Chapter 18 - Matvei
The phone felt like it might crack under the pressure of Matvei’s grip. Every word out of Dmitri’s mouth made his jaw clench tighter, his free hand curling into a fist that he wanted to drive through the bastard’s face.
“You should have seen the Nikolai operation burn,” Dmitri’s voice crackled through the speaker, practically purring with satisfaction. “Beautiful work, if I do say so myself. But that’s just the appetizer, Volkov. Now we move to the main course.”
Matvei forced his voice to remain level. “Meaning?”
“Meaning it’s time to remind those brothers exactly what they stand to lose. Your little wife has been playing house with you for weeks now. Time to show them how easily we can take her away.”
The words hit Matvei like a physical blow. Every muscle in his body went rigid. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Come on, don’t play dumb. We hurt the girl, make it look like the Nikolais couldn’t protect their precious princess even when she’s married to their enemy. Drives home the point that nowhere is safe for them. Psychological warfare at its finest.”
The rational part of Matvei’s brain screamed at him to stay calm, to think strategically. But rationality was drowning under a tide of protective fury that threatened to consume him whole.
“You touch her,” he said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper, “and I’ll tear you apart with my bare hands.”
Dmitri’s laugh was sharp and mocking. “Jesus, Volkov, you’ve really lost your edge, haven’t you? Getting attached to the merchandise? She’s a tool, nothing more. A very effective tool, but a tool nonetheless.”
Matvei’s control snapped like a frayed wire. “She’s my wife.”
“She’s a Nikolai princess playing dress-up in your bed. And if you can’t see past a pretty face and a tight pussy to remember what we’re trying to accomplish here, then maybe I overestimated you.”
It took every ounce of willpower Matvei possessed not to hurl the phone across the room. His breathing was coming in harsh, shallow bursts, his vision tinged red at the edges.
“The plan has changed,” he managed through gritted teeth.
“Plans don’t change, Volkov. People do. And right now, you’re starting to sound like a liability.
” Dmitri’s tone had shifted, become colder.
More calculating. “Maybe it’s time I handled this personally.
I’ve got some contacts who’d pay very well for a piece of Nikolai royalty. Especially one as pretty as yours.”
The threat was clear. The implications were clearer still. Matvei closed his eyes, fighting the urge to reach through the phone and strangle the son of a bitch.
“Don’t,” he said simply. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Or what? You’ll come after me? With what army, Volkov? You think your brothers will back you up when they find out you chose some Nikolai bitch over the family business?”
The call ended abruptly, leaving Matvei staring at the dead phone in his hand. His office felt too small suddenly, the walls pressing in on him from all sides. He needed air. He needed space. He needed Irina.
The thought of her calmed him slightly. Over the past few days, she’d become his anchor in the storm of his own making.
Her quiet presence, her stubborn refusal to be intimidated by his moods, the way she’d taken care of him without asking questions he couldn’t answer.
She’d somehow become essential to his sanity.
He left his office and went looking for her, checking the living room first, then the kitchen, then their bedroom. Nothing. The silence of the mansion felt oppressive, wrong somehow.
“Irina?” he called out, his voice echoing off the marble floors.
No response.
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.
Matvei’s fury carried him through the lobby, into the elevator, down the hallway to her door. He was ready for a fight. Ready to confront her with everything he’d discovered. Ready to demand answers for her betrayal.
He used the keycard his hacker had procured within minutes, expecting to find her waiting, defiant as always. Instead, the room was dark, silent except for the faint sound of labored breathing.
She was in bed, curled on her side, facing away from the door. For a moment, he thought she might be pretending to sleep, but as he moved closer, he could see the tension in her body, the way she was curled in on herself like she was trying to hold something in.
“Irina.” His voice came out rougher than he’d intended.
She didn’t turn around, but he saw her entire body go rigid. “Go away.”
“Like hell.” He moved around the bed so he could see her face, and the sight stopped him cold.
She was pale. Deathly pale. Her usually bright eyes were dull and glassy, dark circles beneath them like bruises. She looked fragile in a way that made his chest tighten with panic.
“Jesus, what’s wrong with you?” The words came out harsher than he meant them to, but concern was overriding his anger.
“Nothing that concerns you.” She tried to sit up, but the movement seemed to cost her. She swayed slightly, pressing a hand to her forehead.
“Bullshit.” He was beside the bed now, his trained eye cataloging symptoms. Fever, definitely. Nausea, if the way she kept swallowing was any indication. When had she last eaten? “When did this start?”
“Matvei, please.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Just... just go. I can’t deal with this right now.”
“Deal with what?” But even as he asked the question, his anger was crumbling in the face of his instinct to protect her. To take care of her. “When did you last eat something?”
She laughed bitterly, the sound turning into a cough that seemed to shake her entire frame. “You really want to play concerned husband right now?”
“I want to make sure you’re not dying in some shitty hotel room.”
“Why? Afraid you’ll lose your leverage against my family?”
The words hit him like a slap. So she knew. Somehow, she’d figured it out. But looking at her now, seeing how small and sick she looked in the oversized hotel bed, he found he didn’t care about any of that.
“Fuck the leverage,” he said quietly. “Right now, I care about you.”
Something flickered in her eyes at that. Pain, maybe. Or hope. It was gone too quickly for him to be sure.
“You don’t get to do that,” she whispered. “You don’t get to care about me now.”
“Too late.” He sat on the edge of the bed, ignoring her flinch at his proximity. “I’m here. You’re sick. Everything else can wait.”
“Matvei...”
“When did you last drink water? Eat anything?” When she didn’t answer, he stood. “I’m getting you something. Don’t even think about disappearing again.”
He found a small market two blocks away, returning with bottled water, crackers, soup, and fever medication. She was exactly where he’d left her, though she’d managed to sit up against the headboard.
“Drink this,” he said, twisting the cap off a bottle of water.
She took it with shaking hands, managing only a few small sips before setting it aside. He opened the crackers next, breaking one into small pieces.
“I’m not hungry,” she protested weakly.
“I don’t care. You need something in your system.”
She ate a few pieces, more to appease him than out of any real appetite, he suspected. But it was something.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked after she’d managed half the bottle of water and a few more crackers.
“Because you need it.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have right now.”
The echo of her own words from a few nights ago hung between them. When she’d taken care of him without questions or explanations. The irony wasn’t lost on either of them.
“We need to talk,” he said finally.
“I know.” She closed her eyes, leaning back against the pillows. “But not now. I can’t... I don’t have the energy to fight with you right now.”
Looking at her, pale and exhausted and so unlike the fierce woman who’d been matching him word for word just days ago, Matvei felt something crack inside his chest.
“Then don’t fight,” he said quietly. “Just rest. We’ll figure out the rest later.”
She opened her eyes, studying his face like she was trying to solve a puzzle. “You found out about the warehouse.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“And you think I had something to do with it.”
“Did you?”
A long silence stretched between them. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely audible.
“Not the way you think.”
“Then tell me the way it really was.”
But she was already closing her eyes again, exhaustion winning out over everything else. “Tomorrow. When I can think straight.”
Matvei wanted to push. Wanted answers to the questions burning through him. But looking at her now, seeing how utterly depleted she was, he found he couldn’t.
Tomorrow, they would have to face the truth about what had happened. About the warehouse, about her brother, about the lies and deceptions that had brought them to this point.
But tonight, she was sick and alone in a sterile hotel room, and despite everything, despite the betrayal and the anger and the confusion, she was still his.
And he wasn’t going anywhere.