Chapter 17 #2
I sat at my desk, monitors glowing with data I couldn't process. The bombing investigation files blurred together—forensic reports, financial transfers, surveillance footage.
It felt like I was back at the start, back in depression and desperation, scheming like a rat trying to survive.
Every thought spiraled back to the same questions: What was Viktor doing to her? Was she scared? Was she eating? Was she regressing under the stress? Did she think I'd abandoned her?
The spreadsheet in front of me showed Kozlov financial movements for the past six months. Clear patterns that should have meant something. Money flowing through shell companies, suspicious timing around certain events. But the numbers kept morphing into other calculations.
My phone sat on the desk. Ten calls to her number. Ten times it had gone straight to voicemail. I'd left messages at first—careful ones, knowing Viktor would likely hear them. "I'm working on the investigation." "The lawyers are filing appeals." "I love you."
Now I just called to hear her voicemail greeting.
"Hi, you've reached Anya. Leave a message.
" Recorded two weeks ago, when she'd finally felt safe enough to set up her own phone properly.
Her voice carried a hint of laughter in it—we'd been at the beach house, and I'd been making faces at her from behind the phone to try to break her serious recording voice.
I called again. Number eleven.
"Hi, you've reached Anya. Leave a message."
The beep came, and I sat there in silence, just breathing into the phone like some kind of stalker.
What was there to say that I hadn't already said? That the penthouse felt like a morgue? That I'd worn the same clothes for two days because everything else reminded me of her? That I felt like I’d betrayed her by letting her stay at her father’s place?
I hung up without speaking.
The kitchen made it worse. Every surface held evidence of our morning routines.
The specific mug she liked for her coffee—oversized, with a chip on the handle she'd worried with her thumb.
The spot at the island where she'd eat breakfast, always the same stool, always turned slightly so she could see both the door and the window.
I'd tried to make breakfast yesterday. Managed to burn eggs—eggs, the simplest fucking thing—because I'd gotten distracted wondering if Viktor was letting her eat properly.
She needed routine. Structure. Regular meals at predictable times.
Without that, her anxiety would spike, and when her anxiety spiked, she'd stop eating entirely.
Movement in my peripheral vision made me turn—Clara stood in the doorway, holding a bag that probably contained food I wouldn't eat. Behind her, Eva hovered with the particular nervousness of someone who didn't know how to help but desperately wanted to try. They’d let themselves in, clearly on the orders of my brothers. They’d let themselves in, clearly on the orders of my brothers. I hadn’t even heard the door open.
"You need to eat something," Clara said, unpacking containers onto the counter. "And shower. And change clothes. You look like—"
"Like someone whose wife was legally kidnapped?" The words came out sharper than intended. "Because that's what I am."
Clara's expression didn't change. "Like someone who's going to get her back," she corrected, pulling out what looked like soup. "But not if you fall apart first."
"I've been working," I said, gesturing at the monitors. "The investigation—"
"Come on," Clara said, her teacher voice gentle but firm. "Let's eat something, and you can tell us what you're really thinking."
I was about to reluctantly agree, when my phone buzzed—I assumed it would be a message from Dmitry, but it wasn’t. This time it was a private number.
I answered without thinking, desperation overcoming rational thought.
"Mr. Volkov?" The voice was carefully neutral. "This is Dr. Patrick Held. I believe you were looking for someone with my particular skill set?"
The private investigator. The one who specialized in the kind of surveillance that would put us all in federal prison if discovered.
"Can you get inside?" I asked without preamble.
"Interior surveillance of the location you specified?" A pause, calculations happening. "Dangerous. Expensive. Highly illegal."
"I don't care about any of that. Can you get inside?"
Another pause. "I have a contact on the household staff. Someone who might be motivated to help for the right price."
"How much?"
"Fifty thousand for the initial approach. Another hundred if they agree. Plus expenses."
"Done. I also want you to look into the bombing. I need someone with your skills and no Bratva traceability. How soon?"
"I can have something in twenty-four hours. Audio only at first—video requires more complex equipment."
Twenty-four hours. Twenty-four more hours of not knowing what was happening to her.
"Do it," I said. "Whatever it takes."
