Page 68 of Forced By the Obsessed Bratva
I narrowed my eyes for a moment to let it get used to the brightness around me.
The ceiling above me pulsed, still a little blurry, and the shadows in the corners of the room stretched longer than they should.
My body felt heavy and strange, as if someone had replaced my blood with something heavier. And then the last memories I had started to return.
Zoella.
Her name was the first thing that came to mind.
I remembered everything—her staying in the bathroom longer than usual, the cocktail she made, and her walking out on me just before the darkness swallowed me.
Shooting up from the bed, I tried to raise myself to my feet, but the movement was too sudden, and my body wasn’t ready for it yet. The world whirled around me, and for a moment, I was afraid I would faint again.
I braced myself on my elbows, inhaling deeply, desperate to fill my lungs with air.
A deep voice cleared a throat somewhere in the room, dragging my attention. “You’re awake.”
I slowly turned.
Rurik, Eduard, Kiril, and another guard stood at a corner of the room, their gazes on me as if they were watching a beast waking in a cage.
No one said a word.
“Where is she?” My voice was a cracked rasp, heavy with something emotional. Rage, anger, and worry.
Eduard stepped forward. “She’s gone.”
I blinked. “What the fuck do you mean gone?”
“Left sometime before dawn. Took the black Volvo. Security let her out after she showed your clearance code.”
“She doesn’t have access to my codes,” I barked, my fists clenching. How could they be so fucking stupid?
“They assumed she did,” he replied, whipping his head around to Kirill and the other guard. “She’s your wife; they couldn’t have stopped her.”
I swept my legs over the bed, dropping my feet on the floor and pinned my glare on Kirill “So you’re telling me,” I said slowly, “that she walked out of this building, past the estate gates, past all of you, and no one so much as thought to stop her or call to confirm if I’d given her access to go out?”
Kirill bowed his head. “I’m sorry, sir.”
I shook my head. “There has to be a reason why she pulled a stunt like that.”
I’d seen the apologetic look in her eyes before she left. Something was wrong; I could feel it.
“I think I know what it is,” Rurik added quietly. “I saw her near the garden a few nights ago. That same corner where you spoke with Damien during the party.”
The weight of it landed like a fist. My hand curled around the bedpost, my fingers tense as realization punched me right in the guts.
She’d heard about Yulia. She knew her sister’s death wasn’t an accident, and she knew that I knew.
How much of it had she heard?
Fuck.
I closed my eyes, and I could see her face from last night, the sadness and hatred in her eyes. The fight between logic and emotions.
She had known. She must’ve been thinking of it the moment I touched her. And she kissed me anyway.
The anger I’d been restraining surged through me in an instant. I stood, ignoring the tremble in my legs, and grabbed hold of the chair beside the dresser, hurling it across the room with a growl. It hit the wall and splintered, wood flying everywhere across the floor.
