Chapter 10 VICTORIA
VICTORIA
The office beneath Maison Lyra hums with quiet competence. Filtered light turns everything soft-edged, but the mood is sharp. Laptops click. Papers rustle. Four women sit around the conference table like accountants of vengeance, plotting salvation in spreadsheets and shipping manifests.
I lean forward, finger tapping once against polished wood. The only sign I'm not as calm as I sound.
"The tip came from Naples?" I ask.
Jelena nods, pushing a tablet across the table toward me. "One of ours. She flagged a Romanian shipment scheduled to leave in forty-eight hours."
I scan the information. Shipping container. Manifest lists textiles. We all know what's really inside.
Women. Girls. Cargo that breathes and bleeds and deserves better than being smuggled like contraband.
"Intercept point?" I ask.
"Naples port, before it reaches the ship." Katarina's voice cuts through the room like a blade. She sits with military posture, dark hair pulled back, expression carved from stone. "We have a four-hour window after it clears the warehouse, before it's loaded. That's when it's most vulnerable."
"And then?" I look at each of them in turn. Jelena with her careful planning. Katarina with her tactical precision. Maia hunched over her laptop, fingers flying across keys, already ten steps ahead in the digital landscape. Valeria taking notes in shorthand only she can read.
"Reroute through Marseille," Jelena says. "Documentation already prepared. From there, straight to Chicago. Should arrive within seventy-two hours of intercept."
I pull up my calendar on my phone. Stare at the blocks of time already committed. Gallery opening tomorrow night. Charity gala the night after. Some society luncheon because the mayor's wife will be there and Maksim needs me to make connections.
The Severyns need me visible. Need me performing the role I was bought to play.
But this operation needs me more.
"I can't be here for arrival," I say, and the words taste like failure coating my tongue. "Not unless we can push the timeline. Delay the intercept by three days."
Katarina shakes her head. "Window closes. They move the shipment, we lose them. It's now or not at all."
Silence settles over the table, heavy with implications.
Jelena's gaze finds mine. Holds. There's concern in her expression, carefully masked but present. "Victoria. Maybe it's time to remember where your priorities lie."
The words land like an accusation wrapped in worry.
"My loyalty," I say quietly, keeping my voice level even as anger sparks beneath the surface, "belongs to this work. To these women. To Eryan Nis." I let the name hang in the air between us. "The Severyns are a means to an end. Nothing more."
Jelena doesn't look convinced, but she nods. Lets it go for now.
"We proceed without you on arrival," Katarina says, ever practical. "Valeria handles intake. Maia coordinates safehouses. You join when you can."
It's not ideal. I hate being absent for critical moments, hate delegating when I should be present. But it's the best we can manage given the constraints of my gilded cage.
"Do it," I say. "Naples intercept in forty-eight hours. Keep me updated on every step."
Maia looks up from her laptop, pushing wire-rimmed glasses up her nose. "Encryption protocol stays the same? Or do we upgrade given recent proximity to certain organizations?"
She doesn't say the Severyn Bratva. Doesn't need to.
"Upgrade," I say without hesitation. "Burner phones for field communication. No exceptions."
Nods all around.
We spend another twenty minutes finalizing details. Contingency plans. Backup contacts. The meticulous choreography of an operation that can't afford to fail because lives depend on its success.
When we're done, Katarina leans back in her chair, studying with sharp eyes.
"When are we training again?" she asks. "You've been absent. Getting soft."
I almost laugh. Soft is the last thing I am, though my body does miss the brutal sessions, the way Katarina pushes me until muscles scream and lungs burn and I remember what I'm capable of when pushed.
"Soon," I promise. "Let me get through this week. Then you can put my ass back in fighting shape."
"I'll hold you to that." She stands, stretches. "And I will make you regret the time off."
They file out one by one until only Maia remains, still typing, lost in whatever digital labyrinth she's navigating with practiced ease.
"Maia," I say. "Can I ask you something?"
She looks up, blinking like someone surfacing from deep water. "Of course."
I choose my words carefully. "I recently met someone who's diabetic. And I want to understand how to help without making it obvious."
Maia's expression softens. She's lived with the condition her whole life. Knows the landscape better than anyone I know.
"Is it a recent diagnosis?" she asks.
"I don't know," I admit. "Could be recent. Could be lifelong. I'm not sure, and asking feels invasive."
She nods slowly, considering. "Usually, people with type 1 have been managing it long enough that it's automatic. They know their patterns, their triggers, what works." She pauses. "But if you want to help without making them feel managed..."
She ticks points off on her fingers, professor-like in her precision.
"First, don't hover. Support quietly. You can't manage it for them, they're the expert on their own body.
But you can make it easier for them to make better choices.
Keep juice or glucose tabs around. Stock them in common areas.
That way if their sugar drops, they don't have to go searching or explain themselves. "
I nod, mentally registering the information.
"Second, help keep meals steady. Diabetics need consistent eating patterns. No skipping breakfast, no long gaps between meals, balanced carbs and protein. Maybe plan meals on a schedule so their blood sugar doesn't crash or spike unpredictably."
Her voice is gentle but firm, the tone of someone who's had this conversation before.
