Page 42 of Sinful Scars

Seeing her around men has always made me a little jealous, but that’s nothing compared to what I’m feeling right now.

Maybe it’s because I now know what it’s like to kiss her, to feel her tongue slide against mine as I wrap my fingers in her hair. The thought of another man experiencing the taste of her lips has my body vibrating and my blood boiling.

I quickly slide back into the driver’s seat and close my door before I can go storming over to her and demand answers.

Elle is still busy talking into her phone, the smile still plastered on her face, so I lean back in my seat and try to stay calm as I wait for her to start heading home.

My eyelids feel so heavy from lack of sleep.

It’s been days since I’ve had more than an hour or two, and it’s really starting to take its toll.

I know I’m not any good to Elle when I’m this exhausted, but I’m even less willing to sneak in a few hours of sleep now that I know it’s my father who was behind her kidnapping.

The Koslovs might be keeping an eye on Elle, considering who her cousin is married to, but from what I can tell, their protection is half-assed.

I haven’t spotted any of their usual cronies hanging around the hospital or her apartment, which makes me think they’re not taking the threat on her life seriously, so Elle’s safety falls on my shoulders.

Alexei considers himself such a family man and yet, he lets Elle walk around New York with a target on her back.

Does he not realize how precious she is?

“Selfish prick.” I stretch out my neck.

All this pent-up anger and stress are not good for me. At some point, I’m not going to be able to suppress it any longer, and that’s when I’m most likely to have an episode. I need to try and keep calm, which is hard to do considering the fact that I’m always stressed or angry over something.

With a quick look at Elle to make sure she’s not going anywhere, I lean back against my seat and close my eyes for a second as I take a deep breath.

The tension is already building behind my eyes, and the muscles in my neck feel as if a boy scout has been using them to practice tying knots.

I count backwards from sixty, giving myself only a minute to sit in the darkness. Any longer, and Elle could be in danger. So, I let the world around me fade into nothing as I try to calm down my nervous system…

I joltawake as a horn blares from behind me.

My heart pounds painfully in my chest as I blink.

My body’s heavy, and my eyes are struggling to focus. It feels as if I’ve been asleep for days, and yet, I only closed my eyes for a second…

More horns sound around me, and I glance out of my window to find that the front entrance of the hospital has been replaced by the busy interstate highway that leads from Manhattan to Brooklyn.

“What the fuck?”

Cars speed past where I’m parked in the emergency lane, with no fucking idea of how I got here.

I look at the clock on the dashboard.

Two hours have gone by.

How?

“Fuck!” I slam my hands against the steering wheel.

I blacked out,again.

I tighten my grip on the steering wheel as I try my best not to panic at what could have happened in the time that I’ve lost.

Two hours is more than enough time for something to have happened to Elle. Hell, it only took me being gone for five minutes at the bar for her to be kidnapped, so I can only imagine what my father could have done to her in two hours.

Or worse… WhatIcould have done.

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