Chapter 12 - Viktor
His phone had been buzzing like an angry wasp for the past two hours, and he was starting to consider throwing it into the Hudson River.
Each call brought another crisis that needed his immediate attention, another fire that only he could apparently put out.
The shipping delays in Rotterdam, the customs issues in Miami, and the contractor in Chicago, who was suddenly having second thoughts about their arrangement.
All of it required his personal intervention, and all of it was happening while he was supposed to be playing bodyguard to his wife.
“You know you can just answer it, right?” Anka said, pausing in front of a display of vintage jewelry. “I’m not going to spontaneously combust if you take a business call.”
“I’m working,” he said, declining another call from Marcus. “My job right now is keeping you safe and entertained.”
“Your job is running a multimillion-dollar empire, and from the sound of things, it’s currently on fire.
” She turned away from the jewelry case to give him an exasperated look.
“Seriously, Viktor, I can entertain myself for ten minutes while you handle whatever crisis is making your phone have a seizure.”
“It’s handled.”
“Is it? Because you’ve been white-knuckling that phone like it owes you money, and you’ve checked the time approximately thirty-seven times in the past hour.”
Thirty-seven times. Christ, she had actually been counting.
“I’m an excellent bodyguard,” he said, deflecting with humor. “I’ve been tracking and trailing people my whole life, watching for threats, anticipating problems before they happen. You couldn’t ask for better protection.”
“Uh-huh.” She wasn’t buying it, but she played along. “And your qualifications for this position include...?”
“Twenty-three years of staying alive in a business where people regularly try to kill me. Extensive training in firearms, hand-to-hand combat, and tactical driving. Plus, I look good in a suit while doing it.”
That got a laugh out of her, the first genuine one he’d heard all week. The sound hit him right in the chest, reminding him of all the reasons he’d fallen for her in the first place.
“Very impressive credentials,” she said with mock seriousness. “Though I have to say, most professional bodyguards don’t spend quite so much time glaring at their phones.”
“Most professional bodyguards don’t have other responsibilities.”
“Exactly my point.” She stepped closer, lowering her voice even though they were the only customers in the small boutique. “Viktor, I don’t need a babysitter. If work is calling, answer it. Handle whatever needs handling. I’ll be fine browsing for another hour or two.”
The problem was, he didn’t want to leave her alone.
Not because he was worried about her safety—they were in broad daylight in a busy shopping district with three of his men positioned at strategic points around the area.
No, he didn’t want to leave because he was enjoying this.
Watching her light up at small discoveries, listening to her make wry observations about overpriced handbags and pretentious sales clerks, just existing in the same space without the weight of their complicated history crushing the air out of the room.
But his phone buzzed again, and this time it was Kostya’s emergency line. Which meant whatever was happening had escalated beyond Marcus’s ability to handle.
“Fuck,” he muttered, accepting the call. “What’s the situation?”
“The Chicago thing just got complicated,” Kostya’s voice was tense. “Our friend decided he wants to renegotiate terms, and he’s brought some new friends to the conversation. Russian friends.”
Russian friends. That changed everything. What had been a simple contract dispute was now potentially a territorial war with the Bratva families operating out of the Midwest.
“How many friends?”
“Enough to make this interesting. Viktor, I need you back here. This isn’t something I can handle over the phone.”
He looked over at Anka, who was pretending to examine a silk scarf while obviously listening to his conversation. She caught his eye and mouthed “go,” gesturing toward the door.
“Give me an hour,” he told Kostya.
“Viktor—”
“One hour. Have everything ready for when I get there.”
He hung up and found Anka already walking toward him, her expression resigned but understanding.
“Let me guess,” she said. “Duty calls?”
“Something like that. I need to get back to the office, handle this situation before it gets worse.”
“Of course you do.” But she didn’t sound annoyed, just accepting. “Can you drop me off at home on the way?”
The disappointment in her voice was subtle, but he caught it. She’d been enjoying their afternoon out as much as he had, and now it was ending because of business that couldn’t wait.
