Page 25 of His Forced Bride

I lean back in my seat and stare at the ceiling.

"He wants me to come to his house tonight. To discuss wedding arrangements."

"You can't go there alone…" Her voice is breathy.

Even she is anxious about this.

The most powerful criminal in the city is demanding audience with me tonight.

I'm right to be terrified.

"I don't have a choice. If I refuse, he'll make sure I lose everything. If I go…" I trail off, unable to finish the thought.

"If you go, you might find a way to negotiate. To salvage something from this mess."

"Or I might not come back at all."

Alina's silence is painful.

We both know how this ends.

If I don’t show up, he'll just come chase me down.

When she finally speaks, her voice is gentle.

"You built your company once. You could build another one."

"Not from nothing. Batya gave me seed money. I don’t have investors." The exhaustion hits me suddenly, bone-deep and overwhelming.

"I'm twenty-three, Alina. I don't have another decade to spend clawing my way back to where I am now."

Besides the fact that all of my money, including personal funds that have nothing to do with my businesses, has been frozen.

I can't support myself without access to provisions.

"So, what's the alternative?" she asks, and I sit straighter.

I look around my office, taking in the sketches on the walls, the fabric samples scattered across my desk.

All of it represents years of work, thousands of hours spent bent over drafting tables and sewing machines, countless nights dreaming of building something that would last.

"The alternative is accepting that sometimes, survival looks different from we planned."

"You mean marrying him."

"I mean doing whatever it takes to protect what's mine."

The words feel foreign, but they're true.

The idea of marrying that bastard makes my stomach roll.

There has to be another way, but the only way to know that is if I show up at his house for dinner the way he asked.

"Inessa…" she cautions, but I stand and smooth my hands down the front of my slacks.

Grieving or not, I have to fight for what's mine or lose it.

"I'll be fine. I promise. Now, let's get this place ship shape. I need to take a few days off to plan the wake."