Page 25 of Forced Mafia Bride
He panicked.Aiden O’Connorpanicked. The gallant, undaunted exterior was off, and standing before me now was the quivering, wounded combatant, wide-eyed, frightened, and vulnerable. He unwound his arm from his back and stared at the floor, shaking his head.
“N-no, sir. I don’t…I can’t.” He cleared his throat, swallowed down his anxiety, and resumed his composure. “I’m not an admirer, sir. Not like that, anyway.”
I narrowed my eyes, unsure of the strange feeling zapping through my entire body. It was wild, consuming, and unwielded. My curiosity peaked, and I asked point-blank. “So, you don’t like her?”
His response took longer than a minute, and when it landed, I still didn’t believe him.
“I don’t, sir,” he stuttered, his denial coming a fraction too slow to be convincing. “Rosalyn is like a sister to me.”
I raised a brow, intrigued at his nervousness. Before I could press him further, we heard light footsteps descend, and I beamed at him, gesturing toward the stairs.
Perfectly timed
“Well, then, what do you know? Seems like you’re lucky. You’ll get to see her before you go. Here yoursistercomes.”
Chapter 11 – Rosalyn
I woke up with a start, my eyes fluttering open to the darkened room. I barely slept for hours. My mind raced with thoughts that deprived me of rest. The weight of my actions bore down on me like a physical force, crushing my breath and making it hard to breathe. Every inhale felt like a struggle, like I was trying to suck air through a narrow straw, my lungs burning from the effort.
It wasn’t the look on Ronan’s face that haunted me.Damn Ronan.I hated him from my core. No, it was Father’seyes, his words, his legacy. All haunted me now. I had done the unthinkable, the unforgivable. I had betrayed everything he built, everything he stood for. If he saw me now….
I threw off the soft beige covers and got out of bed, pacing back and forth in the spacious room. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake off the feeling of unease, of danger lurking around the corner. Nikolai’s words when he showed up at the church unannounced, his actions that veered off the original plan, they all screamed of a plan, a scheme that I was now a part of. The way he took me, with intention, such control…it was clear he had something else on his mind. Something more.
Itrusteda monster.
I stopped pacing, my heart racing in apprehension. What did he want from me? What did he plan to do next? I had no idea, but I knew one thing: I had to be careful. I had to protect myself.
A rapt knock came on the door, startling me, and my hand flew to my chest as I counted my steps toward the door. I raised my guard up and pushed the knob down, taking a step back, preparing myself for anything but seeing Hannah’s face.
And just like that, seeing her melted my walls, pumped the tears out from my chest, and made me crumble like a potato sack. But she was quick, gathering me into her arms before I hit the floor. I was a sobbing mess, but she didn’t mind. She swept my hair away from my face and offered comforting rubs down on my back, and I thought I heard her sniffle.
Weird, because I could count the number of times I’d seen Hannah cry.
Then, her presence in the room, inNikolai’shouse, hit me, and in shock, I pulled away, searching her face to know if she was real and not a figment of my imagination.
“Hannah?”
A sad smile appeared on her face, and she patted my hand gently before letting go. “I’m really here, Rosalyn. No, you’re not dreaming.”
I didn’t understand. “But how?”
“Come on,” she sighed and pointed at the door. “Let’s go downstairs. A lot will become clearer.”
Still draped in the hideous wedding dress, I bundled up the sides, hoisting the fabric from the ground, and followed Hannah to the living room.
It was quiet when we landed on the last step. Hannah planted herself beside me, quickly assuming her guarding position, though I was too busy scanning the men in the room.
There were three of them. I quickly recognized the two seated on the dark sofas—the master and his servant: Nikolai himself and the man with the terrifying aura and dark eyes who knocked Tristan out.
Nikolai flashed a crooked, taunting smile that made me sick to my stomach. But it wasn’t his irritating ego that froze the breath going through my lungs. Standing at the center of the room in a Givenchy tailored suit with stormy blue eyes and a firm frown I recognized all too well was….
“A-Aiden?”
My nails dug into my dress, and blood thrummed through my eardrums as I struggled to make sense of this…whyone of Ronan’s most trusted and faithful men was here, in the presence of the Russians, completely unfazed that they could pull out a gun in the blink of an eye and off his head.
“What are you doing here?” I asked but, at the same time, wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
A tiny voice at the back of my head told me I would have trouble digesting his answer. And when he opened his mouth, that tiny voice was right.