"This wasn't random. Someone sent you a message," he says quietly.
"I know." I pull my hand free, wrapping my arms around myself because I'm starting to shake and I refuse to fall apart in front of this man.
The police arrive within minutes—NYPD, asking questions, taking statements, photographing the damage. I answer on autopilot, my mind spinning through possibilities.
Anton. It has to be Anton. The timing is too perfect. This is his calling card.
But why the windows? Why not something more personal, more targeted?
Unless...
I look at the shattered glass, at the specific windows that broke. The front display. The ones visible from the street. The ones anyone walking past would see clearly.
He wanted an audience.
He wanted witnesses.
Just like at the Mariinsky. Just like opening night of Giselle when he dropped me in front of two thousand people and called it an accident.
Anton doesn't do anything privately. Everything is performance, everything is staged.
This is his opening act.
By the time the police finish their preliminary investigation, it's almost nine o'clock. Most of the collectors have fled. Maya is coordinating with insurance. The security team I hired is giving statements.
And Maksim Petrov is still here.
Still watching me from across the room while talking to his enforcer—the one who called "clear" earlier. Still taking up space in my gallery like he has a right to be here, like he didn't just arrive uninvited and then tackle me to the ground and press his erection against my hip.
He ends his conversation and walks back over to me, moving through broken glass like it's nothing.
"The attack was professional," he says without preamble. "Three men, coordinated entry, specific target pattern. They knew what they were doing."
"How do you—" I stop. Because of course he knows. Because he's Bratva, and this is what they do. "What did they take?"
His expression shifts. "You don't know?"
"Know what?"
He pulls out his phone, shows me security footage. His security footage, because apparently his team documented everything. The timestamp shows the attack happening—three men in dark clothing entering through the shattered windows, moving with military precision, grabbing something from the walls, and evacuating.
I watch it twice before I understand what I'm seeing.
They didn't take the Fabergé eggs. Didn't take the imperial porcelain or the jeweled icons or any of the pieces worth actual money.
They took photographs.
Specifically, they took the three framed photographs I have hanging in the back corner—personal pieces, not part of the exhibition. Performance photos from my time at the Mariinsky. Me as Odette in Swan Lake. Me as Giselle. Me as Kitri in Don Quixote.
My Mariinsky photos.
The only pieces in the entire gallery that have no monetary value.
The only pieces that matter to just one person.
I can't speak past the terror that's closing my throat. Because this was about me.
This was Anton sayingI remember you on those stages. I remember when you were mine. I remember before I broke you.
