“Ooh, what did you buy?” Sofie’s response came with shopping bag emojis.
Anka looked at her empty hands, remembering the bags Viktor had snatched away, the credit cards he’d destroyed like they were nothing more than paper scraps.
“Just some new clothes,” she wrote. “Nothing too exciting.”
They chatted for another few minutes, her sisters sharing stories about their classes and their lives, their words painting pictures of freedom and normalcy that felt like fairy tales from where she was sitting. They were living the lives she’d once imagined for herself—independent, adventurous, full of possibility.
The lives she’d given up when she agreed to marry Viktor.
“We love you,” Raya wrote finally. “And we’re proud of you for doing what’s best for the family. But don’t forget that you deserve to be happy too, okay?”
“I love you both, too,” she replied. “More than you know.”
After they signed off, she sat in the silence of her room, staring at the phone in her hands. She’d lied to them, protected them from the truth of what her marriage really was. But what was the alternative? Tell them that their big sister was trapped in a loveless marriage with a man who hated her? That she was paying the price for a relationship she’d never wanted to end in the first place?
No. They’d already sacrificed enough for this family. At the very least, she could ensure they never had to worry about the cost of her choices.
She was about to put the phone away when she heard voices coming from the hallway outside her room. Men’s voices, low and urgent, speaking in the kind of hushed tones that meant business was being discussed.
Viktor’s voice was the loudest, and despite her anger, she found herself moving closer to the door to listen.
“—disappointed in both of you,” he was saying. “The target was supposed to be scared, not charmed.”
Her blood turned to ice. Target?
“Sir, she just started talking to us,” another voice said. She recognized it as Marcus, Viktor’s head of security. “Before we knew it, she was asking about our families and complimenting our technique. It was... disarming.”
“She’s good at that,” Viktor said, bitterness in his voice. “Making people believe she actually gives a damn about them.”
“What do you want us to do differently next time?” Marcus asked.
“There won’t be a next time,” Viktor replied. “She got the message. And if she didn’t, well, she’ll learn soon enough that there are consequences for trying to outsmart me.”
Anka pressed her ear closer to the door, her heart hammering as the pieces fell into place. The kidnapping attempt hadn’t been random. Viktor had orchestrated it. He’d sent his men to terrorize her as punishment for leaving the compound.
The bastard had tried to have her kidnapped. His own wife.
Rage filled her, hot and pure and cleansing. All this time, she’d been feeling guilty about manipulating his guards, about escaping the compound, about playing games with his security. But he’d been playing games too. Deadly, twisted games that could have gone wrong in a hundred different ways.
She listened as the voices moved away, disappearing down the hall toward Viktor’s study. When she was sure they were gone, she opened her door and slipped out into the hallway, following the sound of their voices.
Viktor’s study door was cracked open just enough for her to see inside. He was sitting behind his desk, still talking to Marcus and another man she didn’t recognize. All three of them looked relaxed, like they were discussing the weather instead of the fake kidnapping of Viktor’s wife.
“She handled it well,” the unknown man was saying. “Better than most civilians would have.”
“She’s not most civilians,” Viktor replied. “She’s a Volkov. She’s been trained to handle situations like that since she could walk.”
“Still,” Marcus said, “maybe we should have given her more of a scare. She seemed almost... amused by the whole thing.”
Viktor’s laugh was cold. “Trust me, she got the message. She knows now that there are consequences for her actions.”
Anka had heard enough. She slipped back to her room, her mind racing with plans and possibilities. Viktor thought he was so clever, thinking that he could manipulate and terrorize her, and she’d just accept it like a good little wife.
He was about to learn how wrong he was.
Chapter 6 - Viktor
Three days. Three fucking days since he’d cut up her credit cards, since their explosive confrontation in the hallway, since he’d made it crystal clear that her little escape stunts wouldn’t be tolerated. And what had his darling wife done in response?
