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We ended up back in the SUV again, driving in tense silence through the night. Arkadi kept his eyes on the road, occasionally muttering to someone on his Bluetooth. I was grateful that I wasn’t in the trunk again, that the cuffs were in front this time, and that my shoulders were not wrenching out of their sockets. Outwardly, I was able to remain calm, but on the inside, I was freaking out. This guy was trying to destroy the Fokins at all costs.

And worse, he seemed like he was having fun.

After a while, we pulled off the highway and down a deserted access road, crunching over the gravel until he stopped in front of a warehouse in the middle of what looked like a construction site.

Great, an empty warehouse in the dead of night. Nothing bad ever happened in places like that. Arkadi made no move to get out, engrossed in his phone for the moment. I really, really didn’t want to go inside and tried not to attract his attention. Soon, the tension got to be too much.

“If you just let me go, I can find my way back from here,” I pleaded. Gone was any pretense of being tough and fearless. “You don’t even have to take the cuffs off. Just let me go, and I’ll convince Nik to forget everything.”

I wanted to threaten him with Nik’s fury and all the power of his family, but I stopped before I pissed him off again. My pride could easily recover from having to grovel if I managed to stay alive. What my pride couldn’t withstand was Arkadi’s amused scoff. He didn’t even look up from his phone, only laughed absentmindedly at my plea.

“I know you think you’re extremely special, and I’m just obsessed with you, but you’re only a distraction to keep the Fokin brothers occupied while I crush them and take over LA.” He barely glanced up to sneer at me. “In fact, seeing how possessive Nik got when I first offered you a job was what put the idea in my head in the first place. I assure you it had nothing to do with your many charms.”

Sarcasm now? Okay, fine. I wouldn’t hold back any longer.

“Nik will hunt you to the ends of the earth if you don’t let me go.” I snarled, imagining Nik pulling Arkadi’s arms off in vivid detail. That was a calming thought, but it only showed what state I was in. “Just wait and see what he does.”

The bastard only laughed again, finally setting his phone in his lap to give me his full attention. I didn’t like it at all. He looked at me like I was some pitiable specimen he had no choice but to put out of its misery.

“You really believe Nik cares about you, don’t you?” This seemed hilarious to him. “You shouldn’t, you know. You’re a fool to think any real wedding will ever take place.”

Those words hit harder than getting knocked over by his car. He was right, wasn’t he? How could someone like Nik care about me when I was nothing? No one. And I’d never amount to anything, no matter how hard I tried. I was just a responsibility to him. The voices telling me those awful things weren’t Arkadi, but my parents. I had spent my whole life getting put down and told I wasn’t good enough. How could I not believe it was true now?

Then good memories crowded in through the bad, of the many things Nik had said or done since all this started. The way he looked at me, the way his face softened and his lips curled into a smile. He dropped everything to take me to a luxurious island resort and filled a suitcase with cocoa and chocolate for me to experiment with. If I so much as glanced at a stack of old cookbooks when we were out, they were mine. No teasing about them being worthless, just had them loaded into his car.

He stood up to his family for me when it was clear they were his life, let me mess with his highly successful recipes, and ditched a business meeting that might have cost him millions of dollars just to be a part of an important moment in my life. Ended up saving my life because of it. How many other meetings did he miss in order to stay close to me?

After that, he taught me to fight, believing I had the ability to defend myself despite my small size. He stuck to my side even when I was surrounded by armed guards. How did all of that equal someone who didn’t care? It didn’t.

Arkadi was wrong about Nik, and so was I. My “fake” husband did care about me. He cared a hell of a lot despite me stubbornly not accepting it. And now I realized that I cared too. More than that. The feeling that welled up in my chest could only be love. Real love that I’d been taking for granted and pushing aside.

In the name of what? I couldn’t even remember now. All I wanted was to see Nik again and somehow let him know I was wrong to fight him. Did he love me back, or was he not quite there yet? Could he ever get there after I took off and got us into this mess?

I had to stay alive long enough to find out.

Arkadi snatched up his phone again when more messages came through. He muttered a few low curses and pulled a tablet from the side of his seat. After a few seconds, he pointed to a view of another warehouse on the screen. This one was much bigger and in a less deserted area, with a few of the upper windows lit despite the late hour. I had no idea why he was showing it to me, and I only shrugged, waiting for more taunts.

Instead, he handed me his phone and told me to press the button on the screen. I stared down at the blinking red circle in confusion, my trembling hands making the cuffs rattle and clink against his phone.

“Press the button,” he demanded, impatient now. “It should be you.”

Well, now I wasn’t about to do anything like that, so he grabbed my hands and mashed my finger down on the red circle. He turned to the tablet, which he’d propped up on the dashboard, a manic grin on his face. I followed his gaze in time to see the warehouse on the screen blow up. I actually recoiled as debris flew toward wherever the camera was set up.

Screaming in horror at what he’d just forced me to do, and within seconds of being unable to tear my eyes from the utter destruction, the building right in front of us burst into a blinding wall of flames.

I screamed again as Arkadi slammed the car in reverse to get out of the blast radius, then watched the carnage with a sick gleam in his eyes as I sobbed.

“This is only the beginning,” he promised.

What? How? How could things get worse than this?

Still laughing, Arkadi grabbed my hand and pried my wedding rings off my finger.