that apparently amused him. The other one was nodding along, his grip on her arm loosening from restraint to something more like a casual touch.
“She’s charming them,” Marcus said, his voice filled with disbelief. “She’s actually charming them.”
Viktor watched in growing fury as his highly trained, utterly professional security team fell under the same spell that had once ensnared him. Within thirty seconds, they weren’t kidnapping her anymore. They were having a conversation.