"Don't make a scene about it. They're probably self-conscious, aware they're different in ways people might see as weakness.
Treat it like normal. No pity, no fuss, no hovering.
People handle it better when they feel respected, not monitored. "
"Thank you," I say, and mean it. "This helps more than you know."
After she leaves, I sit alone in the office, thinking.
I can manage most of what Maia suggested. Keeping juice around is easy enough. Ensuring regular meal times is more complicated but doable.
But healthy, balanced meals? In a house full of men who seem to subsist on takeout, restaurant food, and whatever can be microwaved in under five minutes?
That's going to require reinforcements.
I pull out my phone. Scroll through contacts until I find the name I'm looking for.
Amelia answers on the second ring.
"Victoria!" Her voice is warm, familiar, carrying the particular affection of someone who's known you since childhood. "I was just thinking about you. How are you, darling?"
Amelia. My father's housekeeper for the past eighteen years. The woman who practically raised me, who bandaged scraped knees and taught me how to be strong when the world insisted I be decorative.
"I miss you," I say, and mean it more than I expected to.
"I miss you too, mi nina." The Spanish endearment makes my chest ache. "When will I see you?"
"Soon. Actually, I was hoping you could do me a favor."
"Anything."
I explain what I need. An assortment of meals, healthy, balanced, consistent. Enough variety that it doesn't feel repetitive but structured enough to provide reliable nutrition throughout the week.
There's a pause on the other end. Then Amelia laughs, warm and knowing.
"Did you get tired of that cricket food at Maison Lyra already?"
I can't help smiling. "The food is excellent. But there are only so many variations of grain bowls a person can handle before they start dreaming of actual protein."
"Of course, mi nina. I'll prepare everything. You can pick it up the day after tomorrow." A pause. "I know for a fact that your father won't be home."
Another pause. Amelia knows the landscape of my relationship with Arthur Ainsley. Knows the silence and the distance and the way love curdled into resentment years ago.
"We'll have time alone," she says gently. "I want to hear everything. How marriage is treating you. How you're settling in with your new family."
We say our goodbyes, and I hang up feeling lighter than I have in days.
Then reality settles back in.
I sit in the quiet office, surrounded by the machinery of my secret life, and ask myself the question I've been avoiding.
Why am I doing this?
Alexei hasn't asked for help. Hasn't indicated he needs or wants support. For all I know, he's been managing his condition for decades and has systems in place that work perfectly well without my interference.
But I remember the look in his eyes when I walked into the gym. That flash of apprehension when he realized I might have seen his pump. The way Zakhar moved to shield him, instinctive and protective.
Fear.
I know what fear looks like when you're trying to hide vulnerability. Know what it feels like to be alone with something that makes you different, that marks you as weak in a world that devours weakness.
No one was there for me when I needed protection.
But I can be there for Alexei.
Even if he never knows.
It's ridiculous to care this much. Ridiculous to invest this kind of energy into someone who's bound to me only by a contract that expires in less than a year, someone I'm supposed to be manipulating into wanting me gone.
But here I am anyway.
I gather my things and head upstairs. The restaurant is in full lunch service, the din of conversation and clinking silverware washing over me as I emerge into the main dining room.
The scent of fresh bread and herbs, espresso and citrus, the particular smell of Maison Lyra that's become synonymous with my double life.
Outside, Chicago spreads bright and indifferent. Traffic hums. People move with purpose along sidewalks, oblivious to the operations being planned beneath their expensive shoes.
And there, parked at the curb, is the black SUV with Vitor leaning against it.
My new driver. My new shadow. My new reminder that I'm no longer free to move through the city anonymously.
Vitor must be pushing fifty, but he's formidably built. Broad shoulders, thick neck, the particular stillness of someone who's seen combat and learned patience the hard way. When I tried to tease him this morning, he remained silent. Unflappable. Professional to the point of being a wall.
I suspect Zakhar chose him specifically for those qualities.
He sees me exit and immediately opens the rear door, his expression neutral.
"Home?" he asks.
The word stops me mid-step.
Home.
A word I'm starting to associate with exposed steel beams and concrete floors. With three men who make me feel things I have no business feeling. With a place I never intended to belong but somehow fits better than the mansion I grew up in ever did.
"Yes," I hear myself say. "Home."
I slide into the SUV, and Vitor closes the door with a soft click that sounds like finality.
The engine hums to life. Neon lights from storefronts reflect off black lacquer as we pull into traffic. The interior smells like leather and gun oil, masculine and secure in ways that should make me uncomfortable but don't.
Through the tinted windows, Chicago passes in fragments. Buildings, people, the river cutting through the city like a vein. But I'm not really seeing it.
I'm thinking about how somewhere between playing the obnoxious socialite and trying to maintain my secret life, I started caring about the people I was supposed to keep at arm's length.
About men who should be temporary obstacles but feel increasingly permanent.
About a marriage that was supposed to be a transaction but keeps feeling like something else entirely.
The SUV turns onto the street where the warehouse sits like a fortress made of glass and steel. The river glints beside it, catching afternoon light and throwing it back in silver fragments.
Home.
The word echoes in my mind, and the tightness in my chest loosens.
Something that feels dangerously close to belonging.