Page 35 of Forced Marriage to the Cruel Bratva Pakhan

The door slams shut, cutting off the night air. Through increasingly blurred vision, I watch the mansion disappear as the SUV pulls away from the side road.

This is bad. This is catastrophically, horrifyingly bad.

Pavel will come for me. The certainty surfaces through the sedative’s fog with absolute clarity. Whatever our relationship actually is, whatever complicated feelings exist between captor and captive, I’m his wife. His leverage. His political connection.

He’ll come, but will he come fast enough?

The men in the front seat converse in rapid Russian I can barely follow through the drug-induced haze. I catch fragments—something about a warehouse, a timeline, making sure Rudenko understands the cost of his recent expansion into contested territory.

I’m not a person to them. I’m a message. A bargaining chip in a conflict I barely understand.

The realization should probably frighten me more, but the sedative is pulling me under with increasing insistence. My last conscious thought as darkness claims me completely is wondering if Pavel has discovered I’m gone yet.

Wondering if he’ll be angry about the escape attempt, or relieved to have an excuse to finally be rid of the complication I’ve become.

Wondering if I’ve just made the worst mistake of my life by thinking anywhere could be safer than the prison I was so desperate to leave.

Chapter Fourteen - Pavel

The knock comes at midnight while I’m reviewing shipping manifests that require approval by morning. Sharp, urgent, wrong for the hour.

“Enter.”

Viktor pushes through the door, his expression tense in a way that immediately puts me on alert. “Sir, we have a situation.”

I set down the tablet. “Explain.”

“The back garden gate was found open during routine check. Guard rotation confirms it was secured twenty minutes ago.” He pauses. “Mrs. Rudenko isn’t in the building.”

I’m moving before he finishes speaking, already pulling up the security system on my phone as I head toward Serena’s quarters. The door stands open, lights off, bed empty. Her phone sits on the nightstand—she left it deliberately, knowing we could track it.

“How long?” I demand, heading for the stairs.

“Ten minutes, maybe twelve since the gate was discovered open. We’re not certain when she actually left the property.”

Twelve minutes. Long enough to reach the main road if she moved quickly. Long enough for a significant head start if she planned the timing correctly.

The control room is already active when we arrive, three guards reviewing footage while my head of security, Viktor, coordinates the estate lockdown.

“Cameras caught her at eleven forty-six, moving through the garden path during shift rotation.” He pulls up the footageon the main screen. “She timed it precisely—knew exactly when the gap would occur.”

I watch the grainy image of Serena slipping through shadows with careful precision, staying low, using landscaping for cover. Every movement is deliberate, practiced. She’s been planning this for days, studying patterns, waiting for the right moment.

“Where does coverage end?” I ask, keeping my voice level despite the cold fury building in my chest.

“The service path exits our camera range here.” Viktor points to where the footage cuts off. “She had maybe three minutes of blind movement before she would have reached the perimeter wall.”

“Pull traffic cameras from the surrounding streets. Check every vehicle that passed within a five-block radius in the last twenty minutes.” I turn to Viktor. “Activate all street contacts. I want eyes on every route leading away from this neighborhood. If she’s on foot, someone will have seen her.”

The room erupts into coordinated activity, phones ringing, keyboards clicking, my men executing orders with practiced efficiency. I should be in my office coordinating from there, maintaining the strategic distance that allows clear thinking.

Instead I’m rooted in place, watching the footage loop on the screen. Serena disappearing into darkness, moving away from security, from protection, from everything I’ve structured to keep her safe.

From me.

The thought surfaces with uncomfortable clarity. She’s not just escaping captivity or forced marriage. She’s escapingme specifically, choosing unknown danger over continued proximity to the man who destroyed her autonomy.

“Sir.” One of the tech operators looks up from his station. “City traffic camera picked up something. Black SUV, wrong area for normal traffic patterns, turned off its headlights two blocks from our perimeter approximately twelve minutes ago.”