Chapter 6 - Viktor
Three days. Three fucking days since he’d cut up her credit cards, since their explosive confrontation in the hallway, since he’d made it crystal clear that her little escape stunts wouldn’t be tolerated. And what had his darling wife done in response?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
She’d swept up the pieces of plastic from the floor without a word, eaten her meals in silence, and spent her time reading in the library or walking through the gardens like she didn’t have a care in the world.
No tantrums, no demands, no attempts to negotiate or manipulate her way back into his good graces.
It was driving him insane.
He’d been prepared for tears, for rage, for desperate pleas about her independence and her need for freedom. He’d had counterarguments ready, punishments planned, a whole arsenal of responses to whatever emotional warfare she might wage. Instead, she’d given him complete and utter indifference.
“She’s planning something,” he muttered to himself, pacing behind his desk like a caged animal. The woman he’d known four years ago had never backed down from a fight, had never accepted defeat gracefully. This calm acceptance was so unlike her that every instinct he had was screaming warnings.
He was right to be suspicious, as he discovered when he reached for his wallet to pay for lunch and found his black American Express missing.
“Son of a bitch.”
The tracking app on his phone showed the card’s last transaction: Bergdorf Goodman, forty-seven minutes ago. A purchase for eight thousand dollars at a boutique that specialized in designer evening wear.
His wife was out shopping again, using his own card this time, and she’d managed to slip past his security twice in one week. The audacity of it would have been impressive if it weren’t so infuriating.
“Marcus,” he barked into his phone as he headed for the garage. “Where the hell are my men?”
“Sir, Mrs. Nikolai is in the library reading. She’s been there all morning.”
He looked at his phone again, watching as another transaction popped up. Fifteen hundred dollars at a jewelry store three blocks from Bergdorf.
“Check again,” he said through gritted teeth.
There was a pause, then Marcus’s voice came back strained and embarrassed. “Sir, the library is empty. The book is still open on the table, but Mrs. Nikolai is... gone.”
“How long?”
“We’re not sure. The last visual confirmation was about an hour ago.”
An hour. She’d been loose in the city for an hour with his credit card, and his supposedly elite security team was just now figuring out she was missing.
“Find her,” he snapped. “Now.”
He was already in his car, tearing through the streets toward Manhattan with a level of reckless aggression that would have gotten a normal person killed.
But he wasn’t a normal person, and right now he didn’t give a damn about traffic laws or speed limits.
All he cared about was getting his hands on his wayward wife before she decided to buy half of fucking New York.
The shopping district around Fifth Avenue was packed with the usual mix of tourists and locals, all of them moving too slowly and getting in his way. He found his driver and sent him to circle the block while he went hunting on foot.
It didn’t take long to spot her. Anka stood out in any crowd like a flame in the darkness, and that day she was practically glowing with satisfaction as she browsed through a rack of dresses outside a boutique.
He was halfway across the street, ready to march over there and drag her home by force if necessary, when her phone rang.
“Raya!” Her whole face lit up as she answered, and the transformation was so sudden and complete that it stopped him in his tracks. This was the Anka he remembered: animated, joyful, and so beautiful that it made his chest ache. “How’s Paris treating you, baby girl?”
He ducked behind a parked car, close enough to hear her side of the conversation but hidden from view. He told himself he was gathering intelligence, trying to understand what game she was playing. The truth was, he couldn’t look away from her smile.
“No, no, I’m fine,” she was saying, though something in her voice suggested otherwise. “Viktor’s at work, so I thought I’d treat myself to a little shopping therapy.”
Shopping therapy. The phrase hit him harder than it should have, carrying implications he didn’t want to examine.
“Lonely?” She laughed, but it sounded forced. “What are you talking about? I’m living in a mansion with more staff than some hotels. How could I possibly be lonely?”
But even from a distance, he could see the way her shoulders slumped slightly, the way her free hand wrapped around her waist like she was trying to hold herself together.
“Okay, fine,” she said after a pause. “Maybe I am a little lonely. But that’s normal, right? It’s a big adjustment, being married, living in a new place. The shopping helps, though. Keeps my mind busy.”
Keeps her mind busy. From what? From the isolation he’d imposed on her? From the cold shoulder he’d been giving her since their wedding? From the fact that her own husband treated her like an enemy instead of a wife?
“I miss you guys too,” she continued, her voice getting softer. “More than you know. But this is my life now, and I’m making the best of it. Viktor... he’s complicated, but he’s not cruel. Not really.”
