Page 107 of Doctored Vows

She snatches my wrist as quickly as Maksim does whenever I lie. Her eyes bounce between mine, the wish to call me a liar beaming out of her. She just can’t get her mouth to cooperate with her brain.

“I’ll let you know anything I find out,” I promise, finally clueing in to the cause of the worry blistering in her kind eyes.

Her nod is brief but full of punch. “Please be careful.”

I return her hug before racing to the elevators that will take me to the underground garage. I want answers, but I don’t need to get Ano in trouble while seeking them.

As the elevator arrives at the underground loading bay, I’m stunned to find men unloading produce from a truck at the central loading bay. They’re veering straight past Maksim’s SUV parked directly across from the elevator, but Ano’s tall frame, which usually stands above any crowd, is nowhere to be seen.

“What is that smell?” I murmur to myself when an unusual scent impinges the air.

I take another whiff of the weird aroma before shifting on my feet to face the delivery truck. I almost slip when my stubbornness has my soleless shoes skidding over a shiny blob on the floor.

My wardrobe is brimming with designer clothes and shoes, but I refuse to wear them until Maksim allows me to contribute to the household bills.

It’s been one argument after another for the past week, only ending once we’ve wrestled each other from our clothes and fucked the anger out on one of the many solid surfaces in our apartment.

My throat works through a stern swallow when I bob down to inspect the cause of my near slip more closely. It appears to be blood but has been watered down with something. It drips from the service entrance to the truck and seems to have been recently spilled.

I crank my head to the side when a familiar but not often-heard voice calls my name. “Nikita?” Boris’s confused gaze bounces between me and the delivery truck for several seconds before it eventually settles on me. “What are you doing here?”

I don’t know how catering operates at the hospital, but it seems weird that they’re taking food out instead of in—particularly when they’re using members of the pathology department to transport it.

Boris is carrying a box of bananas. It is leaking the same watered-down liquid that is dribbled across the floor, but he is heading in the direction of the truck instead of the service entrance.

“I could ask you the same thing.” I step closer to him, whitening his cheeks more. “I didn’t realize you had taken a position with food services.”

“I-I haven’t.”

Suspicion colors my tone. “Then why are you carting boxes of bananas across a loading dock?”

“Because I… ah…” His eyes snap up for barely a second, but the widening of his pupils is all I need to know that I won’t like what happens next.

They hold so much angst, and I learn why when a white cloth is placed over my mouth and nose a second after my feet are hoisted off the ground by the man pinning me to his chest and chloroforming me.

I thrash and kick, but within seconds, my limbs grow as heavy as my eyelids when I work a double shift. My throat feels like it is on fire, and my head is instantly woozy.

I am mere seconds from passing out.

When I no longer have the energy to fight, I’m lowered onto the cold concrete floor, where I drift in and out of consciousness.

I’m barely lucid when a teeming mad voice shouts, “What the fuck did you do?” Its owner’s race across the floor is as frantic as my pulse as I slowly lose consciousness. Fingers press against the vein thudding in my neck before I’m roughly rolled onto my side so I won’t choke on my thickening tongue. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? She’s Maksim Ivanov’s wife!”

“I know who she is but I don’t give a fuck. She isn’t meant to be down here,” says a second voice I’m certain I’ve heard before. “She saw shit she isn’t mea?—”

His reply is cut off by a crack similar to a fist colliding with someone’s nose.

“She’s sanctioned. We can’t fucking touch her.”

“Those rules don’t apply to me!”

A scuffle breaks out, but I’m swallowed by the blackness engulfing me before a winner is announced.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Acold breeze blows through my scrubs, but for the first time since moving to Russia, I relish its coolness. My brain feels like it is on fire, as does every muscle I own. My symptoms mimic ones of severe dehydration. My mouth is dry, my breathing is erratic, and I have a fever. Drowsiness is also a sign of dehydration, but the wooziness in my head feels like more than a bit of confusion.

I feel similar to how I did the morning I woke up married.

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