Page 16 of The Bratva's Innocent Bride

But Fiona refuses to look at me as we drive home. As I turn onto the road leading up to the house, she unlocks the door again and rolls out onto the road, racing through the woods.

I know she can’t get far because there’s nowhere to go out here, but it still takes me half an hour to find her hiding behind a tree. I had to bind her wrists again, gag her and put her in the trunk of the car after she tried to choke me with her bound wrists.

This is what it’s like when Fiona is truly trying to get away, I realize when it takes six of my men to carry her up the stairs and get her into the room. She won’t stop until she escapes, or I eventually have no choice but to kill her.

I tie her to the armchair again, this time handcuffing her and doubling down with duct tape to make sure she can’t get up. The entire time, she stares at me with those hardened eyes, like I’m turning into a man she hates.

“Listen,” I say when I come out of the shower, and she’s still in the chair, giving me hateful eyes. “I know the right thing to do, in that moment, would have been to save those people. But if we had tried, we would have failed. We wouldn’t have saved them, and we wouldn’t save anyone in the future either. And you’re right—if it were my sister on that boat, I would have gone to the ends of the earth to get her back. But that’s the wrong choice. Love makes us stupid. That’s the whole point of love—it makes us value a single person's life more than that of ten, which isn’t fair and right. By letting that boat go tonight, we’re giving ourselves the chance to save hundreds of women from this experience in the future.”

Fiona is still staring at me with those hard eyes, not even trying to speak through her gag, which is now duct-taped to her mouth. I continue pacing for a moment, and then, finally, I drop down onto the couch, lying back and trying to fall asleep.

If I’m going to make her sleep in that chair, there’s no way in hell I’m taking the bed.

My brain wars between drifting to sleep and listening for the sounds of her potential escape, but eventually, when she makes no noise, I start to sleep lightly.

When I hear a rustling to my left, I turn my head and find myself at the end of Fiona’s knife, which is right at my throat.

I could swipe her hand away. I could easily physically overpower her. But I won’t. I wait, with bated breath, to see what she’s going to do.

With her standing over me like this, her knife to my throat, I feel myself starting to get hard again.

“Swear to me,” she says, her voice rough from the gag. “That you aren’t going to let that happen again.”

I take a breath, feeling the tip of her blade digging into my throat but not breaking the skin. I should be wondering where she got that blade. I should be worried about my life hanging in the balance here, but instead, it’s like I’m paralyzed, staring up at her like there’s not a single place in the universe I’d rather be.

“I swear,” I say, my voice rough, too, knowing I’ll keep this promise if it means sacrificing a hundred of my men. My sentiment from earlier echoes through my head Love makes us stupid.

But this is a woman I met a few days ago. Not love. I shake the thought from my head, just as Fiona drops the knife, her body draping over mine.

I must be dreaming—I must be imagining the way her legs feel on either side of my hips, imagining the way her hand runs over my head, her lips dipping to meet mine.

The kiss from the chapel rushes through my head, and I rise to meet her, and this time, I’m the one to slip my tongue into her mouth. She lets out a moan against me, and I grip her hips tightly, wishing I could turn her around and get her on her back.

But this is Fiona, and she likes to have the power.

When she grinds her hips against me, I realize that if I don’t stop this now, I might not stop it at all. I push her away, sitting up. We stare at each other, our chests heaving for a moment before I get to my feet and rush out of the room, slamming the door behind me.

Chapter 8 - Fiona

I’m withering on the armchair, trying to read something, but my brain can’t focus. I remember the eyes of one of the women from the other night.

That’s not the only thing that repeats in my head from the other night. Visions of Boris, the way his head was propped against the arm of the couch, how he opened his eyes sleepily to me, the way he visibly aroused at the sight of me there, with the knife, keep running through my mind.

More than anything, I’m furious with myself for not seeing who Mr. Allard truly was. My dad always said that more than fighting, more than weapons, more than knowing how to escape, and how to read other people was the most important skill you could have.

Taking one look at someone and clocking them—knowing how dangerous they are to you, whether they might hurt you, whether they’re conniving or simple-minded—all of that would tell you how to act around them, where to spend your energy.

I remember lifting weights at the local YMCA with my dad when I was in high school. He’d point to each person, asking me for my read on them. Then he’d run scenarios by me.

In the middle of the summer, when the heat was at its worst, I remember being on the bench, a biscuit on either side of the bar, struggling to get the weight up, my dad’s hand hovering under the bar, not much security if I were to suddenly give out.

“What if that guy comes at us?” he asked, tipping his head across the room toward a meaty guy with a bald head. “What’s your play?”

“Knee injury,” I answered, my voice coming out labored as I continued struggling with the weight. “Throw the bar, go for the knees. Maybe take a biscuit to it.”

“Really think you’re going to be able to throw that bar right now?” my dad had asked, removing his hand. My eyes widened as I looked up at him, his face upside-down above me. “Go ahead,” he’d said, raising an eyebrow at me. “Throw it.”

I gasped for air, terror seizing through my chest. I couldn’t throw the bar. I could barely lift it. The weight started moving back toward my chest, but I couldn’t dump the weights because they were clipped.

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