Page 1 of His Darkest Obsession (Baryshev Bratva #1)

TWO YEARS AGO

The antiseptic smell of the hospital is nauseating as I sit there, staring at the linoleum floor while the doctor talks.

Something about cramping. Something about bleeding.

And something about how I might experience light nausea and headaches over the next couple of weeks.

How that's all just the normal side effects of the Mifeprex, and that I should come to the hospital if I experience any other more serious symptoms.

But his words blend together into a blank noise that buzzes with the fluorescent light overhead.

And the only thought I can think of is the fact that it's only been two weeks.

Two weeks ago, I could still fool myself into thinking that I was just another intern with dreams.

But now?

Now, I'm not sure what I am anymore.

"Ms. Taylor?" The doctor's voice cuts through my haze. "Do you understand the aftercare instructions?"

The buzz from the fluorescent light overhead seems to grow louder. It feels too bright. Too revealing. It makes me feel naked under it despite the paper gown and blanket wrapped around my shoulders.

I nod mechanically.

"Great." My boyfriend Ryan shifts beside me, his leg bouncing with impatience as he checks his phone again. "So it's done? Completely taken care of?"

"The pregnancy is terminated, yes." The doctor starts, giving Ryan a pointed stare. "But as I told Ms. Taylor—"

"Sure, sure." Ryan nods. "Hold that thought. I need to grab something. Be right back."

I want to reach for his hand, beg him to stay, and tell him not leave me alone with this stranger in a white coat. I want him to comfort me, dammit! But my lips refuse to open, and the words die somewhere between my heart and my lips.

The door closes behind him, and something in me dies a little more.

"Ms. Taylor," the doctor says gently. "Do you have any questions for me?"

I shake my head, eyes fixed on my trembling hands. They don't feel like mine anymore. They haven’t felt like that for weeks.

"I want you to know," his voice softens. "That you made the right choice. Given your circumstances."

The right choice? I blink. Is that what he thinks this is?

A choice?

I want to scream at him that this wasn’t a fucking choice and I didn’t have a say in any of this. That this so-called choice was made by someone else and that their mind was made up weeks ago.

Most importantly, I desperately want to tell him that for whatever reason this choice was made, it sure as shit wasn’t for me.

But none of it matters. Because it’s done and I’m the one who has to live with the consequences of it all.

Choice, I think bitterly.

That word now makes me feel dirty and used. Like I've been hollowed out into an empty shell of the person I used to be before being smashed apart with a sledgehammer, and I’ll never be able to put myself back together again.

The door opens, and Ryan walks back in. He's not alone. Accompanying him is a lawyer in a crisp navy suit, whose inscrutable face wears the impassive and still mask of professionalism.

"This won't take long," Ryan says.

The lawyer pulls out a single sheet of paper and hands it to me. The text swims before my eyes as legal jargon melts together.

But certain phrases jump out: "hereby agrees not to disclose," "confidentiality agreement," and "legally binding."

"What...” I finally find my voice, and I hate how it sounds so raspy and small. “What is this?"

"It's an NDA." Ryan glances at his watch. "Standard procedure."

My jaw drops. I look up at this man who I thought I loved. A man that I thought loved me.

"You really think I would tell?"

Are you really about to do this to me?

Ryan's face hardens, and whatever trace of the charming boyfriend I once knew vanishes completely.

"It's not about whether I think you would tell or not. It's just so everything is squared away." He gestures vaguely. "Dot all the i's and cross all the t's. You know how it is."

I stare back down at the paper. My hands are shaking harder now.

"Just sign the damn thing," Ryan says, impatience edging into his tone.

I don't move. I can't. Something in me knows that once I sign this, there will be no going back. Even though I know that I already can’t go back, there’s a part of me that desperately wants to hold onto the fiction that there still is a way.

That this might somehow just be a bad dream I can still wake up from.

Ryan's snaps his fingers at the lawyer for a pen and shoves it in my hands.

"You need to sign this," he says, voice low and insistent. "Now."

I realize there's nothing else I can do. No way out. Slowly but inevitably, I sign the bottom of the NDA, feeling like I might as well be signing my own death warrant.

Ryan snatches the document back and reads it over it with a satisfied smile.

"Perfect." He turns to the doctor and extends his hand. "Thank you for your discretion, doctor."

The doctor hesitates. "Ms. Taylor should really understand the follow-up procedures—"

"If there's anything we need to know," Ryan interrupts smoothly. "It'll go to my father's office." His smile evaporates. "You do know who my father is, don't you, doctor?"

The doctor swallows visibly. "Yes, of course, Mr. Bennet."

"Great. We're done here." Ryan grabs me by my wrist hand and yanks me to my feet. "It's time for you to leave."