Page 31 of A Forbidden Arrangement

His gaze follows mine, analyzing my face as I mentally plan a getaway. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

My chest heaves. “I’m not going with you.”

He exhales once, low and resolved. “Remember, it was your choice to do it this way.”

Movement shifts at the edge of my vision, and I realize I am not alone with him. A nurse stands to my right, and I don’t know how long she’s been there. Her face is carefully blank. Her badge is flipped around, and her hands are steady.

She doesn’t look at me as she pushes a syringe into the port on my line.

Cold spreads up my arm and into my shoulder and then my chest. Panic detonates. My stomach flips fast enough to make me gag. I grab for the tubing, nails scraping skin. His hand slams down over mine and pins it to the mattress.

The world tilts. The ceiling slides. My vision blurs at the edges.

I kick weakly, thrash once, useless.

Xander doesn’t rush. He patiently watches me fade.

His voice follows me as everything starts to go black.

“You’ll never escape me, Dahlia. Nothing will change that.”

Chapter 15

Xander

The chair creakswhen I lean back, leather stretching under my shoulders. The glass sweats against my palm, scotch biting down my throat with a slow burn. The quiet sits heavily.

Too fucking quiet.

I tap my fingers against the armrest, steady and sharp, the sound barely cutting through the stillness. My gaze drifts to the stairs again. The bedroom door stays closed. A line of light spills across the floor, thin and unmoving. She’s up there, but it feels like a mile away.

But she’shere.

Elliot killed the guy who attacked her, leaving us with no leads.

Should’ve been my hands around his throat. My blade splitting him open so he understood exactly why you don’t touch what’s mine.

Whoever she’s running from knows how to cover their tracks. Knows how to make sure no one can trace the blood back to them.

In the hospital, she looked at me like I was the enemy.Eyes wide, shoulders tight, every muscle pulling her away from me. She looked at me like I was Death himself walking in.

Like she wasafraidof me.

The thought tears through me, sharp and ugly, deeper than any blade could cut. I’ve seen men beg for their lives, seen them piss themselves in the dirt when they realized they weren’t walking away. None of that touches me. But Dahlia looking at me with fear in her eyes? It split me open.

I grind my teeth until my jaw clicks. I’ll bleed patience out of myself if that’s what it takes. One step at a time to prove she’s safe here.

Now that I’ve found her, I can wait as long as she needs.

The phone buzzes against the table, and I set down the glass to check the screen.

Group chat. Nosy bastards.

Bash:

So you went full psycho and married her while she was unconscious? Bold move.

Me: