2. Viktor
VIKTOR
Ihate these transactions.
The Bratva deals in many things: debts, favors, fear, and sometimes, regrettably, people. Using someone's family as collateral disgusts me. It always has. But Alexei insisted that Marcel Duval needed motivation to repay what he owes, and Alexei is the pakhan. When he gives an order, I follow it.
That's what I tell myself as I walk into the warehouse. That I'm here because I was told to be. That this is business, nothing more.
I expect to find a crying girl. Or maybe a defiant brat, all screaming and threatening, the kind who hasn't yet learned that the world is cruel and that struggling only makes the cage feel smaller.
Either way, a problem to manage. A task to complete.
Another item on a list of things Viktor Sorokin handles because no one else can.
Instead, I find her.
She's standing beside her father with her spine straight and her chin raised, and even from across the warehouse, I can see the fire in her eyes.
She's terrified. I recognize the tremor in her hands, the way she's biting the inside of her cheek to keep from making a sound.
But she's not breaking. Not in front of her worthless father, not in front of the armed men lining the walls, not in front of me.
Something cracks open in my chest. A sensation I don't recognize. Don't want.
I cross the warehouse floor, and with every step, I cataloge her without meaning to. Willowy, graceful, maybe five-six. Deep brown skin that glows even under the fluorescent lights. Natural hair in twists that frame her face like a crown. Dark eyes that hold more steel than most men I've killed.
She's beautiful. That's irrelevant. Lots of women are beautiful.
But when she looks at me, when those dark eyes meet mine without flinching, without begging, I forget how to breathe.
Her father is talking. I barely hear him.
Something about arrangements, about his daughter being useful, about her cooking and cleaning and other skills he's listing like she's a piece of equipment he's selling.
I want to break his jaw. I want to snap every finger that's gripping her elbow too tight.
"This is the payment?" I hear myself say. My voice sounds wrong. Rough.
Marcel Duval stammers through his explanation, and I let him talk because I'm not listening anyway. I'm watching her. The way she holds herself, the subtle tremble she's fighting to suppress, the quiet dignity in her posture even though she knows exactly what's happening to her.
She's been handed over like a piece of property, offered up like furniture being moved from one room to another, and somehow she's still not breaking. Still holding herself together with that quiet, fierce dignity that makes my chest ache.
"She's not a payment." The words escape before I can stop them, before I can think through the implications. "She's a person."
Something flickers across her face—in those dark, unflinching eyes.
Surprise, maybe. Or recognition. A flash of something vulnerable and raw, like no one in her entire life has ever bothered to say those words to her before.
Like the simple acknowledgment of her humanity is a gift she never expected to receive.
I give the order to take her to the car, my voice steady even though nothing inside me feels steady anymore.
I watch her walk away with her head held impossibly high, her spine straight, her steps measured and deliberate.
She doesn't look back at her father. Doesn't say goodbye or plead or curse him for what he's done.
There's a story there—a complicated, painful history written in that deliberate silence—and I suddenly want to know it more than I want my next breath.
Need to understand what made her this strong, this unbreakable.
What the hell is happening to me?
In my own car, following the SUV that carries her, I replay her face in my mind. The shape of her lips. The defiance in her eyes. The way she nodded at me, just once, like we'd made some kind of agreement neither of us understood.
She was supposed to be leverage. A tool to make her father behave. I was supposed to hold her for a few weeks, maybe a month, until Marcel Duval scraped together enough money to pay his debts. Then I was supposed to return her.
But when I saw her eyes, dark and defiant and so goddamn alive, I knew the truth.
I'm not giving her back.
My study is the only place in the penthouse that feels like mine.
Dark wood paneling, walls lined with books I actually read, a collection of whiskey that would impress even Alexei. And the monitors. Six screens showing feeds from cameras throughout the penthouse, a security measure I installed years ago and have never needed until now.
She's in her room. I can see her on the third screen, exploring the space I prepared for her.
I had Marta buy clothes in her size. Had the chef research her preferences.
It took three phone calls to track down her college roommate, who mentioned the tea and the books and the fact that Celeste Duval likes to sketch when she's stressed.
I tell myself it's efficiency. Know your leverage. Know their weaknesses.
I'm lying to myself, and I know it.
I watch her face when she finds the books on the nightstand. Poetry. Novels. Nothing like the cheap paperbacks from the apartment she could barely afford. Her expression softens, just for a moment, and something in my chest responds.
I watch her touch the bedding, the curtains, with hands that seem unused to nice things. Her father is a mid-level criminal with a gambling problem, and his daughter has been living in poverty while he threw away every cent he touched. She deserved better. She deserves better.
What do I care what she deserves?
I run a hand over my face and force myself to look away from the screens. This is ridiculous. She's collateral. A temporary inconvenience. In a few weeks, she'll be gone, and I'll never think about her again.
Then she moves to the window and starts to hum.
The sound hits me like a fist to the chest—unexpected, devastating.
Low, sweet, achingly sad. A melody I don't recognize but know I'll never forget, not if I live another fifty years.
