Anya's first day as Lex Volkov's personal assistant felt like a dream, a bad one. She was in a world of silence and gold. The top floors of the Volkov Group were a fortress of power. Her office was small but perfect, just outside of his. The door was always open, and she could see him sitting at his desk. He was a silent king in his glass kingdom.
She was no longer an intern on the thirtieth floor. She was on the sixty-fifth floor, in his world. But she wasn't a part of it. She was a ghost, a silent worker who only spoke when spoken to.
She had been given a new phone, a new laptop, and a list of rules. She was to answer all of his calls, manage his schedule, and keep his secrets. She was told that she would be on call twenty-four hours a day. Her life was no longer her own. It belonged to him.
Lex Volkov never looked at her. He never spoke to her directly. He would just put a file on her desk, and she would know what to do. His presence was a heavy thing in the office, a cold, silent force that made her feel small.
But Anya wasn't the scared girl anymore. She was a spy in his court. She used every moment to learn. She listened to his calls, she read his emails, and she watched his every move. She learned about his business, his rivals, and his dark world. She was a good student, and she was learning fast.
She learned that the Kravtsov deal was a big problem. The stolen shipment was a real blow, and Lex was working hard to find out who was behind it. He was a man on a mission, a hunter looking for his prey. And she, a small, quiet girl, was in the middle of it all.
The video file from the unknown sender was a constant ghost in her mind. She kept it on her phone, a secret she carried with her everywhere. The message, "choose a side," was a constant weight on her heart. She didn't want to choose a side. She just wanted her life back.
One evening, working late, she was alone in the office. Lex was in a meeting, and the bodyguards were outside his office door. Anya decided to take a chance. She walked into his office. It was a beautiful room, with big windows that looked out over the city. It was a room that screamed power, and it felt like a cage.
She went to his desk. She knew she shouldn't be there, but she had to. She looked at the papers on his desk, but they were all about business. She opened a drawer, her heart pounding. There, under a pile of papers, she found a small, black notebook.
Her hands trembled as she opened it. It was a journal, written in his own hand. It was not about business. It was about his life, his past, his family. It was a secret, a private world.
She read a few pages, her eyes wide with shock. He wrote about his father, a cruel and powerful man. He wrote about his mother's death, and his own sadness. He wrote about the pressure, the loneliness, the burden of being a king. He wrote about the day he had to take over his father's dark business, to become the mafia boss he never wanted to be.
He wrote about a party, a long time ago, where he was drugged. He wrote about the terrible cure, the need for intimacy, and the girl who had been brought to him. He didn't remember her face. He just remembered her fear, her tears, her small, fragile body. He wrote about the shame, the guilt, the knowledge that he had done something terrible. He wrote about the fact that he was a monster.
Anya's eyes filled with tears. He hadn't forgotten. He had remembered. He had just hidden the memory away, a dark secret in his own mind. He was not just a cold, heartless man. He was a man with a past, with pain, with a dark secret.
She heard the sound of the meeting room door opening. Her heart jumped into her throat. He was coming back. She quickly put the notebook back in the drawer and walked out of the office, just as he was walking in.
He looked at her, his eyes cold and distant. "What were you doing?" he asked, his voice low.
"I was just... getting a file," she stammered, her heart pounding.
He didn't believe her. She could see it in his eyes. He knew she was lying. He just looked at her, a long, searching look. "Get out of here, Anya," he said, his voice quiet. "Go home."
She ran out of the office, into the elevator, and down to the ground floor. She ran out of the building, into the cold night air. She had found his secret. She had found his past. She had found a small piece of a man who was not just a monster. And she knew, with a terrible certainty, that this was the beginning of a different kind of war. A war not of revenge, but of truth.