“Probably to show Viktor. To prove you’ve been manipulating them from the beginning.”
“I wasn’t manipulating them. I was executing a business strategy.”
“She won’t see the difference.”
He’s right. Anna saw those documents and saw three years of calculated planning. Saw herself reduced to a subject in an acquisition strategy. Saw our marriage marked as a successful phase completion.
She didn’t see the restructuring documents because those are locked in my safe. She doesn’t know I’ve been working to undo the original plan. She only knows what those old files showed her.
“The restructuring plans,” I say. “Get them from my safe. Bring them to Viktor’s house.”
“Now?”
“Yes. I need to show her what I’ve actually been working on. Not what I planned three years ago.”
“Will she believe you?”
“She has to.”
I get in my car and drive to Viktor’s house. The trip takes thirty-five minutes. Every minute, I’m thinking about Anna’s face when she found those documents. The betrayal. The rage.
You destroyed my family to force a marriage you’d been planning for years.
She’s not wrong. That was the plan. Engineer the debt. Force the marriage. Take the company. But plans change. Circumstances change. I changed.
She needs to see that. Needs to understand that what I’m doing now is different from what I planned three years ago.
I pull into Viktor’s driveway. The house looks the same as it did when Anna brought the twins to visit. Small. Shabby. Paint peeling.
This is what they would have lost if not for the marriage. This house and everything in it.
I walk to the front door and knock. Hard.
Svetlana answers. Her face is cold. “You’re not welcome here.”
“I need to speak with Anna.”
“She doesn’t want to see you.”
“I don’t care what she wants. She took my children. I want to see them.”
“They’re her children. She can take them wherever she wants.”
“They’re my children too. Biologically and legally. Let me in.”
“No.”
Viktor appears behind his wife. “Svetlana, let him in.”
“Viktor, he’s been lying to us for three years!”
“I know. Let him in anyway.”
Svetlana steps aside. I walk into the house. It’s smaller inside than I remembered. Dark. Cramped. The furniture is old and worn.
Viktor leads me to the living room. Anna is sitting on the couch with the twins on either side of her. Mila’s face is tear-stained. Alexei looks confused.
“Papa?” Alexei says when he sees me.
