Zane looked in the mirror of the borrowed office Viktoria had offered him. His face was harder, his eyes more sunken and his jaw tense. He was no longer the young man who dreamed of running away with Ana. He was another version of himself, one he barely recognized.
Viktoria had recruited him with measured words and strategies that knew how to touch wounds. She was not an ally, but she had shown him fragments of truth that others hid. Photographs, documents, names. Information about where Anna had been taken, about the decisions her father had made, about the manipulation behind the Vasilievs.
And the most important thing: he had promised her justice.
-It's not just for you," she had told him, her tone of voice as venomous as it was seductive. It's for all the girls like Ana. I too was under the yoke of this system. Help me destroy it.
Zane, blinded by the guilt of not saving her in time, agreed. Not for Viktoria, but for Ana. For her memory. For what it meant in his broken soul.
But what he didn't know was that the seeds Viktoria planted were dark. That every step she took on her mission was designed to break down the few barriers that protected Ana from falling deeper.
One night, Zane received a sealed envelope. Viktoria gave him no details, only an instruction:
-Deliver it to the mansion. Don't ask questions. Don't open it.
The envelope weighed more than lead. But she did.
The next day, at the mansion, Ana was confronted by a sudden investigation into an alleged theft of official documents. Chaos erupted. The staff was interrogated. Lucian, furious, began to distrust even his own shadows.
And Ana... Ana was singled out.
Zane learned too late what was in the envelope. It was a decoy. An elaborate trap. A set-up to destabilize the house from the inside. To make Ana vulnerable, isolated...manipulable.
She ran to confront Viktoria, anger in her chest like a flare.
-What did you do? You told me it was for justice!
-And it is," she replied, undeterred. Can't you see what's happening? Lucian is afraid now. Anne doesn't trust him at all anymore. The rift is open. And when it cracks completely... we can get her out of there.
Zane felt like he was drowning in his own decisions.
-You don't want to save her. You want to use her.
Viktoria stood up calmly. Her flawless silhouette silhouetted against the window like a figure of ice.
-You're using her too, Zane. Everyone is. The difference is I don't pretend to love her.
Zane didn't answer. He left the room as if running away from himself.
That night, he stood in the darkness of his room, shivering. He realized that, in his eagerness to rescue her, he was sinking her deeper.
He was not a rescuer. He was an unwitting traitor.
And when he looked at his reflection in the mirror again, he no longer saw the child in love.
He saw a man who, out of love, had made his biggest mistake.