Page 58 of His Forced Bride

Getting wrapped up in this mess with the Gravitch family has put a target on my business, and I'm so angry about it.

"Three hospitalized with smoke inhalation and burns. They're receiving medical treatment."

My legs give out.

I sink into the chair behind me, staring at the ruined sketch scattered at my feet.

Two warehouses are gone, and now my people—real people with families, with rent to pay, with lives that depended on the work I gave them—are lying in hospital beds because of Yuri Gravitch.

There is no doubt in my mind that this would never have happened if they'd have left me alone.

"I need to see them."

I stand, reaching for my coat draped over the back of the chair. "The hospital?—"

"You're not leaving the compound."

His hand rises in a motion to halt, and I scowl at him in anger.

"They're my responsibility. My employees. They trusted me to keep them safe, and now?—"

"Boss's orders. You stay here."

His hands clasp in front of him, and his chest puffs out as if he himself were the door through which I must pass and he has no intention of allowing that to happen.

I move around him toward the door, but he blocks my path.

His wiry frame seems larger in the doorway, and his hand rests near the weapon at his hip.

"Get out of my way."

I stomp my foot at him, and he lifts one corner of his lip in an amused smirk.

"Can't do that."

"This isn't a request. Those are my people in those hospital beds."

My hands flail out in anger, but his response is the same stubborn ass smirk.

"And you're the boss's wife. That takes priority."

The title sits wrong in my thoughts, and I grit my teeth against the desire to spit on him.

I'm not just Inessa anymore—the woman who built something from nothing, who fought for every contract and every sale.

I'm the boss's wife.

Property.

A fucking chess piece moved around the board for other people's benefit.

And I hate it.

So much so that I intend to put this to a stop right now.

"Where is he?" I snip, letting my gaze darken to a glare.

"The office," he says, but he's barely finished before I'm moving.