Page 47 of The Bratva's Plus-Size Bride

I was so stunned that I barely registered the screaming around me, or how other pedestrians ran for their lives. I didn’t know what to do. I only knew I couldn’t move despite how my heart raced and my mind screamed at me to run. My legs wouldn’t move.

The rush of movement behind me blurred as I looked back down at Mikhail, and as he let go of his last breath before his eyes glazed over, my breath caught in my throat as a sudden pressure, immensely painful and all-consuming, cracked through my head.

As if snuffed out at a snap of the fingers, the lights clicked off in my mind, and there suddenly wasn’t anything left but darkness.

Chapter 24 - Benedikt

Sighing as I ran my fingers through my hair, I blinked back the exhaustion from my eyes and silently pulled myself together.

The meetings had been long and tiring, and I wanted more than anything to just get back home to Gemma so that I could get my fill of her attention and affection. So that I could siphon that addicting calmness from her touch and presence.

That was how it tended to be as of late. By the end of the day, I just wanted her. I needed her, regardless of how foreign it still seemed at times.

All of us were out of steam as we got up from the table and could barely manage a word after deliberating for so long. It seemed the day had done us all in, and we needed the chance to get out of there and decompress.

Reaching for my phone to see if Gemma had any success with her typewriter mission, I was surprised to see an alert instead. Immediately, my brows furrowed as I scanned over the notification.

Apparently, one of our drivers had been killed in broad daylight. It happened only twenty minutes prior. My heart sank immediately.

There was a chance it wasn’t Mikhail, given how many drivers we had. It could’ve been any of them.

At least, that was what I told myself to keep from absolutely losing my mind right then and there.

But as much as I wanted to believe it was someone else, and only they had been affected by it, that sinking feeling in my gut was too strong to ignore.

It was like I already knew without having to read the confirmation.

Standing there next to the conference table, I was quick to respond to the alert, demanding to know if it was, in fact, Mikhail. I had assigned him to Gemma since day one, as I found it easier to keep track of, and should anything like this happen, I wouldn’t have to guess if she was involved.

Silently pleading, I waited for a reply. Sure enough, a text came back with the usual notification sound, and my skin went cold.

Confirmed: Mikhail, Driver ID #047 deceased. Passenger unaccounted for.

My hands shook as I registered what that meant, but couldn’t fathom how it happened. How such a simple task had ended in his death.

Beyond that, Gemma was unaccounted for. That meant the recovery team couldn’t find her at the scene. She either ran from the accident or was taken.

As much as the latter brought me a deep sense of dread, I had the feeling it was the most likely answer, and that sent my mind into a state of complete frenzy.

“What’s going on?” Ari asked me, voice cutting through my panicked trance.

I swallowed hard and looked up at him, not fully able to see him as the genuine alarm seemed to mess with my entire body. “The driver I sent with Gemma…he’s dead.”

Ari’s face reflected his immediate concern as he took the phone from my shaking hand and inspected it for himself. That worry only deepened as he processed it. “How could this happen? In broad daylight?”

“I don’t know,” I murmured, trying to regain my bearings.

It was so rare for me to be reduced to such a helpless, questioning state, but having someone be as important to me as Gemma was, knowing that she could be taken away so easily, shook the entire foundation of my being.

The disbelief and shock had its grip on me, and even as Ari put a steadying hand on my shoulder, I could barely register anything going on around me.

“This has to be the Ivanovs,” Ari muttered, turning to Kir, who was standing in the doorway apparently watching me fall apart. “Get Lukyan back in here, now!”

Kir nodded once before he was out the door, flagging Luk down.

Everything around me seemed to spin as that name sank into my skin and made me bristle.

The Ivanovs. It had to be them. Nobody else would be ready to launch an attack like that, and they were surely angry I took away their potential access to Gemma by keeping her at home.

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