***********
Later that night, Roman walked towards me, held my hands up, and asked if I was strong enough to go watch a movie with him.
“Of course I can, why not?”
“I’m trying to take caution because of what Alina said, you know…the things about stress and all.”
I smiled. “Come on, Roman, I’m not that fragile or sick. I’m just pregnant.”
“I know,” he said while he lifted me up from the bed till I took my stand. He didn’t let go of my hands until we arrived at the cinema. The air was cold and quiet. He got us some popcorn from the corner, and I squeezed myself into his body while he covered me with the warm blanket that lay at the side.
“What would you like us to watch?” I asked.
“Shutter Island. It’s a great movie, and I’ve had it for a while now, but I haven’t watched it.
All through the movie, I told him of the things that were going to happen before they happened. While I felt happy in the process, Roman sighed, and I noticed that he hated spoilers.
“Hey, you should make it clear if you prefer to narrate the movie or watch it.”
“Aren’t you having a good time?” I asked, and his head creased.
“Of course I’m having a good time. It’s just that the movie gets less interesting when you spoil everything.”
“Roman, it’s not much of a spoiler if I tell you that it’s all in his head.”
“Okay, that’s it,” he said. “We’re watching something else.”
He switched to Hulu, and the movie he played bored me to sleep.
I woke up later in the night and found myself in the bedroom. Roman wasn’t in bed, and I got worried. I feared he’dgone out for a meeting again. But then I heard a sound coming from his study. I gently walked towards the entrance and leaned on the wooden frame while I saw Roman work through the ajar door. I wondered what kept him up. Yet, I had a nudge in my heart that he worked on the piece of evidence that was in the drive. I believed he froze my dad’s accounts, and I knew that things would only get messy from this point.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Roman’s POV
The notification hit my secure line at 3:00 AM. I was awake instantly. I reached for the phone before Liza even stirred beside me. The room was dark, quiet, a stark contrast to the urgency of the glowing screen.
The message was from Stepan. It was concise, brutal, and utterly satisfying. “Arkady is on the move. Arrived at JFK, 0200. Used the old Kirov passport. Confirmed destination: NYC.”
I closed my eyes for a beat, absorbing the intelligence. The bastard was here. After weeks of playing the disappearing act, hiding behind layers of proxies and offshore accounts, Arkady had flown into New York under a false name. This confirmed his desperation and his absolute commitment to the final meeting. He wasn’t running anymore; he was scrambling to secure a payout before the walls fully closed in. The timing was perfect.
I gently slid out of bed, careful not to wake Liza. I pulled on a dark robe and walked to the wall of windows, looking out at the skyline. It was time to spring the trap.
I didn’t call a large meeting. I called my two shadows, Konstantin and Viktor. We met in the library, the only light coming from the low lamp on the mahogany desk.
“Arkady is here,” I stated, leaning over a holographic map of Manhattan. “He wants his money. His leverage is gone, so he’s trying to sell the final asset he promised the Gulf consortium.”
“The bait is ready, Roman,” Konstantine confirmed, his voice low and focused.
I detailed the execution of the trap; we had leaked word of a fake gala, a high society cultural event scheduled for the weekend at the Lobanov-funded Russian cultural center downtown. It wasn’t a security risk; it was a statement. Arkady,the master manipulator, would see the cultural center, the soft, public face of my empire, as the perfect, discreet meeting point to finalize a dirty deal. It was the last place he’d expect an ambush.
“We gave him the target,” I explained. “The meeting point has to look legitimate for the buyers. He wants to sell a dream, not a fight.”
The wait paid off two hours later. Stepan intercepted the communication. Arkady had been booked on a commercial flight to Dubai, likely planning to cut a deal there first. That flight was cancelled. Instead, a private jet with heavy security attached was being dispatched immediately from Dubai to New York.
“That’s our cue,” I said, hitting the desk with my palm. “The buyer is confirmed. Arkady knows he has to close this deal on my turf now, or he loses everything. This isn’t just a buyer; this is the value consortium he intended to sell Liza to cover his debts. The stakes couldn’t be clearer.”
We moved into the final war council. “Konstantin, you control the center. You handle the perimeter and the trap; I want no casualties except the target. No mess. Make the exits iron.”
