Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
She’d swept up the pieces of plastic from the floor without a word, eaten her meals in silence, and spent her time reading in the library or walking through the gardens like she didn’t have a care in the world. No tantrums, no demands, no attempts to negotiate or manipulate her way back into his good graces.
It was driving him insane.
He’d been prepared for tears, for rage, for desperate pleas about her independence and her need for freedom. He’d had counterarguments ready, punishments planned, a whole arsenal of responses to whatever emotional warfare she might wage. Instead, she’d given him complete and utter indifference.
“She’s planning something,” he muttered to himself, pacing behind his desk like a caged animal. The woman he’d known four years ago had never backed down from a fight, had never accepted defeat gracefully. This calm acceptance was so unlike her that every instinct he had was screaming warnings.
He was right to be suspicious, as he discovered when he reached for his wallet to pay for lunch and found his black American Express missing.
“Son of a bitch.”
The tracking app on his phone showed the card’s last transaction: Bergdorf Goodman, forty-seven minutes ago. A purchase for eight thousand dollars at a boutique that specialized in designer evening wear.
His wife was out shopping again, using his own card this time, and she’d managed to slip past his security twice in one week. The audacity of it would have been impressive if it weren’t so infuriating.
“Marcus,” he barked into his phone as he headed for the garage. “Where the hell are my men?”
“Sir, Mrs. Nikolai is in the library reading. She’s been there all morning.”
He looked at his phone again, watching as another transaction popped up. Fifteen hundred dollars at a jewelry store three blocks from Bergdorf.
“Check again,” he said through gritted teeth.
There was a pause, then Marcus’s voice came back strained and embarrassed. “Sir, the library is empty. The book is still open on the table, but Mrs. Nikolai is... gone.”
“How long?”
“We’re not sure. The last visual confirmation was about an hour ago.”
An hour. She’d been loose in the city for an hour with his credit card, and his supposedly elite security team was just now figuring out she was missing.
“Find her,” he snapped. “Now.”
He was already in his car, tearing through the streets toward Manhattan with a level of reckless aggression that would have gotten a normal person killed. But he wasn’t a normalperson, and right now he didn’t give a damn about traffic laws or speed limits. All he cared about was getting his hands on his wayward wife before she decided to buy half of fucking New York.
The shopping district around Fifth Avenue was packed with the usual mix of tourists and locals, all of them moving too slowly and getting in his way. He found his driver and sent him to circle the block while he went hunting on foot.
It didn’t take long to spot her. Anka stood out in any crowd like a flame in the darkness, and that day she was practically glowing with satisfaction as she browsed through a rack of dresses outside a boutique.
He was halfway across the street, ready to march over there and drag her home by force if necessary, when her phone rang.
“Raya!” Her whole face lit up as she answered, and the transformation was so sudden and complete that it stopped him in his tracks. This was the Anka he remembered: animated, joyful, and so beautiful that it made his chest ache. “How’s Paris treating you, baby girl?”
He ducked behind a parked car, close enough to hear her side of the conversation but hidden from view. He told himself he was gathering intelligence, trying to understand what game she was playing. The truth was, he couldn’t look away from her smile.
“No, no, I’m fine,” she was saying, though something in her voice suggested otherwise. “Viktor’s at work, so I thought I’d treat myself to a little shopping therapy.”
Shopping therapy. The phrase hit him harder than it should have, carrying implications he didn’t want to examine.
“Lonely?” She laughed, but it sounded forced. “What are you talking about? I’m living in a mansion with more staff than some hotels. How could I possibly be lonely?”
But even from a distance, he could see the way her shoulders slumped slightly, the way her free hand wrapped around her waist like she was trying to hold herself together.
“Okay, fine,” she said after a pause. “Maybe I am a little lonely. But that’s normal, right? It’s a big adjustment, being married, living in a new place. The shopping helps, though. Keeps my mind busy.”
