Page 90 of His Forced Bride

So I'll do the next-best thing and burn the motherfucker down who did this.

Smoke rises from the business district in black columns that stain the gray sky.

We smell it before we see it—the acrid burn of melted plastics and synthetic fabrics, the metallic tang that comes with spilled blood.

The showroom is rubble.

Where Inessa's designs once filled display windows, twisted metal frames jut from piles of debris.

Glass covers the sidewalk in glittering fragments.

Emergency vehicles crowd the street with rotating lights flashing red and blue fingers across the destruction.

Inessa exits the car before it even stops moving.

I follow, catching her arm as she runs toward the wreckage.

"No," I say.

"You don't go near that."

She struggles against my grip with surprising strength.

"I have to help them. My people are in there."

There is panic in her voice as she lashes out.

Sobs erupt from her throat and she pounds at my fist with her free hand, attempting to free herself.

"My people will handle it," I tell her, but she's distraught, and my heart feels like it's torn down the middle.

Still, I hold her fast and don't let her go.

A paramedic approaches with blood on his uniform and exhaustion in his eyes.

"Are you the business owner?" he asks, removing a fabric mask from his face, and I see the distinct difference between clean flesh and skin that's been touched by smoke.

"I am," Inessa answers.

"Seven workers are injured, three are critical. Most of them evacuated before the structure collapsed. One of your employees is asking for you."

With a jerk of his head, he turns to go.

He leads us to an ambulance where Alina Petrova sits on a stretcher, dark curls matted with blood and plaster dust.

Her expressive brown eyes find Inessa immediately, and tears flood them.

"The spring collection," she says, her voice hoarse.

"Everything we worked on for six months. It's all gone."

Inessa takes her friend's bandaged hand and a sob lurches out of her chest as she kisses it.

"People matter more than clothes, Lina. My God. Look at you."

"But the designs existed nowhere else. Your sketches, the prototypes?—"

"Can be recreated."