Page 32 of Forced Innocent Bride By the Bratva

Scarlett exhaled quietly, shifting away and withdrawing her body from her hand. However, there was nowhere else to escape; she was trapped in the car with me.

I stared at her in silence, drinking in the series of emotions darting across her features before pulling back my hand. My gaze returned to the road, and I steered the car down a gentle slope.

Scarlett was fighting a losing battle. Eventually, she would succumb and face her new reality. But until then, I was determined to enjoy every moment of her torment.

***

Our shoes clicked against the worn linoleum floor as we approached the prison’s visiting room, a sterile, soulless space with stark white walls and an eerie silence. Scarlett’s chest heaved slowly the further in we went. Her fingers fidgeted, her palms were greasy, and droplets of cold sweat dotted her forehead.

Her body was tense, and even a blind man could sense her nervousness. Her breath hitched, and her chest heaved, meaning her heart was likely pounding like a drum in her chest.

Scarlett’s eyes darted across the ominous space, taking in the unpleasant sight around her. Her throat wobbled as she swallowed hard, her jaw tightening.

The air was heavy with the scent of disinfectant, the faint smell of sweat, and the distant tang of despair. There were blood stains on the floor and some parts of the walls as well. They looked fresh, and my best guess was that they were from a recent altercation or fight between inmates or perhaps inmates and prison guards. This was a wild place, a place reserved for society’s worst of the worst. Anything was possible in this dangerous hellhole.

The freshness of the stains suggested that the incident may have occurred within the past few hours or even more recently.

The look of horror on Scarlett’s face was priceless! At some point, considering the heaviness of her breath, I thought she was going to pass out. However, she kept going.

“First time in a prison?” I teased, stealing a glance in her direction as we followed up behind the guard.

She tightened her jaw but didn’t give a response.

“You can smell it, can’t you?” I continued. “That foul stench of pain, suffering, agony, and despair.”

She shot a quick glare in my direction, her eyes blazing with fury.

“Still thinking my mansion is a hellhole?” I teased, ignoring the scowl on her face. “You have no idea what it’s like to be trapped in a real one.” I halted beside her as the guard opened another door. “Why don’t you ask dear old Daddy to explain to you the things he’s had to endure?” I added, my voice calm but menacing, laced with a glint of mockery.

Her face twisted into a frown, her jaw tightening as she cast me a venomous glance, hatred and anger flickering in her gaze.

With a smirk on my lips, I looked away from her, my attention shifting to the interior of the room.

At the end of the space was a glass partition behind which Sean O’Sullivan sat, clad in the prison’s red uniform. His eyes blazed with fury as he glared at me, fingers tightly gripping the phone clasped to his ear. Sean’s face and forehead were etched with deep creases, a testament to his hatred for me.

“Dad,” Scarlett muttered under her breath, her eyes misting and a wave of emotions washing over her.

Sean’s eyes darted to his daughter, and his expression softened ever so slightly.

With a hand in my pocket, I strolled over to the partition and sank into the chair in front of him, my eyes glinting with amusement and satisfaction. Scarlett sat beside me, her gaze fixed on her father, with subtly trembling lips. Seeing him in chains, surrounded by armed men dictating his every move, must have shattered her heart.

Sean’s rugged face was mapped with bruises, and a thin, crusty seam of dried blood etched the curve of his lower lip, hinting at a recent brutal encounter. The man had a lot of enemies in here—enemies he had put away for one reason or another.

I bet a couple of them had decided to toil with the man responsible for their imprisonment. However, Sean was a force to be reckoned with—a rugged son of a bitch who wouldn’t go down so easily. If he was this roughed up, then the other guys would be in far worse conditions.

Sean’s eyes, red-rimmed and sunken, burned with a fierce intensity that was enough to make an average man shit his pants. But I was no average man. No. I was the motherfucker who put him in here in the first place.

I grabbed the phone and clasped it to my ear, my lips curling into a mischievous grin. “Hello, Sean,” I began, locking eyes with him. “You really should take better care of yourself. You’re starting to look like a punching bag.”

“Son of a bitch—I swear to God I’ll kill you,” he spewed, his voice dripping with venom.

“Temper, temper, Sean,” I said, a glint of amusement dancing in my eyes. Leaning back in my chair, I steepled my fingers together and continued. “You know what they say, ‘Prison’s not just a place, it’s a state of mind.’ Looks like you’re embracing it wholeheartedly.”

His glare was ice-cold, and his jaw tightened. “I want to speak with my daughter.”

I casually drummed my fingers on the countertop. “Do you mean my wife?”

Sean’s face turned beet red with rage as he slammed his fist against the glass partition, making it shudder and rattle. The sound, like a crack of thunder, caused Scarlett to flinch, her eyes widening in alarm.

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