Page 15 of The Russian's Forced Bride
I slammed the lounge door behind me so hard that I was sure its hinges were damaged. My insides felt hot, boiling—an emotion I hadn’t felt in years. I was always so good at keeping my emotions in check, but here I was, getting all worked up over a woman.
Arlette Whitmore.
I underestimated her. I had always thought she was just a naive woman, but she wasn’t. She opposed me without flinching—something no one had ever dared to do. I wasn’t used to needing to threaten someone to make them comply, and it frustrated me to act otherwise.
That woman was stubborn, and I wondered if I would truly be able to tolerate her bullshit when we eventually tied the knot.
Cassandra immediately stepped into view as I made my way out of the lounge area and into the main hotel. I had booked a room prior and was glad I did, because all I needed was a quick drink to calm my head.
Cassandra’s heels clicked as she walked in line beside me, holding up her iPad and ready to tell me what was next on my schedule today. Her gaze burned through the side of my head questionably, but my jaw stayed clenched tight as I fought to keep from asking her to stop staring at me. I was furious, my emotions hanging in the balance.
But nonetheless, Cassandra spoke. “Sir, you have a meeting with—”
“Clear out my schedule for the evening and don’t let anyone bother me for the rest of the night,” I told Cassandra, my voice low, and I forcefully shrugged off my tie.
Cassandra stopped suddenly in surprise, and when I kept walking, she hurried after me, finally reading the room.
“Understood, sir. Anything else?”
I spared her a glance right as I approached my hotel room, which had been situated not too far from the VIP lounge room, as I gave her one last instruction.
“I don’t care if the hotel’s on fire. If anyone as much as knocks on my door, they’re dead. Got it?”
Cassandra inched back away from me with an air of quietness as she nodded in response. She wasn’t her usual teasing self, but it made sense. At the moment, I wasn’t the man she had worked with for years.
My mask was cracking, and my anger was seeping through my perfectly tailored demeanor. I hated that just one person could have this much effect on me. Not even Matvey Kamarov, who got on my nerves on a daily basis, could get me like this.
That showed just how annoying that woman was.
Upon entering the hotel room and slamming the door behind me, I headed directly to the walnut wine rack located beneath the glass-fronted bar cabinet. I grabbed a bottle of vodka and sank into a leather armchair in the room that overlooked the lively city of Chicago, where the city lights pulsed vibrantly at midnight along with the sound of engines revving through the streets.
The hotel room was spacious and had a masculine touch of coffee brown and black throughout, but it felt empty and painfully lifeless. Usually, I would have a woman in bed moaning my name until sunrise, but that wasn’t the case anymore.
I couldn’t bring myself to sleep with another woman.
It was maddening—the effect thatwitchhad on me—and I hated it. I despised the intensity of these feelings she was stirring up inside me, and I hated the Bratva for forcing me into a situation where I had no choice but to get married.
A thirst for blood lingered just beneath my throat, the feeling pulsing through my veins like a parasitic worm, consuming—like what Arlette Whitmore made me feel.
But it had been ages since I killed a person….
I chugged a shot of the vodka, the familiar burning sensation growing in my throat. I enjoyed the feeling it gave me. It relaxed me even more than a pack of cigarettes, whose mustiness used to soothe my nerves.
I rarely got this worked up, to the point I felt like actually spilling blood—to let loose, to feel like I had control. I mean, I could’ve dismissed that woman’s bullshit, but then I found myself pointing a gun at her head, and I’d been tempted to fire.
Part of me felt it was my path to freedom—not just from my marriage to her, but from these feelings inside me.
I wanted to tear them out and burn them. I wasn’t supposed to feel anything. I wasn’t supposed to think too hard about anything.
Fuck.
If she were gone, I wouldn’t have to think about her all day. She was stubborn as hell anyway—and crazy too. But I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger when I saw her hands start to quiver in fear, her face turning ghostly pale as she resigned herself to her fate.
Her action was meant to make me satisfied—that she had finally given in to my will, my control.
But I felt…bad. It was disgusting to even think I could feel pity or shame toward my own actions.
I gazed at the crescent moon that shone through the clouds, and it seemed to remind me of a past I had wiped from my memory—a past that shaped who I am today. A pitiful past where I lived and thrived on childish emotions until those emotions were extinguished.
