Page 65 of His Forced Bride

"I've turned you into nothing you weren't already."

"I wasn't someone who forgot about her responsibilities the moment a man touched her."

"You weren't someone whose responsibilities were used as weapons against her."

The words stop me halfway to the door.

"What does that mean?"

But Yuri has already turned back to his monitors as he sinks into his chair and tucks his dick away.

"It means you're learning."

"Learning what?"

"That in this world, caring about people makes you vulnerable. And vulnerability gets you killed."

I think about my employees lying in hospital beds, probably wondering why their boss hasn't come to check on them.

I think about the families depending on paychecks I may not be able to provide, the clients whose orders will never be filled.

"I won't become like you."

"You already are."

The words follow me out of his office, down the hallway, up the stairs to my room.

They echo in my head as I strip out of my wrinkled clothes, as I step into the shower and let scalding water wash away the scent of him from my skin.

But nothing can erase the memory of how completely I surrendered to him.

Nothing can wash away the devastating realization that when he touched me, when he claimed me on his desk, I stopped caring about everything else.

My people are hurt.

My business is crumbling.

My entire life's work is turning to ash while I'm trapped behind these walls, playing prisoner to a man who may be orchestrating my destruction.

And for those desperate minutes in his office, none of it mattered.

I press my forehead against the shower tiles and let the water run until it turns cold, hoping it will wash away the truth I don't want to face.

That my body recognizes something in Yuri that my mind refuses to acknowledge.

That despite everything—the forced marriage, the imprisonment, the systematic destruction of my independence—I wanted him with a desperation that terrifies me.

The water runs cold, but the shame remains burning under my skin.

12

YURI

Mikhail Kozlov arrives at seven in the evening, when the compound settles into its nightly routine.

I watch him through the security feeds as Oleg escorts him to the private meeting room—a scarred man with a shaved head and shoulders broad enough to scare weaker men.

His broken nose sits crooked on his face, never properly set after whatever beating left it that way.