Chapter 16 – Anya
I entered my office after saying goodbye to Lev that morning, still carrying the warmth of his promise that we’d face whatever came next together.
The familiar scent of my workspace—fabric samples, coffee, and the faint trace of my vanilla perfume—should have been comforting.
Instead, it was overlaid with something else.
White lilies. Sharp and almost medicinal.
A girl I’d never seen before stood smoothly from Sasha’s usual chair, her movements fluid and practiced.
She couldn’t have been older than nineteen, with the kind of pale, ethereal beauty that belonged in old paintings rather than Chicago offices.
Her smile was polite but oddly practiced, like she’d rehearsed it in a mirror.
“Ms. Antonov,” she said, her voice carrying just a hint of an accent I couldn’t place. “My name is Erin. Sasha sent me to assist you until she returns from Germany.”
Something cold settled in my stomach. The wrongness of it hit me immediately—not just that Sasha would send someone without calling me first, but the way this girl stood, the way she smiled, the way she seemed to be taking inventory of my office with those pale eyes.
“Where is Sasha exactly?” I set my purse down carefully, not taking my eyes off her. “I’ve been trying to contact her but—”
“Germany,” Erin cut in smoothly. “Family emergency. She asked me to take over immediately so there wouldn’t be any disruption to your schedule.”
I frowned and pulled out my phone, dialing Sasha’s number again. For the umpteenth time that morning, it went straight to voicemail. The automated message felt like a mockery: Hi, you’ve reached Sasha. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.
“If she calls you,” I said, pointing a finger at Erin, “you come to me directly. I don’t care if it’s day or night. Understood?”
“Of course.” Her smile never wavered.
Over the next two days, Erin worked like a ghost. Efficient, intuitive, never missing a beat. She knew where everything was, anticipated my needs before I voiced them, and handled calls with a professionalism that should have impressed me.
Instead, it made my skin crawl.
I couldn’t ignore the strange tightness in my chest whenever she appeared in my doorway unannounced during phone calls.
The first day, I kept quiet even though I caught her in the reflection of my office mirror, standing silently by the half-open door during a conversation with Milo about production schedules.
The second day, I’d had enough.
“Erin,” I said after ending a call with a fabric supplier. “Are you eavesdropping on my conversations?”
She didn’t flinch, didn’t look embarrassed or caught. Just tilted her head with that same practiced smile. “Sasha told me to stay attentive. She mentioned that you tend to give tasks suddenly, and I wanted to be prepared to help immediately.”
The explanation made complete sense. It was exactly the kind of thoughtful instruction Sasha would give. But something in my gut twisted anyway, some primal instinct that whispered danger even when logic said everything was fine.
“I’d like to speak with Sasha,” I said. “On your phone, since she’s not answering mine.”
Erin nodded and dialed without hesitation. The conversation was brief, professional, and thoroughly unsatisfying. Sasha’s voice sounded distant, strained, but she confirmed what Erin had told me. Family emergency. Germany. She’d be back soon.
What I couldn’t understand was why she wouldn’t take my calls directly.
***
That night, I waited on the couch in our penthouse, one hand resting over my increasingly uneasy stomach. My phone sat face up on the coffee table, silent and accusing. No calls. No texts from Lev, who’d left that morning with promises to check in regularly.
By sunrise, I couldn’t breathe from worry.
I called Maxim first, then Trev, my voice shaking as I explained that Lev hadn’t come home, hadn’t called, wasn’t answering his phone. Within an hour, they were at the penthouse along with Drew, all of them wearing the kind of grim expressions that meant the news wasn’t going to be good.
“His phone’s been off since yesterday evening,” Drew reported, fingers flying over his laptop keyboard. “Last GPS ping was from his car, but the trail goes cold after that.”
“What does that mean?” I demanded, pacing the living room like a caged animal. “People don’t just disappear. Cars don’t just—”
“It means someone who knows what they’re doing took him,” Maxim said quietly. “Someone professional.”
The words hit me like physical blows. I sank into the nearest chair, my hands shaking as I processed what he was saying. Lev had been taken. Kidnapped. Possibly hurt or—
No. I wouldn’t let my mind go there.
“We need to call the police,” I said, reaching for my phone.
“We can’t.” Trev’s voice was gentle but firm. “Not yet. If this is connected to Kozak, involving law enforcement could get Lev killed.”
“Then what do we do?” My voice cracked on the question. “We just sit here and wait?”
Drew’s fingers stilled on his keyboard. “I’ve got something. Faint GPS signal from his vehicle. Rural outskirts, about forty miles north.”
I was on my feet before he finished speaking, grabbing my coat from the back of the chair. “Let’s go.”
But Trev stepped into my path, his blue eyes serious. “No. Absolutely not.”
“You’re not leaving me behind—”
“Anya, listen to me.” His hands gripped my shoulders, forcing me to meet his gaze. “If this is a trap, if they’re using Lev as bait to get to you, then walking in there is exactly what they want. I promise I’ll bring him back. But you have to stay.”
The word “promise” shattered something inside my chest. Promises were what people made when they weren’t sure they could deliver. When the odds were stacked against them.
My knees gave out.
I collapsed right there in the middle of our living room, the weight of fear and helplessness crushing down on me like a physical thing. Eleanor, who’d been quietly making coffee in the kitchen, was beside me in seconds, her arms wrapping around my shaking form.
“You look pale,” she murmured, her hand cool against my forehead. “And you’re shaking. When’s the last time you ate something?”
I couldn’t remember. Food had been the last thing on my mind since Sasha disappeared, since Lev started coming home later and later, since my entire world began unraveling at the seams.
“I’m fine,” I whispered, but even I could hear how unconvincing it sounded.
“You’re not fine.” Eleanor’s voice was gentle but firm. “And falling apart won’t help Lev.”
“I can’t lose him,” I said, the words torn from somewhere deep in my chest. “Eleanor, I can’t. Not now. Not when we finally—”
“You won’t.” She squeezed me tighter. “He’s too stubborn to die, and too much in love with you to stay gone.”
But as the men prepared to leave, as they checked weapons and coordinates and spoke in the clipped, professional tones of people heading into battle, all I could think was that love might not be enough this time.
That all the promises and hope and desperate prayers in the world might not bring him back to me.
And if they didn’t—if Lev didn’t come home—I honestly didn’t know how I was supposed to keep breathing.