Page 15 of Hostage of the Russian
A brief pause. “Sir?”
“She’s a student,” Kostya explained, his impatience bleeding through despite his efforts to remain calm. “Finals week starts soon. Students don’t just abandon their degrees, especially not someone who’s worked as hard as she has. Check the university.”
“Right away.”
Kostya ended the call, executing a sharp U-turn that drew angry honks from other drivers. Chicago University was twenty minutes away in current traffic, fifteen if he ignored a few speed limits. If Azriel thought she could simply resume her normal life, pretend that nothing had changed, she was about to receive a harsh education in the reality of her situation.
The irony wasn’t lost on him. He’d spent considerable time and resources investigating her academic record, her professors, and her thesis project. Azriel Hartford was brilliant, focused, driven, exactly the kind of woman who would refuse to let circumstances derail her carefully planned future. Perhaps he should have anticipated this move.
As he drove, Kostya found himself remembering their few direct interactions over the past three days. She’d been polite but distant, answering his questions with economical precision, never volunteering information or opinion. When he’d asked about her comfort, whether she needed anything, she’d simply said no, thank you, in a tone that managed to be both respectful and dismissive.
He’d caught her watching him sometimes, her gray eyes analytical and unafraid. Not the reaction he was accustomed to from people who found themselves in her position. Most people faced with Kostya Nikolai’s displeasure became stammering,terrified versions of themselves. Azriel had simply observed him, as if he were a particularly interesting specimen she was studying for a research paper.
The thought went unfinished, but a dark promise settled in his chest as he navigated the increasingly dense campus traffic. No one escaped Kostya Nikolai. Especially not his own wife. She could run to her books, her professors, and her thesis project, but she couldn’t hide from the fundamental truth of their situation.
Twenty minutes later, Viktor confirmed what Kostya had already suspected. Campus security footage showed Azriel entering the Humanities building two hours earlier, dressed in dark jeans and a forest green sweater, carrying the familiar canvas messenger bag she’d used for her books. She’d walked with purpose, someone with every right to be there, which was probably why security hadn’t given her a second glance.
The parking lot was crowded when he arrived, forcing him to park some distance from the building. Students streamed across the campus in small groups, animated conversations about upcoming exams and semester-end parties creating a constant buzz of youthful energy. Kostya adjusted his Italian wool jacket, knowing he stood out among the casually dressed undergraduates like a wolf among sheep.
He didn’t care. Let them stare. Let them wonder what someone like him was doing in their academic sanctuary.
Inside the Humanities building, the familiar scent of old books and industrial cleaning supplies brought back unwelcome memories of his own university days, back when he’d still believed that education and hard work could provide legitimate paths to success. Before his father’s death, he had been taught that some debts could only be paid in blood, and some empirescould only be built on foundations that respectable society preferred not to examine too closely.
He consulted the directory mounted near the main entrance, scanning for the classes Azriel might be attending. His research had been thorough, perhaps more thorough than he’d initially realized he’d need. Literature major, minor in Psychology. A senior year dominated by upper-level seminars and thesis preparation. A 3.8 GPA that spoke to both intelligence and dedication.
The first two classrooms he checked were either empty or filled with students he didn’t recognize. But the third classroom, tucked away on the second floor at the end of a corridor lined with faculty offices, revealed what he sought.
Through the small window in the door, he spotted her immediately. Azriel was seated near the front of a half-filled lecture hall, her dark hair pulled back in the neat ponytail she’d favored since childhood, according to the photographs his investigators had provided. Her attention was completely focused on the professor, a middle-aged woman with graying hair and animated gestures, who was discussing what appeared to be poetry analysis, gesturing toward lines of text projected on a screen.
For a moment, Kostya simply watched her, his anger temporarily suspended by the unexpectedness of the scene. She hadn’t run away, not really. She hadn’t fled to another city or thrown herself on the mercy of distant relatives. She’d gone to class, as if nothing had changed in her life. As if she hadn’t been kidnapped and forced into marriage just days earlier.
The audacity was breathtaking.
The professor asked a question about metaphorical imagery, and Azriel’s hand rose immediately; her response wasconfident and articulate, even though Kostya couldn’t hear the specific words through the door. Whatever she said clearly impressed the instructor, who nodded enthusiastically before building on her point, launching into an extended analysis that had several other students scribbling notes.
This was Azriel in her element, he realized. Here, surrounded by literature and analysis and intellectual discourse, she was confident, passionate, alive in a way he hadn’t seen at the mansion. The careful distance she’d maintained, the polite but guarded responses, all of that fell away when she was discussing something that genuinely engaged her mind.
Kostya pushed the door open quietly, slipping into the back row with the practiced silence of someone accustomed to moving unnoticed when necessary. A few students glanced his way, his expensive suit and obvious maturity marking him as distinctly out of place, but most remained focused on the lecture or their laptops.
From this vantage point, he could study Azriel properly without the barrier of glass between them. She was completely engaged in the discussion, her posture alert and attentive, occasionally scribbling notes in the margins of the textbook open before her or highlighting passages with a yellow marker. When another student made a comment she disagreed with, her eyebrows drew together slightly, and she raised her hand to offer a counterpoint that was both respectful and devastating in its precision.
“Excellent point, Miss Hartford,” the professor said, responding to another comment from Azriel. “The author’s subversion of traditional romantic imagery serves as both critique and homage. Can you expand on how this technique reflects the broader literary movement of the period?”
Hartford, not Nikolai. Of course she wouldn’t have changed her name in the university records yet. The legal paperwork establishing their marriage was barely seventy-two hours old, hardly enough time for bureaucratic systems to catch up with reality. But hearing her called by her maiden name irritated him nonetheless, a reminder that in this space, surrounded by these people, she still belonged to her old life rather than the new one he’d created for her.
As if sensing his annoyance, or perhaps just the weight of his stare, Azriel suddenly stiffened, her head turning slowly until her gaze found his in the back row. The color drained from her face in an instant, her eyes widening with shock and something that might have been fear, or anger, or both.
The transformation was immediate and complete. The confident scholar disappeared, replaced by the wary captive he’d grown accustomed to seeing at the mansion.
The professor asked her another question, building on her previous comment, but Azriel didn’t respond, her attention fixed on Kostya with the intensity of a deer caught in headlights. He offered her a small smile, deliberately calm and controlled, taking pleasure in her visible discomfort. Let her wonder what he would do. Let her stew in the anxiety of not knowing whether he’d cause a scene, drag her out of the classroom, or simply sit and wait for her to make the next move.
“Miss Hartford?” the professor prompted when several seconds passed without a response. “Your thoughts on the final stanza?”
Azriel visibly collected herself, tearing her gaze away from Kostya with what appeared to be considerable effort. “I, um, I think the...” She stumbled over the words, her usualeloquence deserting her as she struggled to regain her academic composure.
Kostya watched the internal battle play out across her expressive features, noting how her hands trembled slightly as she gripped her pen. A warm satisfaction spread through him. Good. Let her feel the consequences of her actions. Let her understand that there was no corner of her life he couldn’t reach if he chose to.
For the remainder of the lecture, Azriel’s participation diminished dramatically. She kept stealing glances toward the back row, each time finding Kostya’s unwavering gaze waiting for her. Her shoulders grew progressively tenser, her posture rigid with the strain of trying to focus on the lesson while acutely aware of his presence.