Her voice is made for heartbreak, each note carrying the weight of loneliness and longing, and it's breaking something in me that I didn't know was still intact.
Something I thought I'd buried so deep it could never resurface.
I'm out of my chair before I realize I've moved. Down the hallway before I can stop myself, my footsteps silent on the Persian runner. Standing outside her door before I can think about what the hell I'm doing, what line I'm about to cross.
I can hear her through the solid wood. That soft, mournful humming, filling the silence of the estate, filling the hollow spaces inside me I've spent two decades pretending don't exist.
If I open this door, I don't know what I'll do. What I'll say. What I'll take.
I stand there, barely breathing, my forehead nearly touching the doorframe, listening to her voice wrap around me like silk. Minutes pass—five, ten, I lose count. My hand hovers over the handle, trembling with the effort of restraint. I don't turn it.
The humming stops abruptly, and I force myself to walk away before she can sense my presence on the other side.
At 3 AM, I go back. Not to her door this time.
To my study, to the monitors, where I can watch her without being watched in return.
She's in bed, finally asleep, her face soft in a way it wasn't when she was awake.
The fire is banked. The defiance is hidden.
She looks young and vulnerable and beautiful, and I feel like a predator studying prey.
I don't look away.
By dawn, I've written the note and ordered the tea and done a dozen things I shouldn't have done. By dawn, I've made a decision that I'll never be able to unmake.
She's mine. She just doesn't know it yet.
The morning sun is too bright, and I've slept maybe two hours.
I spent the rest of the night watching her sleep on the monitors, like the obsessive bastard I'm apparently becoming.
I don't know what's happening to me. I've spent twenty years building myself into something that doesn't feel, doesn't want, doesn't need.
A weapon. A machine. The kind of man who does what needs to be done without hesitation or regret.
One night under my roof, and she's systematically dismantling every carefully constructed wall I've spent two decades building.
My phone buzzes against the desk, the vibration sharp in the quiet of the study. Dmitri, my second-in-command. I answer on the second ring, already knowing what he's going to ask.
"The Duval girl," Dmitri says without preamble, his voice crisp and efficient. "Want me to set up the standard protocol? Schedule for intimidation visits, proof of life photos for the father, the usual psychological pressure tactics?"
My response comes out harsher than I intended, rougher than it should be. "No. No one touches her. No one speaks to her. No one even sets foot on her floor without my explicit permission."
Silence stretches across the line, heavy with unspoken questions. I can practically hear Dmitri's confusion, the wheels turning in his head as he tries to make sense of orders that break every rule we've ever followed for hostages.
"Viktor," he says slowly, carefully, like he's approaching something dangerous. "She's leverage. A means to an end. Not a guest we're entertaining."
"She's under my protection now. That's all anyone needs to know. That's all anyone needs to understand."
I hang up before he can question me further, before he can ask the questions I don't have answers to.
I sit in my chair, staring at the screens where she's just woken up, where she's finding the tray I left outside her door. I watch her pick up the note. Watch her read it. Watch her face cycle through confusion, surprise, and something that might be wonder.
She looks at the tea like no one has ever given her anything before.
I should call Marcel Duval. Set up a payment plan. Return the girl within the week.
Instead, I pull up her file and read everything again.
Her mother's death when she was fourteen.
The way she raised herself while her father chased schemes and lost fortunes.
The college education she abandoned because Marcel gambled away the tuition money.
The apartment she could barely afford, working double shifts at a diner to pay rent on a place that wasn't fit for rats.
She's been alone her entire existence, clawing her way through each day just to survive while the very people who should have sheltered and protected her cast her aside like worthless debris.
Something cold and immovable settles deep in my chest, hardening into an unshakeable resolve.
No one is discarding her again. Not Marcel with his gambling debts and empty promises. Not the Bratva with their territorial demands and power plays. Not anyone who thinks they have a claim on her.
I rise from my chair and move through the silent corridors to her door, my footsteps soundless on the polished floors.
I don't knock, don't announce my presence.
Just stand there in the shadows, listening to the soft sounds of her moving around the room, the quiet rustle of fabric, the gentle rhythm of her breathing on the other side of the wood.
"I know you're there." Her voice drifts through the heavy door, carrying no fear, only quiet certainty, and I feel something unfamiliar that might be a smile tugging at the corners of my lips.
I don't answer. I don't need to break the silence between us. She knows I'm watching, knows I'm always watching. She's known it since the moment she walked into that warehouse and saw me looking at her like she was the first genuine, real thing I'd seen in years of carefully constructed illusions.
I force myself to walk away before I can do something reckless and stupid like opening the door and confessing everything—every thought, every plan, every dangerous feeling taking root in my chest.
But I already know with absolute certainty: this fragile arrangement between us is only the beginning of something far more permanent.
I've taken many things from many men over the years—money, power, dignity, hope. She's the first thing I've ever wanted to keep for myself, to protect rather than exploit.
And I'm going to keep her forever, no matter who tries to take her away.