Chapter 5 - Roman
It doesn’t make any sense.
Everything was going according to plan down to the very dot: the timing, execution, everything…
I got my hands on her, and the paperwork was filed. Victoria is mine. Legally, physically—in all ways.
Regardless of being a hasty plan, it was still a good one. At least, I thought it was.
With the unspoken alliance made between the two of us, her being the key I needed to get to Maxim, it all suddenly feels pointless. Like that perfect execution was wasted.
I assumed she knew the game being played. I assumed she was an integral piece. Yet, she had no idea. She wasn’t even a player.
A small part of me still wants to believe she’s lying and holding out hope for Maxim’s intervention, but while sitting in the living room, I can’t shake the look in her eyes.
The innocence. The raw sincerity so few can fake with delicate precision.
She seemed to be telling the truth, even if that puts a damn wrench in my plans.
Nursing the glass of whiskey in the deadly quiet room, aware that a woman who isn’t Viktoria Nikolaev resides above me in one of the spare bedrooms, I still can’t wrap my head around it all.
I seized the moment. I did everything right. And yet, despite how perfect it all seemed, it’s clear as day that my foresight was lacking.
As much as I want to believe this is merely a temporary misstep, I know better than that. And, of course, no part of me wants to admit I fucked up.
I’d be damned if Maxim or anyone else ever caught wind of my problem.
She swears she isn’t Viktoria. No…
She’s Victoria Evans. An elementary school teacher. Someone unaware of who I truly am, or the extent of what I do.
I can’t help but feel inclined to believe her.
She looked me in the eye with genuine fear and confusion, and not once did she relent.
If she is playing me, then nobody can do it like her. I’d have to give her that credit.
But if she’s telling the truth…if she is as innocent as she claims, then I’m just a fool who forced a random woman to marry him. I just attached a woman to me who has no business knowing anything about my lifestyle or the dangers that come with it.
I may be brutal and decisive when I need to be, but I don’t have any interest in dragging unsuspecting people into this. Not when they have the opportunity to live an unassuming life, blissfully unaware of the criminal underbelly beneath it all.
If Victoria is who she says she is, then I just condemned her to a life of looming threats. The possibility of being used against me for someone else’s gain.
Forcing out a deep breath, I reach for my cell and tap the screen before initiating a call.
All the while I wait for it to ring, that irritation boils beneath my skin.
I should’ve known better. I should’ve waited.
Then, the line connects, and I hear my brother’s tired voice on the other end. “Yeah?”
“Mikhail…we have a problem.”
He pauses, then sighs. I can picture him scrubbing his face on the other end. “…at three in the morning?”
“Yes. Especially at three in the morning,” I grind out, absently running a hand through my hair. “You gave me the wrong woman.”
Mikhail pauses again, but for a beat longer this time. “What?”
“You heard me…she isn’t Viktoria Nikolaev. She doesn’t have a brother and knows nothing about our world.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” I mutter, annoyed by the skepticism in his voice. “She claims up and down that she has no idea what I’m talking about…but if she’s faking it, then someone better call the goddamn academy for the award she’s due.”
Mikhail’s tone becomes more terse with his insistence. “I don’t know what’s going on, but she’s the one, Roman…the information on her was scant, like I said, but you saw her picture. It’s her. She is a direct match for Viktoria Nikolaev.”
“Obviously not,” I snap, immediately pulling in a breath to try and cool myself down.
“She has claimed again and again that she isn’t who I think she is.
If you could’ve seen her face or heard her tone, you’d believe her just like I do.
When I called her Nikolaev, her expression was blank.
Not a single note a recognition registered. ”
“It doesn’t add up,” Mikhail muttered, mostly to himself. “Maybe this is some kind of deeper play. Something we weren’t anticipating.”
I scoff. “What, like amnesia?”
“Of course not…” he trails off, hesitating, “well…perhaps it wouldn’t be far-fetched at this point.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. She seems to believe she’s an Evans, but now she’s a Lukov, and I have to fix this,” I continue, feeling the constant ebb and flow of my fury. “Better yet, you need to help me fix this.”
“Look, I wish I could tell you what went wrong, or what the truth is, but I’m just as stumped as you are.”
“I don’t like unknowns, Mikhail,” I utter, tapping my fingers idly against the arm of the chair.
“I know…and neither do I. But this can’t be some random woman off the street. Our intel isn’t faulty, regardless of what happened.”
My jaw aches from clenching it. “It sure as hell feels like it.”
