Page 13 of The Russian's Kidnapped Bride
“I can’t be here,” I manage to see, feeling as my throat tightens around the words while that panic looms over me. “I’m a med student. I have classes and exams, and I can’t lose my place. I don’t belong here.”
Mikhail looks at me somewhat sternly, but his features otherwise don’t betray his true feelings. “I know.”
“Then let me go. Please, Mikhail,” I say, hoping it will be enough. “I swear I won’t say anything. I’ll forget it all happened and move on…I don’t even want to remember it.”
His expression is painfully neutral, but the slightest softening in his eyes gives away a flicker of regret, or maybe even pity.
“I’m not planning on hurting you. But you need to understand what’s at risk given what you witnessed.”
“I do understand. I swear,” I insist, clinging to that desperation. “That’s why I won’t say anything. I just want to get back to my life.”
His silence makes my heart clench, and as much as I want to think there’s still a semblance of the man I had sex withleft in him, it feels farther and farther away with every passing moment.
“You don’t know me, and I get that, but I’m not a threat to you or whatever it is your family does. Please, believe me.” I continue, just about ready to start begging.
Those deep green eyes I easily got lost in before studying me even longer, and I have no idea what he’s searching for, or what he’s hoping to figure out. But either way, the room is so quiet that it’s nearly deafening, and I just want to run as far as my legs will take me.
Then, he stands, carrying a sense of finality that makes my legs feel weak.
I pull in a trembling breath. “Mikhail—”
Before he can reach the door with a hand poised to turn the handle, he pauses, not quite looking at me. Still, there’s something in his eyes.
For a second, I assume it’s guilt or maybe regret, but when paired with the faintest pull of his lips, it falls into place.
It’s something sharper than satisfaction.
He doesn’t have to voice how the situation isn’t quite as dire as he’s letting on. Or at the very least, he sees an opportunity in my mistake, as he put it.
Just as he opens the door and walks away, I catch the smile curling on his lips while the other man follows him out.
The very look makes my stomach turn.
Chapter 4 - Mikhail
I should be furious, and I am to some degree.
There was a rat in our ranks leaking intel to the very group I’ve been trying to track down and stop, and while he was handled by Nikolai, it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Even knowing the rouse was allowed to go on for as long as it did has me wishing I had put him down myself.
If there’s one, there’s bound to be more, and I don’t want to spend every waking moment rooting out the bastards. I’ve done enough of that already.
If there are more, it’s bound to make Roman restless, and when that happens, it trickles down to the rest of us. An unhappy Pakhan makes the entire empire bleed, and I’m not too keen on that idea.
We’ve been too sloppy about who we’ve allowed in our ranks. And sloppy is dangerous, as Roman has no issue reminding us often.
Yet, despite it all, my day has taken a surprising turn for the better, all because of her. It’s ironic, given the situation, but I’ll take it.
Lily’s sitting in the interrogation room, close to blowing a gasket, well aware of the trap she has wandered into by accident. Even if she’s oblivious to the worst of it still, surely, she knows this isn’t an ideal situation for her.
While unintentional, she stumbled back into my orbit, and something about that feels too good to pass up on. Too good to be true, if I’m being honest.
At first, I thought I imagined her sitting in that chair out of pure desperation, like a hallucination derived from how oftenI’ve been thinking about her. I was ready to check myself into a ward somewhere.
But it’s really her. The same brown eyes, dark hair, and the same mouth I haven’t stopped thinking about since that night.
While she knows pieces of who I am, she doesn’t know all of it. Not even close.
She didn’t know it then, and she still doesn’t know it now, but I have the feeling she will soon enough.
