Page 51 of Auctioned to the Russian Pakhan
A cold knot formed in his stomach as he searched more frantically. The library. The sunroom. The guest quarters. Every room came up empty, and with each empty doorway, the knot pulled tighter.
He found Mikhail, one of his senior men, in the security office reviewing camera footage.
“Where’s my wife?” Matvei demanded without preamble.
Mikhail looked up, surprised by the sharp edge in his boss’s voice. “I... I’m not sure. She left a few hours ago. Said she needed some air.”
“Left? Left how? With security?”
“No, Sir. She... she slipped out through the service entrance. By the time we realized she was gone, she’d already disabled the tracking on her phone.”
The bottom dropped out of Matvei’s world. She was gone. Really gone. And she’d made damn sure he couldn’t find her.
His phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number, but he recognized the writing style immediately.
*One of your operations is burning. Literally. Might want to check on that.—D*
Matvei’s blood turned to ice. The warehouse on Fifth Street was one of his most important operations. If Dmitri had hit it...
He was halfway to his car when another text came through. This one from his operations manager.
*Boss, we’ve got a problem. The warehouse is hit. Need you here now.*
The drive to the warehouse felt like an eternity. Smoke was visible from six blocks away, black columns rising into the gray afternoon sky. By the time Matvei arrived, the fire department had mostly contained the blaze, but the damage was extensive.
“What happened?” he demanded, grabbing his operations manager by the arm.
“Coordinated hit,” the man replied, coughing from the smoke. “Professional job. But boss, there’s something else. Something weird.”
They picked their way through the debris, past the twisted metal and charred concrete. The manager led him to what had been the office area, now little more than a skeleton of blackened beams.
“Found this near the back entrance,” the manager said, holding up a piece of fabric. Expensive fabric. “Looks like someone left it behind when they were planting the charges.”
Matvei took the fabric, and his heart stopped. He recognized it immediately. It was from one of Irina’s dresses. The blue one she’d worn just yesterday.
“Sir?” his manager prompted. “You okay?”
“Get everyone out,” Matvei said quietly. “Sweep the perimeter. I want to know exactly how they got in and out.
As his men scattered to follow orders, Matvei stood alone in the ruins of his operation, staring at the piece of fabric in his hands. The implications were staggering. Irina had been here. During the attack. Which meant...
His phone rang. One of his security team.
“Boss, we’ve got more intel on the hit. Witnesses saw someone matching the description of Viktor Nikolai in the area about an hour before the explosion.”
The pieces clicked into place with sickening clarity. Viktor Nikolai. Irina’s brother. The same brother who’d somehow gotten past his security to talk to her at his other operation just days ago. The conversation she’d never mentioned.
She’d been feeding information to her family. Playing him. Using the access he’d given her, the trust he’d placed in her, to gather intelligence for the Nikolais.
The betrayal cut deeper than any knife could have. All those nights she’d lain in his arms, listening to him talk about his operations, his concerns, his plans. All those times she’d asked innocent questions about his business, seeming genuinely interested in understanding his world.
It had all been an act. Every moment of it.
His phone was in his hand before he’d made a conscious decision to call her. It went straight to voicemail. He tried again. Same result.
But Matvei Volkov hadn’t built an empire by giving up easily. If Irina thought she could disappear, she was about to learn exactly how wrong she was.
It took his people less than four hours to track her down. The Meridian Hotel, downtown. Room 1247. She’d checked in under a false name, but the desk clerk had recognized her from the photo Matvei’s men showed him.