Through Mikhail’s stretches of silence, I can tell he’s just as lost and wants to get to the bottom of it.
“What are you going to do now?”
“I gave her a room to stay in, and I’m planning on keeping her here for the time being. We need to know what happened and who the hell she really is,” I say, wondering just how much my patience can stretch for the matter. “Find out what’s going on. And be discreet.”
Mikhail, still drowsy despite the situation, sighs once more, and the sound of him shifting in bed carries through the phone. “Alright…I’ll get on it first thing.”
“Good. Get rested up…you’ll need it.”
“You got it.”
I let the slight drag in his voice linger before hanging up and tossing the phone aside with an exasperated breath.
As it lands on the nearby sofa, I catch a glimpse of the screen, seeing how it’s just after three, as Mikhail mentioned.
Sitting there in the dim living room and given the chance to let that fact sink in, I can feel the weight in my eyelids and how closing them is far too tempting.
Regardless of the thoughts banging around in my head, I know I should get some sleep.
It’s been quite the eventful Friday night, after all.
Making my way through the empty house, I drag myself along until I pause outside of my bedroom door and glance over at the spare.
Without giving it another thought, I head over and unlock the door before popping it open and slowly pushing inside.
The room’s dark for the most part, but the moonlight spraying across the floor offers me some sort of guide.
I don’t know why I’m drawing closer, but I tell myself it’s just to check on her. To make sure she’s still breathing and hasn’t done something stupid in the last few hours.
But as I drift towards the bed, I find her tucked beneath the sheets, fast asleep.
Curled on her side with those medium-length locks splayed across the pillow, she looks strangely peaceful. That tension is gone, and in sleep, she looks almost soft. Youthful.
In that moment of tranquility, she looks nothing like Maxim.
No…she looks beautiful. There’s no way she shares similar genes to that snake.
It’s either confirmation that she isn’t Viktoria Nikolaev or proof that time spent concealed behind a different identity has changed her.
Regardless, I don’t know what to think, and that’s not a typical thing for me.
Stepping closer, the floorboards groan faintly beneath my feet without making enough noise to make her stir. She doesn’t move a muscle.
Studying her, I take in the rise and fall of her chest. Her lips are barely parted, and the heaviness of those long lashes against the apples of her cheeks.
There’s something in that piece of hers that spells out temptation for me. That beauty of hers is drawing me in, and I want nothing more than to reach out and touch her.
I hate how easily those desires have crept in.
I don’t know her. I don’t know the truth of her identity or what could’ve gone wrong in my plan. Still…I know I chose to jump headfirst into it for reasons beyond getting back at Maxim.
Try as I might to convince myself it didn’t come from a selfish place, I still know that her photo pulled me in right from the start. I shouldn’t want her or anything to do with the mess I caused. Especially not after dragging her into everything despite her unwillingness.
I’ve seen more women in my life than are worth being counted, and I’ve slept with my fair share of them. Yet, none of them looked like this while sleeping under my roof.
None of them belonged here.
And yet, Victoria seems to fit. Like I’ve been waiting for her to cross my path all along.
Looking down at her, I feel the thrum of my instincts coming to life…the urge to protect her. To right what I’ve wronged.
Even more so, I can’t let her go, even if I should.
She might not be Viktoria Nikolaev, but she has seen too much.
She knows my face and my name, and she’s been in my home. She’s a civilian who has been swept into a world she never should’ve seen.
It isn’t safe for her now…not outside of my grasp.
If I let her go and she managed to speak to the right people, be it the Feds or anyone associated with my enemies, that could be the end of everything I’ve worked hard to build. It would be the end of everything my family has known.
I don’t know what it is, but something about her feels personal. Like there’s something there despite myself.
She looked almost betrayed when I told her she had to stay…as if I was singlehandedly ruining her life.
I don’t doubt she’d feel that way…but something about that thought stings.
Part of me doesn’t want her to hate me, but that sounds far too sentimental, especially given how we only just met tonight.
Still, some piece of me wants her to look at me differently. To look at me as the leader I am. Like someone she can trust to figure it all out.
It doesn’t make any sense to me. None of it.
Retreating to the door, I glance at her one last time. Victoria shifts slightly in bed, and despite myself, I can only stand there and watch.
Her presence is a problem, and I already know it. A distraction.
Overall, she’s a liability. And yet, there’s something more. Something about her is calling to me.
That undercurrent of possession lingering beneath the surface of my skin isn’t something I was prepared to deal with. But there’s a dangerous aspect to it I can’t ignore.
And that is the part that worries me the most.