Anton stood alone on the top floor of his father's skyscraper.
The windows stretched from floor to ceiling, revealing a panorama of Saint Petersburg's rooftops under a thin veil of snow. Below, the city buzzed like an ant farm—orderly, cold, and predictable.
Just the way his father liked it.
He hated it.
His coat hung untouched on the arm of a chair. His black gloves were still in his pocket. His phone sat face down on the table—silent.
He hadn't spoken since dawn.
Behind him, glass doors led into a polished office full of dark oak, brushed steel, and inherited power. His father's voice had thundered through it earlier, a brutal reminder that sentiment was a luxury they couldn't afford.
"You'll forget her," his father said. "One gala. One girl. That's it. You're not a schoolboy."
"You're my son. The next Reznikov."
Anton didn't respond.
Because something about her—the girl with the tray and the sharp eyes—refused to be erased.
He remembered her voice. Quiet, but not timid. Thoughtful. Dignified, even when she didn't know anyone was watching her.
And that moment she looked him in the eye.
She hadn't flinched.
No one ever didn't flinch.
That's why he had the card slipped into her coat.
Just a symbol. Just a test.
He didn't expect her to do anything with it. But if she did…
He finally picked up his phone and dialed.
"Mikhail," he said. His right hand.
"Tell security to flag anyone who shows up at the Viktorov Holdings lobby with the card."
"If she comes, I want to know before she says a word."
He didn't say her name.
Later that same day, Anton sat in a private room beneath the Viktorov Holdings building—though "holdings" was a polite word. The real business wasn't in stocks or oil. It was in control.
Weapons shipments through Odessa. Laundering through real estate. Silent partnerships in construction, ports, logistics.
To the public, the Reznikov family was old money. To the powerful, they were the ghosts behind closed doors.
To Anton, it was a cage.
Across from him sat his father's consigliere—Yakov, an old man with sunken eyes, a black cane, and a whispery voice that could command armies.
"The accountant in Odessa has been dealt with," Yakov said, placing a thin file on the table.
"The rival tried to undercut us in Poland. He won't do it again."
"And the port inspector has been paid. Twice."
Anton nodded slowly.
"Good," he said.
But his tone was flat. Mechanical.
Yakov watched him for a moment. "You don't enjoy this, do you?"
Anton's eyes flicked up, cold and unreadable.
"What I enjoy is irrelevant."
That was what his father always said. He was becoming it—bit by bit.
Yakov exhaled through his nose and shifted his weight. "You should be more like your father. Or kill him. That's the only way to survive men like him."
Anton didn't answer. He just reached for the file.
That night, Anton found himself in his private apartment—clean, silent, and empty. It overlooked the Neva River, but he rarely noticed the view.
He stood in his study, fingers tracing the spine of an old hardcover book. A battered copy of "Ruslan and Ludmila"—Pushkin, his mother's favorite.
She used to read it to him on stormy nights, curled beside him in a little house far away from this empire of steel and glass.
He hadn't heard her voice in ten years. But sometimes, when it was late and the world was still, he could almost remember it.
"Don't let them turn your heart to stone, Anton. Promise me."
And he had. But he'd broken that promise every year since.
Until last night—when a stranger in a borrowed dress had looked at him like he wasn't made of stone.
He pulled out a small phone—one that wasn't logged, tapped, or tracked—and opened a secure line.
"If she shows up," he told Mikhail,
"Do not stop her. Do not interfere. Just let her in."
He paused.
"And make sure she's safe."
He said to him for the second time that day.