“It’s okay, baby,” Anna tells him. “Stay here with me.”
“Why are we at Grandma’s house?” Mila asks. “I thought we were planning our birthday party at home.”
“We’ll figure out the party later,” Anna says.
“But I want purple trains.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
I look at Anna. “We need to talk.”
“No. We don’t.”
“Yes. We do. You found documents that tell part of the story. You need to hear the rest.”
“I’ve heard enough. I saw enough. Three years of planning. Every detail calculated. I was phase three of your acquisition strategy.”
“That was the plan three years ago. Things have changed.”
“Have they? Or are you just saying that because I found out?”
Viktor sits in the chair across from me. Svetlana stands behind the couch where Anna sits with the twins.
“Show me the documents,” Viktor says.
Anna pulls papers from her bag. The three-year acquisition strategy. She hands them to her father.
He reads. His face darkens with every page. When he finishes, he looks at me. “Is this real?”
“Yes.”
“You spent three years engineering my debt so you could force this marriage and take my company.”
“Yes.”
“You destroyed my business deliberately.”
“I acquired your debts and consolidated them. You destroyed your own business through poor decisions. I simply took advantage of the situation.”
“By manipulating the debt. By encouraging me to borrow more when you knew I couldn’t pay it back.”
“Yes.”
Svetlana makes a sound of disgust. “You’re a monster.”
“I’m a businessman. I saw an opportunity and I took it.”
“An opportunity to trap our daughter in marriage!” Svetlana’s voice rises. “To use her as a mechanism for corporate acquisition!”
“That was the original plan. But circumstances changed when I learned the twins were mine. When I started building a relationship with them. When this became a real family instead of a transaction.”
“You expect us to believe you changed?” Viktor stands. “Men like you don’t change. You’re exactly what Anna thought you were. A criminal who destroys families for profit.”
“I’m not asking you to believe I changed. I’m asking you to look at what I’m actually doing now instead of what I planned three years ago.”
“And what are you doing now?” Anna asks. Her voice is cold. Dead. “Besides executing your acquisition strategy exactly as planned?”
“I’m restructuring it. I’ve been working with attorneys for weeks. Creating a partnership model instead of a takeover. You would know that if you’d waited instead of running.”
