“I think you’re playing chess with information I never gave you, and I want to know why.” She was close enough now to see the flecks of darker blue in his eyes, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body. “How do you know about the foundation restructuring? The languages? The coding tutorials I’ve been working through?”
“Because I pay attention,” he said, his voice dropping to that dangerous register that made her pulse race despite her anger. “Because I’ve been watching you for years, Anka. Long before we got married, long before this alliance was even a possibility.”
Years. The word hit her like a punch to the gut, re-framing everything she thought she understood about their relationship, their marriage, the careful way he’d been treating her since their wedding.
“Watching me,” she repeated, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Did you think I wouldn’t?” Viktor stepped closer, eliminating the careful distance they’d maintained for days. “Did you think I could forget you? That I could pretend you didn’t exist just because you disappeared from my life?”
“I had to disappear—”
“I know why you left.” His voice was rough with suppressed emotion, years of carefully controlled fury finallyfinding an outlet. “I know Adrian threatened me, and now he convinced you I was too small-time to be worth the risk. I know you thought you were protecting me.”
The admission stole what remained of her breath. All this time, she’d believed Viktor thought she’d played him, that he saw her as another lying Volkov who’d used him for entertainment before discarding him when she got bored.
“But you never stopped existing, Anka. You never became invisible.” Viktor was close enough now that she could see the tension in his jaw, the way his hands were flexed at his sides like he was fighting the urge to reach for her. “How could I stop seeing you when you’re the most brilliant woman I’ve ever known?”
“Viktor—”
“Do you have any idea what it was like?” His voice was raw now, stripped of the careful control he usually maintained. “Watching you from a distance, seeing your brothers treat you like a decorative afterthought when you could out-think most of the men in their organization? Knowing what you were capable of and watching you waste away in that golden cage they built around you?”
The pain in his voice was devastating, but it was the fierce pride that really undid her. This was Viktor looking at her the way she’d always dreamed someone would—seeing her intelligence, her ambitions, her capabilities, and valuing them instead of fearing them.
“You were never invisible to me,” he continued, his voice dropping to something almost like a whisper. “Not when we were together, not after you left, not now. Only a fool wouldn’t see how extraordinary you are.”
Anka felt something crack open in her chest, years of careful armor splintering under the weight of recognition she’d never expected to receive. This was what she’d been searching for her entire life—someone who saw her completely and wasn’t threatened by what they found.
“Then why?” The question came out broken, vulnerable in ways she’d never allowed herself to be. “Why did you dismiss me to Nick Barresi? Why did you reduce me to a filing clerk when you know what I’m capable of?”
Viktor’s expression shifted, pain and regret replacing the fierce intensity. “Because Nick Barresi collects valuable things that belong to his enemies. Because if he’d known how much you matter to me, he would have made you a target just to prove he could.”
How much you matter to me. The words hung in the air between them, heavy with implications that terrified and thrilled her in equal measure.
“I was protecting you,” Viktor continued, his voice rough with self-recrimination. “But I ended up hurting you instead. Made you think I saw you the way everyone else does, when the truth is I see you better than anyone else ever has.”
Anka stared at him, her mind reeling with the implications of everything he’d just revealed. Viktor hadn’t dismissed her capabilities—he’d been protecting them. He hadn’t stopped caring about her after she’d disappeared—he’d been watching, learning, preparing for the possibility that they might find their way back to each other.
“You’ve been watching me for four years,” she said, testing the words, trying to understand their weight.
“Four years,” he confirmed. “Watching you accomplish things your family never bothered to notice. Watching you teachyourself skills they’d never let you use. Watching you waste away because no one was smart enough to see what they had.”
“And now?”
Viktor’s smile was sharp-edged and possessive, the expression of a man who’d finally claimed something precious that had been kept from him too long.
“Now you’re mine,” he said simply. “And I intend to make sure the whole world knows exactly how brilliant you are.”
Chapter 16 - Viktor
The silence was killing him.
Viktor stood in his study, ostensibly reviewing shipping manifests, but his attention kept drifting to the absence of sound from the rest of the house. No footsteps clicking purposefully across marble floors, no soft humming from the kitchen where Anka sometimes made herself tea, no rustle of pages as she curled up in the library with whatever book had caught her interest.
For three weeks since their confrontation, she’d been moving through his home like a ghost—polite, efficient, perfectly compliant, and completely hollow. The vibrant woman who’d challenged his guards and charmed his family had retreated behind walls so high he couldn’t find a way over them.
He missed her. The admission sat in his chest like broken glass, sharp and uncomfortable and impossible to ignore. He missed the way she’d light up when solving complex problems, missed her sarcastic observations about overpriced boutiques, missed the sound of her genuine laughter echoing through rooms that had been tomb-quiet for too many years.
This wasn’t what he’d wanted when he’d married her. The plan had been simple: bind her to him legally, make her dependent on his goodwill, then systematically destroy any happiness she tried to build. Let her experience the same soul-deep devastation he’d endured when she’d vanished from his life without explanation.
