Chapter 5 - THE MAN NIKOLAI TRUSTED MOST
Anton closed the pantry door behind him.
Talia moved in front of Sophie despite barely being able to stand.
“You told me Nikolai ordered you to hide me.”
Anton adjusted one cuff.
“You were frightened. It was easy to believe.”
“Why keep me alive?”
“You recorded Elena’s call.”
Talia looked toward Sophie.
“My watch.”
A small smartwatch remained strapped beneath her sleeve.
Anton had failed to find it.
The device automatically recorded audio whenever Talia activated its emergency mode.
She had pressed it while Viktor forced her into the garage.
Anton extended one hand.
“Give it to me.”
Sophie grabbed a heavy ceramic jar from the shelf.
He looked at it.
“You plan to fight me with flour?”
“If necessary.”
“Your diner burned because you involved yourself in matters beyond you.”
The words confirmed he had known about the explosion.
Sophie’s grip tightened.
“Kolya was beyond me?”
“He was never your responsibility.”
“He became my responsibility when he walked in freezing.”
Anton sighed.
“Compassion is expensive.”
“So is betrayal.”
His eyes hardened.
Before he could move, the pantry door opened behind him.
Nikolai stood there.
No bodyguards.
No visible weapon.
Only the terrible stillness of a man hearing the last sentence he expected from someone he trusted.
Anton turned slowly.
“Sir.”
Nikolai looked toward Talia’s bound wrists.
“How long?”
Anton’s face changed.
Not guilt.
Relief.
The performance was over.
“Longer than you think.”
“Who?”
“Your brother.”
Nikolai did not react.
Sophie knew enough to understand the name remained unspoken because it hurt.
“Dmitri?” Nikolai asked.
Anton nodded.
Nikolai’s younger brother lived in Switzerland and publicly managed the family’s European logistics companies. Newspapers described him as the respectable Sokolov.
“Why would Dmitri want Kolya dead?”
“He does not want the boy dead.”
Talia laughed bitterly.
“He abandoned him in a storm.”
“He wanted Nikolai desperate.”
“For what?” Sophie asked.
Anton looked at her.
“The shipping vote.”
Nikolai’s companies were divided between legal businesses and older family interests controlled through private partnerships.
Kolya held inherited shares from his late mother, Anna.
Because he was a child, Nikolai managed them.
If Kolya disappeared or was presumed dead, those shares transferred temporarily to a family trust controlled jointly by Nikolai and Dmitri.
Elena planned to marry Nikolai and obtain influence over his vote.
Dmitri would control the trust.
Together, they could force the sale of the Sokolov shipping network to a foreign syndicate.
Nikolai had refused for years.
His son became the pressure point.
“They never intended to kill Kolya immediately,” Anton said. “They intended to make you believe he had been kidnapped.”
“Then why did Pavel draw a weapon?”
“Pavel changed the plan.”
“On whose order?”
Anton glanced toward Sophie.
“Elena decided a dead child and dead waitress created a cleaner story.”
Nikolai’s eyes became almost empty.
“What was your role?”
“To manage the search. Delay the correct teams. Make sure you arrived after the ransom narrative was established.”
“You stood beside me while I believed my son was freezing somewhere alone.”
“Yes.”
Nikolai moved.
One second he stood in the doorway.
The next, his hand was around Anton’s throat, driving him against the shelves.
The ceramic jars rattled.
Sophie stepped forward.
“Kolya is upstairs.”
Nikolai stopped.
His breathing was hard, but he released Anton.
He had been one movement away from becoming the monster everyone expected.
Sophie’s reminder pulled him back toward being a father.
Nikolai took Anton’s phone and weapon.
Then he called a detective.
Not one of his men.
A Chicago police lieutenant named Grace Callahan, whom Nikolai had publicly criticized for years.
When she answered, he said:
“My son was abducted by members of my household. I have a witness, recordings, and one conspirator detained. Send officers who are not connected to my security company.”
Anton stared at him.
“You are handing your family to police?”
“I am handing my son a truth no one can bury.”
Within an hour, state police surrounded the estate.
Talia’s watch recording captured Elena’s voice giving instructions to Viktor.
It also captured Anton promising to remove the nanny.
Elena was detained.
Anton was arrested.
The house was searched.
Viktor was gone.
So was Kolya.
Sophie reached the child’s bedroom and found the bed empty.
The window stood open.
Wet footprints crossed the carpet.
On the pillow rested a note.
Nikolai unfolded it.
You took my bride and my man. I took your heir. Bring Sophie Larsen to the South River warehouse before dawn, or your son enters the lake.
Sophie stared at her own name.
Viktor did not only want Kolya.
May you like
He wanted the waitress who had ruined the original plan.
Continue to the next part: Sophie agrees to become bait despite Nikolai’s refusal, but she secretly hides Talia’s recording watch inside the same soggy paper bag Kolya carried into the diner.
