Page 33 of Bought By the Ruthless Pakhan

"She's not a mistress!"

Rage exploded in my chest.

I was sick of people using degrading terms to insult Anna.

She wasn't a mistress. She wasn't some club girl trading dignity for cash. She was my woman.

Even if this thing between us started all wrong, no outsider had the right to trash her.

"She's not a mistress? Then she's vicious! You forget what she did to Nadia?" Victoria's voice rose. "Ivan, wake up. We're family—"

"Not anymore." I cut her off. "Victoria, I'm wide awake. We stopped being family the second you rolled into bed with my best friend."

I had no idea how she had the nerve to stand here and say "we're family."

She'd betrayed this family. Hurt both Nadia and me. While she was living it up on my dime, Nadia was curled in my arms, asking where Mommy went.

She had zero right to question me.

Victoria's face went pale. It took her a long time to choke out, "I just made a mistake. Why won't you forgive me?"

She covered her face and sobbed, shoulders shaking.

Watching her, I felt nothing.

I knew a girl who never used tears to buy pity. Who was afraid to let anyone see her cry. Who swallowed every ounce of hurt behind gritted teeth.

She was stubborn. Unbreakable. Like a branch that bent but refused to snap.

I didn't look at Victoria again. I turned toward the stairs.

"You're going to her? She's gone!" Victoria screamed behind me. "She cleaned out the room before she left—took everything she could carry. Ivan, don't you get it? She's greedy. A thief!"

I spun around. "What do you mean she's gone?"

Who was gone?

Anna?

No. She'd promised to follow my plan.

But a cold voice in my head answered—when has the kitten ever really obeyed? When she was cornered, she tried to jump off a balcony.

I bolted up the stairs toward her room.

The guest room door hung open.

I pushed it wider. The closet gaped empty. The few outfits Anna wore regularly—gone. The nightstand was bare. The novel she'd been reading, halfway through, vanished from the desk.

Everything tidy. Like she'd never been here at all.

She really left.

No message. Just disappeared.

I sat on the bed. The sheets still held a trace of laundry detergent, faint and fading into the air—the last shred of proof she'd existed here.

Anna.