Page 11 of His Forced Bride
The vultures are only days away from swooping in for the kill, and I don't have a shred of muscle behind me anymore.
Batya's men would surely back me, but at what cost?
Would I end up being pushed around by them too, forced out of my own business?
I could call my mother, but she's been distant for years now.
I'm not sure I want to do that.
There is so much secrecy around what happened between her and my father that I'm not sure what to believe.
Yuri thinks she's a parasite.
She may well be.
My apartment door opens to reveal things just as I left them.
How can my coffee mug still sit on the kitchen counter where I left it when I headed in to work this morning?
Batya is dead.
How can my sketches remain scattered across my drafting table when everything I built is about to crumble?
It doesn't seem right.
Not when I strip off the gown of celebration and leave it in a heap on my bedroom floor.
Not when I take a shower so scalding hot that it burns my skin as I scrape the dried blood off my chest.
Not when I sob under the spray and pound the tile walls until my hands hurt.
It's not supposed to be this way.
Clean but still angry and crying, I dry off, slip into a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, and move toward my drafting table, sinking into the chair.
My hands find a piece of paper and a charcoal pencil without conscious thought.
Lines appear on the page under my touch, though I'm not sure what I'm drawing.
A dress takes shape, something appropriate for grief.
Black silk, fitted bodice, modest neckline.
My fingers work automatically while my mind stays blank.
I can't think about tomorrow or next week or how I'll survive without Batya.
It's too painful to imagine life without him.
I can only put pencil to paper and watch the lines blur together until the sketch pad is a blur of charcoal and shadows and my hands are darkened.
I'm lost in the monotony of it all when the front door explodes inward.
The sound tears through my apartment, wood splintering against the wall.
I drop my pencil and spin around as men flood into my living room.
Three of them, all dressed in dark suits, all carrying guns.
