Page 49 of Auctioned to the Russian Pakhan
“So are you,” she said quietly.
He went very still. “Irina.”
“What? You are. To your family. To...” She caught herself before the words could spill out:To me.
But he heard them anyway. She could see it in the way his eyes darkened, the way his grip on her hand tightened.
“Get some sleep,” he said finally. “It’s late.”
She wanted to argue, to push for more, but exhaustion was finally catching up with both of them. She curled up beside him, still in her slip, and let herself drift off to the sound of his steady breathing.
Over the next few days, the preoccupation returned. Matvei would disappear into his office for hours, emerging only for meals he barely touched. Phone calls that ended the moment she walked into a room. The easy intimacy of that night seemed like a distant memory.
It was driving her crazy.
“That’s it,” she announced to the empty living room on Thursday afternoon, pushing herself up from the couch where she’d been pretending to read. “We’re going out.”
She found herself outside his office door, hand raised to knock, when she heard his voice through the thick wood. He was on the phone, his tone sharp with anger.
“I don’t give a damn about your timeline,” he was saying. “The situation has changed.”
Irina lowered her hand, curiosity overriding politeness. Something in his voice made her stomach clench.
“She’s not just some pawn anymore,” Matvei continued, and there was something raw in his voice now. “I won’t... No. Listen to me carefully. If you touch one hair on her head, I’ll burn your entire operation to the ground.”
Her blood turned to ice.
“The Nikolai princess was always the endgame,” came a voice she didn’t recognize, tinny through the speakerphone. “You agreed to this, Volkov. You bought her specifically to destroy her family.”
The words hit her like a physical blow. Irina pressed her back against the wall, hand over her mouth to muffle any sound that might escape.
“That was before,” Matvei growled.
“Before what? Before you started thinking with your dick instead of your brain?” The other man’s laugh was cruel. “She’s a means to an end. Nothing more. And if you can’t see that through, maybe we need to reconsider our partnership.”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“I’m not threatening. I’m stating facts. The auction was just the beginning. Phase one. Now we move to phase two, and if you’re too pussy-whipped to follow through, I’ll find someone who isn’t.”
Irina’s vision blurred at the edges. The auction. The kidnapping. The terror and humiliation and fear. It had all been planned. Orchestrated. And Matvei...
Matvei had been part of it from the beginning.
“We had a deal,” the voice continued. “You wanted the Nikolais brought to their knees, and I delivered their precious little princess right into your hands. Don’t tell me you’re growing a conscience now.”
“The plan has changed,” Matvei said again, but there was something different in his voice now. Something that sounded almost like defeat.
“Plans don’t change, Volkov. People do. And right now, you’re becoming a liability.”
Irina didn’t wait to hear more. She backed away from the door on silent feet, her heart hammering so hard she was sure the entire mansion could hear it.
By the time she reached her room, she was shaking. Great, violent tremors that she couldn’t control. She sank onto the edge of the bed, staring at her hands as if they belonged to someone else.
It had all been a lie. Every moment, every touch, every whispered word in the darkness. He’d planned it. The kidnapping. The auction. The marriage. All of it had been orchestrated to destroy her family.
And she’d fallen for it. Fallen for him.
The betrayal cut deeper than any physical wound could have. She’d trusted him. She had started to love him, if she was being honest with herself. And all the while, he’d been planning her family’s destruction.
