Page 64 of The Wolf's Bullied Bride

Mustering the courage to look around, the shuffle of feet in the dead leaves startled me and forced me to realize just how many of them were around me.

Several men dressed in black stood in various spots beneath the trees, carrying guns and looking through the forest. Seeing them brought everything rushing back at once, and I could’ve collapsed right there.

The break-in. The men. The cloth.

They must’ve knocked me unconscious before moving me into the forest.

Wriggling in my place as my heart raced, I tried to pull away, but the more I struggled, the more it hurt. Something dug into my wrists, making me wince.

A cold blade pressed against my throat, and I tensed at once.

“Easy, now. Pull too much, and you’ll cut all circulation to your hands. Better yet, you might even lose one.”

The voice was unfamiliar, but I knew he wasn’t a friend. He was one of their goons. The others seemed to be waiting like they were all on the lookout.

“Why am I here?” I asked, realizing just how dry my throat was. I swallowed hard and silently wished for water.

“When we realized how willing Liam was to jump to your rescue, we knew you were our key to luring him out. Soon enough, he’ll fall right into our trap.

“It won’t work.”

The man snickered. “You’re the one who invited us here, sweetheart. Into town and back into Liam’s life. Don’t forget that you’re the reason we’re even here. By the way, we wanted to thank you.”

Gritting my teeth, that reminder made my entire body ache. I was well aware of how I screwed everything up, but I had hoped we stood a better chance than I currently did at that moment. It seemed to be wishful thinking.

“Why? Why bother after all this time?”

“After all the ways he has screwed us over, we’ve been trying to get back at him for years. He thought he could outsmart us, but he was dead wrong about that,” the man said, sounding overly confident in their abilities. “Your personal mission to make his life hell helped serve our cause. Again, thanks for that.”

While it was no secret that I had a hand in bringing his old bosses to town, sitting in that reality hurt more than anything.

Not only did I ruin what was blossoming between us, but I had been so determined to uncover Liam’s past that I became a threat to our future. I let them in, and it was all my fault.

I had been so blinded by wanting to feel bigger than I really was, and I put him in danger. As Liam had said, they wanted him, and they were using me to get him.

“If this plan works and we get our way, maybe we’ll think about letting you go,” the man said, not letting me get a look at his face yet.

While that should’ve been good news, I knew it wasn’t. That only meant I’d be let go, not Liam. And there was no way I could trust them, not after everything that had already happened.

“Zain,” another one of the men snapped from some distance away. While his face was uncovered, the darkness still managed to shield most of his features. “Shut up.”

The man behind me scoffed and grumbled under his breath, but he seemed to do as he was told. Instead of bombarding me with his words, he remained as an extension of the knife against my throat.

Standing there in the cold, ensnared by the men who wanted Liam dead, I was crumbling on the inside—splintering from how selfish I had been.

I let my personal motives ruin everything, and I ended up becoming bait for Liam. Knowing him, he wouldn’t let them get away with it, and that meant he would run straight into whatever trap they laid out for him.

I hated how I went about it all. I never should’ve contacted them, and I never should’ve invited them to town in the first place.

I should’ve given Liam the chance to come to terms with his feelings without pressuring him to. Instead of letting things naturally flow like they were supposed to, I put him in an impossible position, and I continued to blame him for it.

Regardless of our rocky start, I started to enjoy the time we spent together, getting to know each other and finding similarities in one another. He took the time to understand me better, and despite how abrasive I had been with him, he stuck around anyway.

He could’ve ignored me even when we volunteered together. He could’ve put me in my place and decided he wanted nothing to do with me, but he still gave me a chance.

I did see how he changed and that he was trying to live differently than he had before.

I regretted putting it all on the line for something so petty and cruel, and realizing just how self-centered I had been was a huge burden for me to carry. In whatever way I could, I needed to make things right.

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