After I hung up, Clara touched my arm gently. "Ivan, that's—"
"Illegal? Dangerous? Likely to make everything worse if Viktor finds out?" I laughed, but it came out cracked. "Do you know what he could be doing to her? She has information about me, about us, about our family. He will try to get it out of her. I can’t let him hurt her. Do you understand?”
Eva's expression darkened. She knew—better than most—what could happen to vulnerable women in the hands of controlling men.
"We'll stay with you," she said quietly. "Until you get the information. Until you get her back."
Twenty four hours later, the compound's war room felt like a bunker preparing for siege—which wasn't far from the truth.
My brothers were already there when I arrived.
Alexei stood at the head of the conference table, his patrician features carved from granite.
Dmitry paced near the weapons rack, radiating the particular energy that preceded violence.
Our head of security, Mikhail, worked at a laptop, pulling up files.
And my private investigator sat apart from the others, clearly uncomfortable in a room full of bratva leadership.
"Tell me," I said without preamble. No greetings. No sitting down. Just the desperate need for information that might get Anya back.
Patrick Held gestured to the wall of monitors that dominated the room's north side. "I’ve been doing some digging. Security footage from a parking garage in Queens. Two days before the bombing."
The screen flickered to life, grainy but clear enough. Sergei Kozlov's distinctive bulk getting out of a Mercedes. Another figure approaching—smaller, wearing a Morozov construction company jacket, the logo visible even in the dim lighting.
"That's Kozlov," Dmitry said unnecessarily, his voice tight with rage. "Meeting with one of Viktor's people."
"Not just one of Viktor's people," Held corrected, zooming in on the second figure's face. "Viktor's nephew. Andrei Morozov. The one who handles 'special security consulting' for the family."
My blood went cold. Viktor's nephew. Family. Inner circle. This wasn't some low-level soldier bought off—this was someone with direct access to Viktor himself.
"We have audio?" I asked, though the answer was already forming in my stomach like lead.
Held nodded, pulling up another file. The sound quality was degraded, processed through multiple filters, but the words were clear enough:
"Shift change happens at 2:30." Andrei's voice, younger, eager to please. "Both crews overlap for about twenty minutes. Maximum impact window."
"And the Volkov security?" Kozlov asked.
"My uncle made sure they're focused on the waterfront properties. The Red Hook site will be minimally covered."
My uncle. Viktor. Viktor had redirected our security away from the bombing site.
The conversation continued—discussion of explosive placement, evacuation routes, making sure the damage was "significant but not catastrophic." Enough to destabilize the alliance. Not enough to trigger immediate all-out war.
"There's more," Dr. Held said, his voice carrying the weight of worse news coming.
The financial records came next. Shell companies, offshore accounts, cryptocurrency conversions—all the modern methods of hiding blood money.
"Payments from Kozlov holdings to a consulting firm that traces back to Andrei Morozov," Held explained, highlighting specific transfers. "Look at the timeline."
I leaned forward, the pattern crystalizing immediately. The payments started small six months ago—regular consulting fees, nothing suspicious. But they spiked dramatically the week before my wedding to Anya. Doubled the day after the ceremony. Another massive payment two days before the bombing.
"He knew," I said, the words tasting like ash. "Viktor knew the bombing was coming."
"At minimum, his nephew was facilitating it," Alexei agreed. "At worst—"
"At worst, he orchestrated the whole thing." The picture formed in my mind with horrible clarity. "Marry Anya to us for the alliance. Let Kozlov destabilize it with the bombing. Use the violence as an excuse to reclaim her, along with extra territory. He used his own daughter as bait."
The silence that followed was heavy with shared understanding. We'd all done terrible things in this life. Violence, extortion, actions that would horrify normal people. But using your own child as a chess piece in a game that could have killed her—that was something else entirely.
"The marriage was never about peace," I continued, my voice eerily calm as the pieces clicked together. "It was about positioning. Viktor gains either way—if the alliance holds, he has leverage through Anya. If it fails, he reclaims her and can auction her off to the highest bidder later."
"Fucking bastard," Dmitry snarled, his fist connecting with the wall hard enough to leave a dent. "She's his daughter. His fucking daughter."
"She's his asset," I corrected, remembering Viktor's exact words from the Council meeting. "That's all she's ever been to him."