Page 30 of A Bride for the Bratva Boss
The ballroom behind me is a thunderstorm of sound, glasses clinking, polite laughter, political lies dipped in honey. But out here, the noise drops away too quickly, like I’ve stepped through a doorway into another world. One where shadows breathe and the air feels colder on my skin.
I lift my phone to my ear.
“Dad?”
“Sweetheart,” he says, breathless, urgent. “I need to see you. Right now.”
His voice hits me like a jolt. It’s too desperate and I know something is very wrong. It’s already been pointed out several times tonight that I’m out of my league at an event like this. I can’t deal with my grifter dad tonight. Can’t deal with another reminder of how far below Danyl and his wealth I am. “Whyare you calling me here?” I whisper, glancing back toward the ballroom doors. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain when I see you. Just… please. Come outside. Hurry.”
Something inside me twists, tight and uneasy. “Dad, I’m at a political fundraiser. You can’t just?—”
“Liza.” His voice cracks. “Please. It’s life or death.”
My stomach drops. He’s a master manipulator, but he’s never used those words before. “Okay,” I say and he hangs up without another word.
I move down the hall, past gilded frames and velvet drapes. More opulence. More reminders of how this is not my world.
As I push the door open, cold night air washes over me.
He’s standing beside a long black limo, waving me over. I frown.Since when can he afford a limo?
He looks smaller than I remember. Thinner. His face hollowed out by desperation and cheap whiskey. But his eyes, those bright, frantic eyes, are the same.
He smiles like he’s relieved.
“Dad,” I breathe, moving toward him. “What’s going on?”
He gestures toward the open door. “It’s a surprise. Look.”
I lean into the cavernous interior of the car. Dad pushes me from behind and I turn around to tell him to stop. But then an arm from inside grabs mine and I’m pulled inside.
A cloth slams over my mouth.
My scream dies in my throat as I’m yanked down to the floor. I claw at the hand holding the cloth against my face, but there’s something sharp and chemical on it. Something that burns my throat with every breath.
I try to twist around. I want to see who’s hurting me.
And what I see causes more pain than I could imagine.
My father, watching from outside through a crack in the door.
Not helping. Not screaming for them to let me go.
He looks at me with wide, trembling eyes.
And then, he looks away. Like he can’t bear to witness what he’s done.
The betrayal rips me clean in half.
“Dad!” I choke out, my voice muffled. “Help me.”
He flinches, but doesn’t look at me. Instead, he closes the limo door with a final click.
I keep fighting, but my energy depletes as whatever drug was on the cloth overtakes me. I get a glimpse of my captor. He’s huge, wearing a leather vest. I gasp, coughing on the chemical sting in the cloth, my lungs fighting for clean air. My head hits the man’s knee and white light explodes behind my eyes.
But before consciousness slips away entirely, one thought cuts through everything else. Dad betrayed me, again.
