Page 36 of Bought By the Ruthless Pakhan

Silence for two seconds. Then a knowing laugh. "Don't tell me—the sweetheart from the auction?"

I didn't answer.

Dmitri was fully awake now. "She actually ran?"

"Search. Every station. Airport. Highway exit. All of them."

I hung up and set the phone on the desk. My palm was sweating.

I looked down and noticed a Post-it note under the edge of the desk.

Outside, pale morning light swept past the corner of my eye.

My heart twisted.

What was she feeling when she left?

I couldn't guess.

But I knew one thing—she probably wasn't coming back.

Chapter Ten

Ivan & Anna

Ivan

Five Years Later.

I'd been living in New York for five years.

Officially, the company needed someone to oversee the new branch. But I knew the truth—I stayed because I was waiting for someone.

She never showed. Anna never showed.

Dmitri dug into her background for me. Turns out Anna Bennett was too common a name. There were over a hundred in New York alone. We checked every single one. Wrong age, wrong face, wrong history—none of them fit. She vanished like a drop of water in the ocean. Not even a ripple.

Last winter, I saw a woman in Central Park with her silhouette. Cream knit scarf, honey-gold hair brushing her shoulders. I stood by the frozen lake with a hot coffee in my hand, watching for a long time.

Missing someone doesn't fade. It's a seed buried in your chest. You think it's dead, and then one frozen afternoon, one familiar profile—it sprouts again.

Victoria came around a few times too. Same as ever. No regrets. Every conversation circled back to Nadia, using our daughter like a skeleton key.

But I stopped giving her openings.

I cut off every resource she'd piggybacked off the Volkov name. Every connection she'd leveraged as the "Pakhan's ex-wife." Within six months, her polished socialite life crumbled.

"Daddy."

Nadia's voice came from behind me.

I turned.

She'd grown. She wore a soft yellow dress, and when she smiled, a shallow dimple appeared at the corner of her mouth. She'd turned into a beautiful little girl.

She ran toward me, clutching a piece of paper that flapped in the wind.

"Daddy." She was breathless. She held the drawing up to my face. "Look."