Chapter 3 - The Wife He Would Not Touch
Vadim moved before Elara could scream.
He pulled her behind him.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
His head turned.
“No?”
“If this concerns my mother, I'm not hiding.”
A strange expression crossed his face.
Almost approval.
Then footsteps sounded downstairs.
Vadim drew a handgun from beneath his waistcoat.
Elara stared at it.
Reality changed instantly.
The warm house became what she had forgotten it was.
The home of a dangerous man.
Vadim noticed her expression.
“Behind me.”
This time she obeyed.
They descended.
Two guards appeared.
“No breach at the perimeter,” one said.
“Then whoever did this was already inside.”
The shattered glass belonged to a cabinet.
Nothing appeared stolen.
Except one object.
The photograph.
Vadim's jaw tightened.
Someone had entered his secured home, delivered evidence, then reclaimed part of it.
That was not burglary.
It was a message.
By morning, the estate was locked down.
Elara sat at the kitchen table wearing one of Anna's borrowed robes while Vadim's men searched the property.
She expected Vadim to interrogate her.
Instead, he made coffee.
“You cook?”
“I make coffee.”
“That's not cooking.”
“Then no.”
She smiled despite herself.
He placed toast beside her.
“You should eat.”
“You sound like Anna.”
“She trained me.”
Elara studied him.
“Are you actually a criminal?”
Vadim lifted an eyebrow.
“That is an unusual breakfast question.”
“It's been an unusual twenty-four hours.”
He sat opposite her.
“I have done things you would not approve of.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“It is the one I'm giving you.”
She accepted that.
For now.
“What do the numbers mean?”
“We're checking.”
“And the man?”
“His name is Anton Volkov.”
“Do you know him?”
“I knew his brother.”
Past tense.
Elara did not ask.
Vadim's phone rang.
He answered in Russian.
His expression changed halfway through the call.
When he hung up, he looked at Elara.
“Your mother's maiden name wasn't Evelyn Hart.”
Elara frowned.
“Yes, it was.”
“No.”
He placed a document on the table.
“Her birth certificate says Evelyn Morozova.”
Elara stared.
The surname sounded Russian.
“My mother was Russian?”
“Her mother was.”
“Why would my father hide that?”
Vadim's silence answered more than words.
Because Gerald had hidden much more.
Over the next week, Elara learned something else.
Vadim kept promises.
He never entered her bedroom without knocking.
He never touched her without giving her time to refuse.
At meals, he asked what she liked instead of telling the cook what she should eat.
Nobody commented on her portions.
Nobody watched her dessert plate.
It should not have felt revolutionary.
It did.
One evening, Elara found him in the library.
He was reading the old marriage agreement.
“Anything?”
He looked up.
“Possibly.”
She sat across from him.
“Tell me.”
“Your father transferred three companies as part of the marriage arrangement.”
“I know.”
“One never belonged to him.”
Elara waited.
“It belonged to your mother.”
Her pulse quickened.
“What company?”
“North Star Holdings.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Neither had I.”
Vadim slid a paper toward her.
“Until yesterday.”
Elara read the valuation.
Then read it again.
“That can't be right.”
“It is.”
North Star Holdings owned warehouses, development rights, and minority interests in several logistics companies.
Worth hundreds of millions.
Her hands went cold.
“My father gave you my mother's company?”
“He tried.”
“What do you mean?”
“The transfer requires your signature.”
“I signed dozens of pages.”
“Not this one.”
Vadim tapped the bottom.
There was a signature.
Elara stared.
It looked exactly like hers.
But she had never written it.
“That isn't mine.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Your signature on the marriage license slopes left. This slopes right.”
She looked at him.
“You noticed that?”
“I notice things.”
The implication made her cheeks warm.
Vadim continued.
“Someone forged your signature.”
“My father.”
“Probably.”
Elara stood abruptly.
“I need air.”
She walked toward the terrace.
Vadim followed but kept distance.
Outside, she gripped the stone railing.
“My whole life,” she whispered, “he told me I was worthless.”
Vadim said nothing.
“Maybe he needed me to believe it.”
“Yes.”
She turned.
The certainty in his answer struck her.
“You think that's what this was?”
“I think people are easier to steal from when they believe they own nothing.”
Tears filled her eyes.
Elara hated them.
Vadim stepped closer.
He stopped.
“May I?”
She nodded.
He wiped one tear from her cheek with his thumb.
The touch was so gentle she forgot how to breathe.
His eyes dropped briefly toward her mouth.
Then returned to her eyes.
Elara felt it.
A question.
A possibility.
He moved no closer.
She whispered, “Why did you stop?”
“Because you haven't asked me not to.”
Her heart beat harder.
“What if I don't know what I want?”
“Then we wait.”
He stepped back.
It was somehow more intimate than a kiss.
That night Elara returned to her bedroom and found an envelope beneath her door.
No footsteps.
No sound.
Inside was a photocopy of an old bank statement.
North Star Holdings.
Evelyn Morozova Fagan.
And another authorized beneficiary.
Elara read the second name.
May you like
Her breath stopped.
Vadim Sokolov.