“Actually,” he said, an idea forming, “how do you feel about seeing where I work?”
“Your office?”
“The war room, more accurately. It’s not going to be pretty—lots of shouting, strategic planning, and probably some creative threats against people who’ve made poor life choices. But you’d be safer there than anywhere else, and I wouldn’t have to cut our day short.”
She considered this for a moment. “You want me to come watch you work?”
“I want you to come sit in the most secure building in Manhattan while I handle a crisis that could determine whether we go to war with the Russians or just bankrupt a few people.” He shrugged as if it were no big deal. “Your choice.”
“Well, when you put it like that, how can I resist?”
Twenty minutes later, they were walking through the lobby of the Nikolai Building, a gleaming tower of steel and glass that housed the legitimate face of their operations.
Anka’s eyes were wide as she took in the marble floors, the expensive art, the general atmosphere of power and money that permeated every surface.
“Impressive,” she said as they stepped into his private elevator. “Very respectable-looking for a den of criminal enterprise.”
“We prefer ‘alternative business solutions,’” he said dryly. “Criminal enterprise sounds so... criminal.”
“My mistake.”
His office occupied the entire top floor, with floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a commanding view of the city. Anka made a slow circuit of the room while he fired up his computers and pulled up the files he needed, clearly impressed despite herself.
“You can make yourself comfortable anywhere,” he said, gesturing toward the seating area by the windows. “This might take a while.”
“How long is a while?”
“Two hours, maybe three. Depends on how reasonable everyone decides to be.”
She settled into one of the leather chairs with a book she’d pulled from her purse, looking perfectly content to wait. “Take your time. I’ve got nowhere else to be.”
For the next ninety minutes, he was completely absorbed in crisis management.
The situation in Chicago was worse than Kostya had initially reported—their contractor had not only brought in Russian muscle but was actively trying to play them against the Kozlov family, hoping to start a bidding war for his services.
It took a combination of financial incentives, thinly veiled threats, and some creative problem-solving to untangle the mess. By the time he’d finished the last conference call, it was nearly six o’clock, and his head was pounding from the stress.
He looked over to check on Anka, expecting to find her dozing or absorbed in her book. Instead, she was sitting at his desk, reading through a stack of shipping manifests with the kind of focused attention most people reserved for bestselling novels.
“Finding anything interesting?” he asked, walking over to see what had caught her attention.
“These numbers don’t add up,” she said without looking up. “Container shipment from Hamburg, departed October 15th, arrived in Newark October 22nd. But the customs declaration says it cleared inspection on October 20th, two days before it actually arrived.”
He leaned over her shoulder to look at the paperwork she was examining. She was right—there was definitely a discrepancy in the dates that someone had hoped would go unnoticed.
“Good catch,” he said, genuinely impressed. “Most people wouldn’t have noticed that.”
“Most people probably aren’t looking for it.
But when you grow up in this world, you learn to spot the inconsistencies.
” She set the manifest aside and picked up another document.
“This one’s interesting too. Payment authorization for a consulting fee that’s three times the usual rate, paid to a company that was incorporated two weeks ago. ”
She was right again. He’d been so focused on the big-picture crisis management that he’d missed the smaller details, the kind of accounting irregularities that could indicate everything from simple mistakes to elaborate embezzlement schemes.
“You have a good eye for this,” he said.
“I had good teachers. Matvei used to make me review contracts and financial statements when I was in high school, saying it was important for me to understand how the business worked, even if I wasn’t going to be directly involved.”
“But you never were directly involved?”
She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Are you kidding? My brothers barely let me leave the house without an armed escort. The idea of actually letting me work, letting me use my brain for something more challenging than planning dinner parties? That was never on the table.”
“What about your degree? Art history, right? You could have worked in a museum, a gallery, academia...”
“Could have, should have, would have if things were different.” She shrugged, but he could see the frustration she was trying to hide.
“But things aren’t different. I’m a Volkov, which means I’m either an asset to be protected or a bargaining chip to be traded.
There’s no middle ground for independent careers or personal fulfillment. ”