Page 50 of Arranged Marriage to the Brutal Bratva King
Chapter Thirteen - Janice
I pace the guest room like a caged animal, fury and panic warring for dominance.
Marry him. He wants me tomarry him.
The audacity of it makes my blood boil. Four years ago, he threw me away like I was garbage he’d grown tired of. Got me fired, cut me out of his life, told me I was a distraction he’d moved past.
Now he wants to bind me to him legally?
It’s unfair. It’s insane.
It’s exactly what I should have expected from Dimitri Rudenko.
I sink onto the bed, pressing my palms against my eyes until colors burst behind my lids. My entire body still trembles with residual adrenaline from last night: the chase, the crash, the bodies falling with precise gunshots. Blood on my clothes. Terror so absolute it erased everything else.
Dimitri, standing over corpses like death incarnate, then holding me with surprising gentleness while I fell apart.
You’re mine.
The words replay on loop, possessive and absolute. He believes it. Genuinely thinks four years and an exposé and mutual destruction don’t change some fundamental claim he has on me.
He’s delusional. Or I am, for the traitorous part of me that wants to believe it.
I stand abruptly, needing movement, needing action. The room is luxurious—expensive furniture, soft lighting, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Beautiful in the way cages are beautiful when you can’t see the bars.
When I open the door, the hall is empty.
Surprise flickers through me. I expected him to have someone guarding me so I can’t leave. Instead, there’s just the empty hallway beyond, silent and dim.
Testing me, maybe. Seeing if I’ll try to escape or accept my fate like a good captive.
I’ve never been good at accepting fate.
The penthouse is quiet as I slip into the hallway. My bare feet make no sound against hardwood floors. I move carefully, testing each step, listening for any indication of where Dimitri might be.
Nothing. The place feels empty except for me.
I make it to the living room, past the couch where I slept, past the windows where we stood four years ago and he kissed me like I mattered. The front door is across the space, tantalizingly close.
Locked, probably. Alarmed, definitely. I try it anyway, and it opens.
My heart lurches. This has to be a trap. Has to be another test. Dimitri doesn’t make mistakes, doesn’t leave vulnerabilities.
Unless he wants me to run. Unless this is part of whatever game he’s playing.
I don’t care. I’m not staying here to be his revenge project, his captive bride, his solution to political problems I didn’t create.
I slip through the door, into the hallway beyond. An elevator waits, doors open like an invitation. I step inside, hit the button for the ground floor, and watch the numbers descend.
My pulse hammers so hard I can feel it everywhere. Any second, the elevator will stop. Dimitri will appear. This brief taste of freedom will evaporate.
The doors open on the lobby.
Empty except for a security guard who barely glances up from his phone. I walk past him on shaking legs, expecting him to stop me, to call upstairs, to drag me back.
He doesn’t.
Then I’m outside, night air hitting my face like a slap. The city sprawls around me—noise and light and blessed anonymity. I can disappear here. Can find help, find safety, find a way out of this nightmare.
