Page 83 of Forced plus-size Bride of the Bratva

---

I didn’t even flinch when he said it. Didn’t absorb it. I was too busy being angry, too busy accusing him of control, of obsession.

But he said it.

He said he loves me.

And now I’m locked in a room with a heart-shaped pendant in my hand, and I don’t know what to do with the mess building inside me.

Because I know I’m falling in love with him too.

And that scares me more than everything else.

***

I wait.

All night, I wait.

I don’t sleep. I can’t. The pendant lies beside me on the bed, the note folded neatly beneath it. The soft gold glimmers in the moonlight slipping through the window, a cruel reminder of the fight that broke us apart and the words I didn’t let myself believe.

I keep thinking he’ll come back. That maybe he just needed space. That eventually, I’ll hear his footsteps, the soft click of the lock, and he’ll walk in with that frustratingly unreadable expression and silently sit beside me.

But he doesn’t.

The silence is deafening.

Then, sometime after midnight, I hear it.

The door.

The lock clicks.

I sit up quickly, heart thudding. “Adrian?” My voice is hopeful, cracked with fatigue and something rawer.

But no one answers.

The door creaks open. Slowly.

I climb out of bed and walk to the door. Darkness floods the doorway, swallowing the hallway behind it. And standing there, not moving, is someone tall. Wide shoulders. Face shadowed.

My heart races.

Something’s wrong.

“Adrian?” I whisper again. This time, there’s no hope in it. Just fear.

Then the light catches—just barely—and I see the mask.

A black ski mask. A stranger. Not Adrian.

My mouth parts in horror, and I open it to scream.

But I don’t get the chance.

The man lunges.

A sharp, brutal pain cracks across the side of my head, and everything goes sideways. The room blurs. My vision goes hazy and dark, and then—Nothing. Just darkness. Cold and complete.

Chapter 18 – Adrian

---