Not cruel. Jesus Christ, what did it say about him that she had to qualify that statement?
“I have to go,” she said. “But call me tonight? I want to hear all about your gallery opening.”
She hung up and stood there for a moment, staring at her phone with an expression so lost and vulnerable that it felt like someone had reached into his chest and squeezed his heart with a fist.
This was why she’d escaped the compound.
Not to rebel against him or test his authority, but because she was lonely.
Because he’d married her and then abandoned her, left her rattling around in his fortress with nothing but books and gardens for company while he nursed his wounded pride and planned his next move in this twisted game they were playing.
He should have marched over there and dragged her home. Should have given her the lecture he’d prepared about respecting boundaries and following rules. Instead, he found himself backing deeper into the shadows, watching as she wiped her eyes quickly and straightened her shoulders.
She walked into the boutique with renewed purpose, and he followed at a distance, positioning himself where he could see through the large front windows.
She moved through the racks with the confidence of someone who knew exactly what she was looking for, pulling out dresses and holding them up to herself in the mirror.
A red silk number that would have hugged every curve. A black cocktail dress that was simultaneously elegant and sinful. An emerald green gown that would have made her eyes look like jewels.
Each one would have been stunning on her, he realized with a jolt of unwanted desire. Each one would have shown off that body he remembered so well, would have made her the center of attention in any room she entered.
She disappeared into the dressing room, and he told himself to leave. To go back to the car and wait for her to come home on her own terms. But he couldn’t make himself move.
When she emerged in the red dress, he forgot how to breathe.
The silk moved like liquid fire over her curves, highlighting every line and hollow he’d once known by heart. She turned in front of the three-way mirror, studying herself from every angle, and the look of pure feminine satisfaction on her face was more intoxicating than any drug.
She was beautiful. Not just pretty or attractive, but genuinely, breathtakingly beautiful in a way that made men stop and stare and forget their own names. And she was his. His wife, wearing a dress he’d paid for, looking like every fantasy he’d ever had come to life.
The thought of taking that dress off her, of sliding the silk down her body inch by torturous inch, hit him like a physical blow.
He could imagine her skin warming under his hands, could picture the way she’d arch against him, could almost hear the soft sounds she used to make when he touched her just right.
Fuck. That was not the time or place for such thoughts.
She tried on the black dress next, then the green one, each change revealing new angles and curves that made his mouth go dry.
She looked confident and radiant and completely in her element, like shopping for beautiful clothes was some kind of armor against the loneliness she’d confessed to her sister.
And he was the reason she needed that armor.
The guilt hit him like a sledgehammer to the chest. Here he’d been, so focused on his revenge, so determined to make her pay for what she’d done to him four years ago, that he’d forgotten she was a person with feelings and needs and vulnerabilities of her own.
She’d married him for her family’s happiness. She’d given up her freedom, her independence, her chance at happiness with someone who might actually love her back, all to protect the people she cared about. And what had he given her in return?
A cold, empty mansion. A husband who barely spoke to her unless it was to issue orders or deliver insults. A life so isolated and joyless that she had to escape to shopping malls just to remember what it felt like to be human.
He was a bastard. A cruel, selfish bastard who’d been so blinded by his own pain that he hadn’t stopped to consider hers.
She settled on the red dress, plus a pair of heels that probably cost more than most people’s rent. As she paid with his credit card, he saw her smile at the sales clerk and noticed the way she made small talk about the weather and the upcoming holiday season.
She was starving for human connection, he realized, for someone to talk to her like she mattered, like she was more than just a political pawn or a convenient target for someone else’s anger.
When she left the boutique, he didn’t follow. Instead, he sat in his car and watched her walk down the street, his black credit card apparently forgotten in her purse, her new dress bag swinging from her arm.
She looked happy. Not completely happy, but happier than he’d seen her since their wedding day. And he’d been planning to destroy that, to drag her home and punish her for daring to find a moment of joy in the prison he’d created for her.
What kind of man did that make him?
His phone buzzed with a text from Marcus asking if he wanted him to pick up Mrs. Nikolai, and he stared at the message for a long time before typing back: Let her finish her shopping. She’ll come home when she’s ready.
Because maybe, for once, he could give her that much. Maybe he could let her have this one afternoon of freedom without turning it into another battle in their ongoing war.
Maybe he could start acting like a husband instead of a captor.
The thought terrified him more than any enemy he’d ever faced, but as he watched Anka disappear around a corner, still carrying herself with that newfound confidence and grace, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something fundamental had shifted between them.