Chapter 19 - Anka #2
The rest of the gathering passed in a haze of forced normalcy.
Anka smiled at appropriate moments, contributed to conversations when directly addressed, and played the role of happy newlywed with enough skill that no one questioned her performance.
But inside, she was systematically dismantling every moment of tenderness from the past weeks, re-framing Viktor’s actions through the lens of calculated manipulation.
The drive home was torture. Viktor made casual conversation about family dynamics and business prospects, his tone suggesting genuine contentment with how the day had progressed. Anka responded when necessary, but every word felt like glass in her throat.
It wasn’t until they were safely behind the closed doors of his study that she finally allowed her composure to crack.
“Why?” she asked, the single word carrying the weight of her devastation.
Viktor looked up from the files he’d been reviewing, his expression shifting from mild confusion to something more guarded when he saw her face.
“Why what?”
“Why did you threaten my brother? Why did you use the information I gave you to destroy any chance we had of actual peace?”
Understanding dawned in Viktor’s eyes, followed immediately by something that looked almost like relief. As if he’d been waiting for this confrontation, perhaps even anticipating it.
“Adrian told you about our conversation,” he said, settling back in his chair with the kind of calm that made Anka want to scream.
“He told me you have enough evidence to destroy our European operations. That you’re using it to make him dance to whatever tune you choose to play.” Anka’s voice was rising despite her efforts to maintain control. “Is that true?”
“Yes.”
The simple confirmation was somehow worse than elaborate justifications would have been. Viktor wasn’t denying his actions or attempting to soften their impact—he was owning them completely.
“We had peace,” Anka said desperately. “We finally understood what happened. We were building something real. Why would you destroy that for revenge?”
“We didn’t have peace.” Viktor’s voice carried the kind of certainty that brooked no argument.
“We had a temporary ceasefire based on incomplete information. Adrian took you away from me, Anka. He lied to both of us, manipulated the situation to serve his own purposes, and let me believe for four years that you’d chosen to abandon me. ”
“But you know the truth now! You know I loved you, that leaving you was the hardest thing I’d ever done—”
“Knowing the truth doesn’t erase what those years cost us.” Viktor stood, moving around the desk to face her directly. “Adrian destroyed our relationship based on lies and threats. He needs to understand that actions have consequences.”
Anka stared at him, seeing clearly for the first time the man she’d married.
Not the tender lover who’d comforted her after her panic attack, not the considerate husband who’d learned to skydive to share her interests—the cold, calculating strategist who viewed emotional manipulation as just another tool in his arsenal.
“You have me now,” she said, hating how desperate she sounded. “Isn’t that enough? Can’t we just... be happy?”
The realization hit her with devastating clarity even as the words left her mouth.
She was still in love with him. Despite everything—the arranged marriage, the revenge plot, the systematic manipulation of her emotions—she loved Viktor Nikolai with the same desperate intensity she’d felt at twenty years old.
It was pathetic. It was self-destructive. It was going to destroy her.
But it was also undeniably true.
Viktor’s expression softened slightly, and for a moment, she thought she saw genuine regret in his eyes. Then his walls reasserted themselves, and the brief glimpse of vulnerability vanished.
“Having you now isn’t enough,” he said quietly.
“It’s not enough to erase four years of believing you’d played me for a fool.
It’s not enough to make up for the time we lost, the future we should have had together.
Adrian took those things from us, and he’s going to pay for every single day we spent apart. ”
The words struck Anka deeply, confirming her worst fears about Viktor’s priorities. She wasn’t his wife or his partner or the love of his life—she was a prize he’d reclaimed, valuable mainly for what her acquisition represented in terms of victory over his enemies.
“So what happens now?” she asked, surprised by how steady her voice sounded when everything inside her was falling apart. “You use Adrian as your personal puppet while I pretend our marriage is based on something other than elaborate revenge?”
“What happens now is that Adrian learns what it costs to interfere with a Nikolai’s happiness,” Viktor replied. “And you decide whether you’re going to fight me on this or accept that some debts require payment.”
The ultimatum hung between them like a blade, sharp and unforgiving. Anka realized she was facing a choice that would define not just their marriage, but her understanding of who Viktor truly was beneath the charm and calculated tenderness.
She could accept his need for revenge, could stand by while he systematically destroyed her brother’s autonomy in the service of settling old scores. Or she could fight him, knowing that resistance would likely cost her the fragile happiness she’d been foolish enough to believe was real.
Either way, the man she’d fallen in love with—both four years ago and again in recent weeks—was proving to be someone else entirely. Someone who valued vengeance more than peace, control more than trust, the satisfaction of victory more than the possibility of genuine connection.
Standing in his study, surrounded by the trappings of power that had always defined Viktor’s world, Anka finally understood what she’d really married into.
Not a second chance at love, but a beautifully constructed prison designed to give her everything she’d ever wanted while ensuring she could never truly have it.
The realization should have broken her. Instead, it crystallized something harder and more dangerous in her chest—a determination to stop being a passive participant in other people’s games.
If Viktor wanted war disguised as marriage, she would give him exactly that.