Page 18 of Forced Pregnant Bride

The tire burst, and the car swerved wildly. Leonara struggled to maintain control, but we all knew it was too late. The vehicle drifted, and before I knew it, we were careening off the road. The world spun around me as the car flipped to its side. My head smashed against the window, and everything blurred.

“Jay….” I was panicking, trying to move, trying to reach my brother. “Jay!”

My heart sank at the sight of the passenger seat. My baby brother was covered in blood, his face pale, and I couldn’t tell If he was breathing. “Jay! No, no, no, no!”

I screamed as loud as my pounding head allowed, but he didn’t respond. Leonara, too, lay motionless beside me.

As I struggled to process the chaos around me, how our lives had literally turned to a crumpled heap in a brief moment, the man approached, his footsteps crunching on gravel and broken glass. In the midst of grey smoke curling in the air, my vision wavered, but his face came into focus.

My blood ran cold. He looked uncannily like the man we were running away from—like Timur.

A sinister grin spread across his face, and his eyes gleamed with wicked excitement.

I heard his chilling chuckle, and the last thing I remembered was that it hadn’t rained today.

Then, everything went black.

Chapter 8 – Timur

I adjusted the gloves against my wrist and tossed the syringe to the floor while I watched the sight of them resting against each other,Pchelkaand her brother. They both had bloodied faces, but I was more concerned with the sunshine princess, whose golden hair had mingled with streaks of red. The other one, with dark eyes and a spitfire mouth, had her eyes shooting daggers at me, Rafayel, and Arlo.

She’d woken up first.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Timur Yezhov, but none of those briefs warned me ahead of time that you’d be this dumb.”

“I’m going to slice your fucking tongue off, bitch,” Arlo sneered beside me in Russian, but I raised a hand. There was no use spilling her blood yet. We had to hear more from her; then I’d decide if keeping her alive was worth it. Her feistiness was interesting to watch—entertaining, even. She was good sport.

Jerking my chair closer to their huddled bodies, I propped my elbows on my knees, leaning forward. She didn’t even flinch. Cocking her head to the side, she regarded me with an arched brow when I spoke.

“Oh, really? I’m dumb, Colombo? Tell me more.”

She tilted her head forward, narrowing her eyes. “My father’s not going to let this slide,Yezhov, and you know it.”

“Why?”

“Why?” she asked, like I couldn’t have posed a question more birdbrained. “You unleashed your fucking animal to come kill me. I didn’t die, and now you have me tied up like one of your dogs.”

Raf mumbled calmly beside me, and I heard theshinksound of silver close to my ear. He played with a pocket knife, sheathing and unsheathing it. The roll of Russian on his tonguewould have been more menacing to her if she understood his words.

“I’m going to do the slicing off.”

“Not yet,” I said to him.

Facing her, I crossed one leg over the other, tilting back on the chair with folded arms. It was no wonder the young one thought she was so special, with so much confidence in the backing of her father.

Enzo might have been a beast in the field of business, but everyone knew he brought out extra claws where his children were concerned. It was somewhat unfortunate that the girl wasn’t bluffing. The only reason we hadn’t welcomed a storm of Italians was because Enzo didn’t know.

Before I’d caught a tinted black Benz roughly pulling up in the parking lot on the CCTV cam and watched three bloodied bodies being dragged into the basement by my brother and a willing Arlo, I hadn’t known, either.

Rafayel had taken my words literally. After I dismissed him and Arlo, he went hunting the next day. Looking at Enzo’s daughter now, I felt nothing. Not pity or regret for dragging in the wrong fish to shore.

“You’re a misplaced victim, Leonzilla Colombo.” I said to the girl. “You can’t blame anyone here for your unfortunate circumstances when you were, in fact, at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Next time—that’s if you’ll be lucky enough to leave here and run to your daddy—think twice before sticking your neck in what doesn’t concern you.”

The heat in her gaze blazed to a fiery furnace. “It’s Leonara, you fucking piece of—”

“I fucking dare you to complete that sentence if you think you’ve got the balls.” Rafayel stepped in front of me and lowered to his haunches to meet her at eye level. “Come on, say it. Call him what you want to.”

Arlo lowered his mouth to my ear, concern for me in his steely tone. “He’s going to kill her.”

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