Page 96 of Bleed with Me

By the third day of my imprisonment in a pre-wedding hell, I genuinely began to understand why some brides ran away before the ceremony. I sat alone in one of the upstairs lounges, half listening to muffled voices downstairs while staring at my phone. The mansion buzzed with life around me, but all I could think about was him.

Dorian.

It had become irritatingly easy for my thoughts to drift toward him during quiet moments. My phone vibrated softly in my hand.

Handsome husband: Alive?

A wide smile tugged at my lips. Purely pathetic.

Nina: Bored. I’m thinking about chaining you to the bed to spice up my dull days.

The typing bubble appeared instantly, and my grin broadened when the message arrived.

Handsome husband: No gun this time, please. My ass still hasn’t recovered.

Nina: I love it when you beg.

Handsome husband: Got to go, sorry. To be continued?

My fingers hovered over the keyboard for longer than necessary. To be continued. Such a stupidly simple sentence, yet warmth spread through my chest anyway.

He wanted more. More conversations. More teasing. More of me. And the most interesting part was that he no longer sounded like a man forced into this against his will.

He sounded attached. Helplessly, beautifully attached.

Nina: Depends. Behave, and maybe I’ll reward you later.

The message showed as seen, but no reply came. He was truly busy. Probably running to save someone’s limbs while grinning at his phone like an idiot.

God, I loved this shift in him.

The texts, the flirting, the way his attention drifted toward me even during exhausting hospital shifts. He was coming to me willingly, and I adored every second of it.

My thumb brushed over the screen absentmindedly as memories from a few nights ago surfaced again. The image of him sleeping curled on the office couch invaded my mind. One arm hung down, his fingers touching the carpet, his head tilted awkwardly against the cushions, still wearing scrubs after another endless shift.

The following night, I found him passed out beside that little girl’s hospital bed, which he visited constantly. Warm light spilled across his face as one hand rested too close to the child’s hand as she was curled beneath the blankets. He looked exhausted yet peaceful despite the dark circles beneath his eyes, like an ordinary human and not a billionaire mafia prince who could do anything he wished without caring about the consequences.

Familiar voices echoing through the hall woke me from my daydream. Dorian’s contagious smile faded from my mind, and I stood up from the couch as my father entered the lounge.

“Your girls are here,” he announced, scanning my face as if looking for something. “Party preparations?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, hiding my phone in my jeans’ back pocket and ignoring his raised brow. “Gown, makeup, hair. I want to look great at the party of the month. Everyone will be there.”

“Exactly.” His expression was a hard mask as he stepped toward me. “It’s our chance to show the world we’re on board with the Zhumagulovs. We can’t fuck it up. Our lives depend on it.”

My eyebrows dipped into a frown.

“Do you think it’s a test?” I asked, my body tensing.

“What else would it be?” Dad shrugged, hiding his hands in his pants pockets. If he intended to look casual and not appear freaked out, he failed miserably. The moment the mask slipped, his eyes showed exactly how he felt. Horrified.

“I haven’t done anything to change their minds so rapidly,” he admitted. “For Zyon, his wife’s birthday party is much more important than his brother’s little hospital side project. And we weren’t invited there.”

The hospital wasn’t just a little side project for Dorian. It was his life. But I couldn’t tell my dad that.

“Maybe he realized we aren’t a threat anymore,” I mused, but it sounded naive as hell. They executed the head of our family and publicly displayed his tortured body to send a message: never mess with them again. We would be threatened as long as the name Valentino existed.

“I doubt that.” Dad shook his head firmly. “Zyon might believe I’m not a threat, but…" He paused, erasing the distance between us. “Someone accessed your psychiatric records last night." He placed his large, heavy hands on my shoulders. “Our people checked other stored files about you—Giovanni’s notes, schedules, everything that is tied to you—and found a massive leak. But what’s worse,” he cupped my chin, forcing me to look into his worried face, “the trace was left intentionally. Whoever was snooping around wanted us to find out.”