Page 16 of His Forced Bride

The apartment falls silent again.

I gather up the contract papers and stack them neatly, then push them to one corner of my table.

My funeral dress sketches lie scattered on the floor, the charcoal lines smudged from where they were jostled.

I don't know what I'm going to do, but I have to do something.

Marrying Yuri Gravitch sounds as appealing as drinking acid, but I might not have a choice.

When the sun rises, I will call my mother and ask her what she thinks.

I have nowhere else to turn, anyway, and she may have a solution I don’t see.

Otherwise, in three days, I will be back in a wedding dress, and this time, it will have to be at gunpoint or I won't go through with it.

YURI

The adrenaline burns through my veins as I pace the slate floors of my office, each step reverberating off the paneled walls.

The taste of victory sits bitter on my tongue because it came from cornering a woman whose world collapsed twelve hours ago.

When she spat that she would rather die than marry me, the words ignited a fire I thought had died years ago.

I wanted to wrap my hands around her throat and prove her wrong, wanted to show her exactly how wrong she was about preferring death to my touch.

The urge was immediate and vicious, rising from some place I keep buried beneath layers of control and calculation.

Her defiance awakened a hunger that has no place in business arrangements.

But this is business. Nothing more.

My phone vibrates on my mahogany desk.

Oleg's number appears on the screen, and I answer it, wondering what on earth he needs this time of night.

"Yeah…."

"The Kozlov crew made a move on the docks tonight. Three of our men were hospitalized."

The fatigue in his voice tells me just how bad it got.

"They're testing us, Boss. Seeing how we respond."

I close my eyes and press my thumb against the bridge of my nose.

Dominic's death has opened cracks in our foundation, and every rival family in St. Petersburg can smell the weakness.

They circle closer each day, probing for soft spots in our defenses.

I have no heir.

If they take me out, what will my line of succession be now?

"Double the security at all our locations. Anyone who gets within fifty meters of our territory gets their knees broken."

"Already done," he says, and I grunt in approval.