Page 7 of Twisted Addiction
Is this my life now—rescued only to be abandoned all over again?
Somewhere between the rage and the bone-deep exhaustion, sleep finally dragged me under, a merciful blackness swallowing me whole.
A gentle touch against my forehead jolted me awake. I shot upright, my heart slamming into my throat like a trapped bird.
Dmitri Volkov stood before me.
Tall, with that impeccable posture that screamed control and power. The faint scent of his cologne curled in the air like smoke from a dying fire. He was so close it was obvious he’d just leaned down to brush his fingers against my skin.
I didn’t speak. I didn’t move. I let the anger build, thick and molten, until it sat heavy at the back of my throat, ready to erupt like lava.
His eyes—icy blue and utterly unreadable—locked onto mine, holding me captive.
“Are you pregnant?” he asked, his voice measured, like a blade sliding slowly from its sheath.
I sat up straighter on the bed, shifting back against the headboard and pulling the duvet over my legs like a barrier. “I don’t know,” I replied, my voice steadier than I felt.
He hadn’t asked how Antonio treated me. He hadn’t asked if Antonio had touched me, broken me, violated me. Not a word about the pounding ache at my temple where Antonio had pressed the cold barrel of a gun against my skin—before smashing it against my head. Not a damn word about the hell I’d just crawled out of.
He opened his mouth to speak, but I couldn’t hold it in any longer. The fury exploded. “That’s it? That’s what you have tosay to me?” My voice cracked like glass. “Four months of silence. Four months of lying alone on this bed, abandoned, and now you stand here and ask me if I’m pregnant? After I’ve been kidnapped, bruised, bleeding, half out of my mind—and you don’t give a fuck about whether I’m even alive inside?!”
His jaw tightened, but his tone stayed infuriatingly calm. “Are you pregnant, Penelope?”
Something inside me snapped.
I grabbed the nearest thing within reach—a heavy glass tumbler from the nightstand—and hurled it at him with every ounce of fury tearing through me. It shattered against the wall inches from his head, spraying shards across the floor.
“Fuck you, Dmitri!” My voice was raw, my chest heaving.
“You think I’m just a womb to you, is that it? A body to fuck and a vessel to breed?!” My hands shook so violently I could hardly breathe, but I didn’t care. “You don’t get to stand there and look at me like this—like you own me—when you left me to rot!”
His eyes narrowed, a flicker of something dangerous breaking through his mask. But I didn’t stop. My fury had teeth now, and it was biting.
My hand shot out again, fumbling for the lamp on the nightstand, desperate to throw something else at him—to shatter, to wound, to make him feel. But before my fingers could curl around it, he moved.
In a single stride he was on me, his hand clamping around my wrist, the other locking at my waist. The lamp slipped from my grip as his heat closed in, his body shadowing mine, pressing me back against the mattress.
“Let go of me!” I shoved at his chest hard, but he wouldn’t budge. He was immovable, a wall of muscle and control, caging me in.
His scent wrapped around me, that faint spice I hated myself for remembering. The nearness was suffocating, dragging me back to nights I swore I’d forget.
I turned my face away, throat tight, heart cracking open under the weight of memories. The cruel messages he’d sent before the blood, before the terror of losing my child, echoed in my skull like gunshots.
“I fucking hate you,” I spat, though my voice trembled. “So much.” My chest heaved, tears burning but refusing to fall. “And I swear, Dmitri—I’ll be the end of you.”
The words shook as they left me, a promise threaded with rage, grief, and fear. I wasn’t even sure if I meant them, or if they were the only armor I had left.
He didn’t flinch. He just looked at me, gaze dark and unreadable, before stepping back—deliberately—like a predator who chooses when to release its prey. The heat of his body lingered even as space stretched between us.
And against every ounce of sense, a traitorous thought flickered through me. A wish. That he hadn’t moved back. That he hadn’t left me to drown in this cold, empty house again. Because I knew what it was to live with his ghost—and I wasn’t sure which haunted me more.
Now he stood at the foot of the bed, firm, his presence heavy in the room.
He pulled out his phone, tapping a few buttons with those long, precise fingers. Moments later, the door swung open, and a doctor walked in—middle-aged, with a white coat and a stethoscope dangling around his neck like a noose.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded, my eyes snapping between them.
“Testing you,” Dmitri said, his tone infuriatingly flat, as if we were discussing the weather. “To see if you’re pregnant.”
