Page 24 of Forced By the Obsessed Bratva (Yezhov Bratva #8)

The walls of the holding room throbbed with silence. The sort of silence that seeped slowly and heavily into the air like a cold war.

A single bulb buzzed softly above us, casting a faint yellow glow over the room. No windows. Nothing but concrete and shadows, and Blake Carter bound to a chair like a condemned prisoner awaiting sentence.

He looked older than I remembered.

He looked pale.

Sweat glistened on his brow. One of his buttons had been torn off in transit, and a bruise was forming under his jaw. His tie hung loose, and his wrist—bent at a painful-seeming angle in the restraint—told me my men hadn’t been gentle when they were bringing him over.

I’d asked them not to roughen him up, but I guessed they had to take out their rage on someone, and I couldn’t hold that against them.

His breathing was uneven from the weight of the silence between us.

I took my time, pacing around him like a slow orbit, letting him hear the quiet rhythm of my boots over the floor. Each step was slow and deliberate enough to make his insides burn with fear and anticipation of what I would do to him.

He flinched only once, when I stopped behind him and let the pause stretch long enough for his nerves to scream.

“Didn’t think I’d find you this fast, did you?” I asked finally.

He didn’t reply.

“Strange that you’re choosing to remain silent,” I drawled, unimpressed by his choices. “You were such a mouthy bastard once upon a time.”

His temple ticked once. “If Zoella is the reason you brought me here, then I don’t know where she is.”

I smiled coldly and walked around to face him. “That’s the wrong answer.”

“It’s the truth,” he barked, chin rising. “I ain’t heard from her since the day you two got married. You think she’d call me? I forced her into marrying you.”

I crouched down, leveling my eyes at him. “It doesn’t matter whether you know where she is or not, Carter. You’re not here to be questioned. You’re here to bleed if need be. You’re simply bait.”

He went still, and then he shook his head. “You think she’d come back for me?” he scoffed. “After I brought her to you? After I—” He trailed off, his voice betraying him for a moment. He swallowed forcefully. “After I allowed her to be treated like a pawn?”

I lifted my head. “You tell me, Father of the Year.”

“She won’t,” he replied with bitter certainty. “Not after all this. She’s too smart for that now.”

I straightened slowly, letting the tension simmer. “Everyone breaks eventually. Especially when the people they love are dangling by a thread.”

He laughed manically. “You think using her love for her family against her will get her to love you?”

“No,” I replied, matter-of-factly. “I don’t need her to love me.”

I went to the corner and poured myself a glass of whiskey from the full bottle I brought in earlier. I needed the alcohol in my system to get through the pain and fire burning in my chest.

Zoella had played her hand well enough, but she had made a single miscalculation—she’d underestimated what it was to be mine.

Blake moved again behind me, groaning as the cable cut into his wrists. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” he snarled. “She’s more like her mother than you realize. She’ll torch the entire fucking house before she comes back to you.”

I finished my drink and slammed the empty glass on the table. “Then I’ll build a new house on whatever ashes remain from the one she burned down.”

He glared at me, but there was a vulnerable hint in his eyes now. Something tired.

I could almost pity him—if I didn’t already hate everything he stood for.

The door creaked.

My eyes cut toward it.

Kirill stepped in, and then Lilian followed.

She took in the place with disgust on her face, her heels muted on the stone floor, her hands firmly clasped together in front of her. There was determination in her eyes that just wasn’t in Blake’s, as if she was here to give me whatever I needed.

“Lillian,” Blake barked, already twisting toward her. “Get out. You don’t belong here.”

Her eyes didn’t shift to him; they remained locked on me. “I need to speak to you,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “Privately, if you will allow it.”

“There’s no privacy needed,” I said indifferently. “You talk here, or you don’t talk at all.”

Her throat bobbed. She breathed in and stepped further inside.

“I don’t know where Zoella is,” she began, “but I can try to help you find her.”

Blake snapped his head to her. “Lillian, don’t.”

She flinched at his tone but didn’t stop. “Weeks before she got married to you, I found something in her room. A fake ID. I figured it was nothing—something she used to get into clubs when she was younger, perhaps. I didn’t know she’d…I didn’t think she’d actually use it to disappear.”

“What name?” I asked sharply.

She paused, glancing at Blake, then at me again. “Jennifer Monroe.”

Everything went silent in my head.

I walked over to the desk along the wall, extracting a file from a locked drawer that had all the details on her. Red covers marked sightings, alias possibilities, but Jennifer Monroe had not been on it.

Until now.

Lillian stepped closer, her voice quieter. “She hid it under the lining of her drawer. I only saw it once. I never told Blake. I should’ve. I didn’t know it would matter.”

“You’ve told me now,” I replied. “Thanks for the useful information.”

Blake fought the wires on his wrist, his voice raspy. “Please don’t hurt her. Whatever she’s done, she doesn’t deserve—

“She drugged me,” I cut in, my words slicing the air like a knife. “She lied to me, and she ran with my child in her belly.”

His eyes widened, his jaw dropping open for a second before he shut it close.

I stepped closer to him again, slow and purposeful, my words dripping with frost. “She made her decision. And now, I’ll make mine.”

“She’s young,” Blake said wildly. “Scared. She’s acting out, that’s all. Don’t make this into something it doesn’t need to be.”

“It already is,” I said to him, standing over him. “She’s in my world now. A part of my family. She can’t run away or escape me.”

Blake looked up at me with a hint of pleading. “If you ever had any feelings for her, you wouldn’t hurt her. She’s your wife.”

“That’s strange coming from you, Carter. If you really loved your daughter,” I responded coldly, “you would not have thrown her to the wolves.”

Blake’s mouth opened, but I didn’t allow him to say anything.

“She’s one of us now, whether you like it or not, and she’s not leaving the pack.”

He paled further, the fight draining from his face.

I turned to Kirill. “Get him out of my sight. Let him stew somewhere colder. No food. No water until I confirm everything this woman said is correct.”

“You can’t do that. I gave you the information you needed,” she cried. “Please let him go. He is still her father.”

“He’s nothing more than bait to me,” I said. “And I’m not letting him leave this place until I find my wife.”