Page 46 of Auctioned to the Russian Pakhan
“No, it’s not,” Anka said firmly. “It’s actually very simple. You married a wonderful woman who’s become part of our family, and now some outside asshole wants you to betray her for the sake of a revenge plan that was always stupid to begin with.”
“The Nikolais are our enemies,” Matvei said, but the words felt hollow even to him.
“Are they? Because Irina doesn’t feel like an enemy. She fits here, Matvei. She’s good for you, good for all of us. She makes you laugh, makes you think, makes you want to be better than just another Bratva leader obsessed with power.”
The truth of her words hit him like a physical blow. Irina did make him want to be better. She challenged him, inspired him, and made him think about possibilities beyond the endless cycle of violence and revenge that had defined his life for so long.
“Dmitri won’t let this go,” he said quietly.
“Then maybe it’s time to remind Dmitri that you’re not his puppet,” Anka suggested. “Maybe it’s time to choose what matters more: a stupid revenge plot or the woman who’s sleeping in your bed right now because she trusts you not to hurt her.”
After Anka left, Matvei spent the day in his office, staring at reports he couldn’t focus on and trying to figure out how he’d gotten himself into this impossible situation. The originalplan had seemed so simple: marry the Nikolai girl, extract information, use it to destroy her family, and secure his position as the dominant Bratva power in the city.
But that was before he’d gotten to know her. Before he’d seen her fierce intelligence, her determination, her surprising resilience. Before he’d watched her bloom under his attention like a flower finally getting sunlight. Before she’d trusted him with her body, her vulnerability, her growing affection.
The worst part was that he was starting to suspect she might actually care about him. Not because she was playing some elaborate long game, but because somehow, despite everything, they’d built something real together.
A soft knock on his door interrupted his brooding. “Come in.”
Irina appeared in the doorway, carrying a tray with lunch and wearing a concerned expression that made his chest tighten with guilt. “You missed breakfast,” she said, setting the tray on his desk. “And you look like you haven’t moved from that chair all morning.”
“I’m fine,” he said, but she was already moving around his desk to study his face more closely.
“No, you’re not,” she said gently, her hands coming up to frame his face. “You look troubled. What’s wrong?”
The simple question, asked with such genuine concern, nearly broke him. Here she was, worried about him, taking care of him, and he was sitting here agonizing over whether to betray her family to satisfy the bloodthirsty demands of a man who saw her as nothing more than a tool.
“Just business complications,” he lied, hating himself for it. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
She studied his face for a moment longer, then nodded, but he could see she wasn’t entirely convinced. Instead of pressing, though, she simply leaned down and kissed his forehead, a gesture so tender and trusting that it made his throat close up.
“You work too hard,” she said softly. “Whatever it is, it’ll still be there after you eat something.”
She settled into the chair across from his desk, clearly planning to keep him company while he ate, and Matvei found himself watching her instead of touching his food. She’d picked up a book from somewhere, and she was reading with the kind of complete absorption that had fascinated him from the beginning. Occasionally, she’d look up and catch him staring, and she’d smile that small, private smile that made him feel like the most important person in her world.
The guilt was eating him alive.
His phone buzzed with a text, and when he glanced at the screen, his blood went cold. It was from Pavel, one of his lieutenants:Nikolai's warehouse on Fifth Street hit an hour ago. Looked professional. No casualties but significant property damage.
Matvei’s mind immediately jumped to Dmitri. This had his fingerprints all over it, the timing, the surgical precision, the message it sent. He was getting impatient with Matvei’s delays and taking matters into his own hands.
“I have to go,” Matvei said abruptly, standing so quickly that he nearly knocked over his chair.
Irina looked up from her book, startled. “Go where? What happened?”
“Something’s come up,” he said, already moving toward the door. “I’ll be back later.”
“Matvei, wait.” She was on her feet now, catching his arm. “You’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
For a moment, looking into her worried eyes, he almost told her everything. Almost confessed the whole sordid truth about Dmitri, about the original plan, about the impossible position he’d put himself in. But then he thought about how she’d look at him when she learned that their entire marriage had started as a revenge plot, how she’d probably never trust him again, never look at him with that soft affection that had become more precious to him than power or territory or anything else he’d ever wanted.
“It’s nothing,” he said, gently extracting himself from her grip. “I’ll explain later.”
But as he walked away, leaving her standing in his office looking confused and hurt, Matvei knew there might not be a later. Because if Dmitri was escalating things, if he was attacking Nikolai's operations without warning, then the careful balance Matvei had been trying to maintain was about to collapse entirely.
And when it did, everyone was going to get hurt.
The drive to track down Dmitri gave him time to think, time to plan, time to figure out exactly what he was going to say to the man who was threatening to destroy the best thing that had ever happened to him. Because one thing had become crystal clear during that conversation with Anka, during those moments with Irina in his office:
