Page 59 of Kidnapped Bride

That wasn't love.

And this wasn't where I wanted to be.

I cried for a long time, completely ignoring how bad my nose was running, or the fact that my mascara was probably staining his sheets. Every time I thought I was done crying, I had another wave of fresh angry tears well up.

The crying burned itself out eventually when my body ran out of emotional energy to keep going. I lay there empty and spent with my face lying on my wet pillow and my ribs aching from so much sobbing. And I was entirely exhausted.

I had given him the best of me, and the benefit of the doubt, and he had done nothing but hurt me. Well, his access to me was over. I reached up and turned the light off, plunging the room into darkness before I pulled the covers up and turned over.

I didn't figure Nikolai would come to bed tonight. He was too angry with me. The look on his face when I'd hit him, and the way he'd gone silent and locked the door without a word, told me he was done with me for now. Maybe for good.

Maybe he finally realized that no amount of flowers or dinners or soft words at bedtime was going to turn me into the willing wife he wanted. Because they weren't. I had never been ready for marriage to anyone, let alone him, and all I could think about was finding a way to get away from him now.

So when I heard the lock turn and the door open only moments after I had turned the light off, my whole body tensed. His footsteps crossed the room but the mattress didn't shift. He didn't get in. Instead I sensed him crouching beside my side of the bed, close enough I could smell whiskey on his breath. Then the lamp clicked on and the warm light pushed through my closed eyelids, which I didn’t open.

His fingers found my hair and brushed it away from my face gently. Still I didn't look at him. He didn't deserve my attention, and I was so mad I didn't want to see his face ever again.

"Open your eyes," he said quietly.

I didn't want to but I did, maybe because I was afraid of him or maybe because I wanted him to see just how angry I was. He was so close I couldn’t even see all of him. But I saw that he'd taken off his jacket and there was a tiredness in his eyes. He looked just as emotional as me, except without the crying.

"Princess, I need to?—"

"Please don't do this right now," I grit out, too angry to hear his excuses. I didn’t want to listen to him trying to apologize or call me his princess. I wasn't his.

"I need you to hear me, honey." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone and turned the screen toward me. A text message filled the display, forwarded from a number I didn't recognize to one of Nikolai's men. The timestamp was from yesterday.

I tried to make my eyes focus but even blinking didn't work. I had cried so much my vision seemed permanently blurry. "I don't get it," I snarled, looking away, but he shoved it in front of my face.

"Your father sent men to kill me, Kira. They weren't there to rescue you." His tone was so firm I couldn’t ignore him.

I grabbed his wrist and held the phone back again, this time able to see more. I saw it was a screenshot from my father's number, which I had memorized by heart, and that he was specifically telling someone that "the girl's not my concern, kill the boss."

"That came in yesterday," Niko said. "One of my guys intercepted it from Markin's network. Your father isn't sending rescue teams, Kira. He's sending hit squads. Rictor wasn't there to bring you home. He was there to kill me… He just had the decency of heart to try to move you too. Those were not your father's orders, though."

"Stop," I croaked, feeling more tears welling up.

"I know it hurts. But you need to see this for what it is." Nikolai's eyes held so much concern, he almost had me convinced.

"I said stop." But he was lying. He had to be.

He put the phone down on the mattress and left it there, screen up. Then his hand found my hair again, stroking slowly. I hated how gentle he was being while I was lying here falling apart. But I saw with my own eyes what my father had sent someone. Unless he faked that too, but why go to that extreme?

I was confused and overwhelmed, and more than anything, I wanted comfort. Which Nikolai's touch was bringing me despite how angry I was with him.

"Why would he do this?" I whispered, knowing how pathetic I sounded. "I'm his daughter."

"Why did your brother leave?" he asked. "You told me when we were texting that your brother walked away from the family and cut contact. Why did he do that?"

I didn't answer because the answer was obvious and he knew it. My brother left when he was old enough to survive on his own because he knew who my father was. Something it took me a lot longer to figure out. And it was something I was still in denial about if that message was real.

"And your mother," he continued. "She's been in Europe for how long now? Months? Traveling with your aunts instead of being home with her family while her daughter is missing."

"She doesn't know," I insisted, defending her. If my mother knew, she would come. I knew it. She wasn't like him. How many times had I regretted not speaking with her and wishing I could call?

"Okay, well, even so… My point is that your family knows the monster your father is. And I hate being the one to open your eyes, but you have to see. You're safer here with me than with him, honey." And there was that damn gentle touch again, coaxing me out of my shell that had hardened around my heart toward him.

The tears came back and I couldn't stop them. They leaked out of the corners of my eyes and ran sideways across my face and into the pillow. But Nikolai stayed hovering there, not pushing me away. And strangely it was comforting now. While the revelation dawned over my broken heart that Nikolai was probably right, my ability to push him away was waning.