Page 65 of The Bratva's Prisoner Bride

"Damn it..." I muttered, keeping my eyes on the road. With barely contained rage, I snapped back, "Send more men out to broaden the search, and make sure he can't slip away again. We need eyes on him before he pulls any bullshit."

"I'm on it...any updates will be sent to you."

Hardly holding back that blinding wrath bubbling beneath the surface, I ended the call and immediately found Daria's contact. I pressed the button and listened while it rang.

The longer I waited, leaving me to my thoughts, I couldn't help but think about what Daria had told me about her brother some weeks ago...how he messaged her. How he was recruiting her help again.

The paranoid part of me couldn't avoid the idea I didn't even want to consider, regardless of how I tried to convince myself otherwise.

There was no way...

She was the one who came to me about it, telling me all about the texts she had been avoiding. Surely, she wouldn't give that information up just to turn around and fall back into his schemes.

I refused to believe it.

But when I reached her voicemail, a bad feeling settled in my chest.

As much as I didn't want to believe it, the concept wasn't entirely crazy. Rurik had controlled her for so long that therewas a chance at least part of her could've been conditioned to obey him no matter what.

While she seemed content with me, able to do what she wanted, who was to say she wouldn't follow her brother again upon hearing he was free?

No part of me wanted to even entertain the idea, but I also knew I couldn't count her out just yet.

She had fooled me before, and there was a chance she was just that good at it...

After calling and not hearing from her again, I tried Dom's cell, only to get that same radio silence.

The longer I went without any answers to what was happening, the more unsettled and irritated I felt.

Eventually, pulling up to the house, feeling completely on edge, I barely turned the car off before hurrying inside and looking around. I called her name, waiting for any kind of response, but I didn't hear anything.

Running up the stairs, I checked the home studio and then went to the bedroom. Again, there was no sign of her, and my heart sank lower and lower the longer it went on.

Before I could leave the room again, I glanced at the closet, seeing that some things looked out of place.

Upon closer inspection, some hangers were empty, and a few of her personal items were gone. Glancing over at the stack of suitcases, it was obvious at least one was gone.

My chest ached as that dread seemed to consume me at once, and I did my best to hold it together.

But when I reached the rack full of sweaters, I rifled through them, not finding her favorite one—the god-awful cheap one I couldn't wrap my head around why she liked it so much.But she never traveled without it. And that fact alone felt like a stab to the chest.

It was gone, and so was she...trying to fight that paranoia became impossible the longer I went without being able to reach her.

The more that silence surrounded me, the less I could ignore the nagging feeling in my gut that I had been deceived again. That I let her in just to be double-crossed in the end.

My blood ran hot while I tried her phone again and again, only ever reaching her voicemail before trying again. Each time, I found myself getting lost further and further within the idea of Daria biding her time before her brother could escape and make his way to her, pulling her back into his charade.

I tried to focus on how angry she seemed at the idea of him even reaching out to her again, but in the throes of confusion and fury, I saw how that could've easily been her acting.

As far as I knew, she was good at it. If Mexico had been any indicator, manipulation came easy to her.

I didn't want to give Olivia's claim too much credit, but all signs seemed to point to it being the truth.

By the time I hit just under one hundred attempted calls within an hour, I had no choice but to believe Daria really did screw me over. That she never really left her brother's clutches.

Pacing the living room, texting my brothers in between trying her phone a dozen more times, that dread turned into a deep feeling of sickness, all while wondering how I fell for it again.

Things had been going so well between us...we were getting along even better than before, we were establishing real trust, and we were preparing for the arrival of our child.

---