Page 33 of His Stolen Bride

My hand stills on the desk. That’s the line.

“Any identifiers?” I ask.

“None we can confirm,” Enzo replies. “But it wasn’t random.”

They’re measuring me, the house, how much damage they can do before I move.

Alina is not the reason they’re here. She’s the reason they think they can get closer.

I lean back in the chair and stare at the screen showing the estate map, routes marked and recalculated again and again.

Distance didn’t restore order. It invited attention.

“Lock it down,” I say. “Quietly.”

Enzo nods. “And her?”

I pause, just long enough to register the question. “Keep her unaware,” I say. “For now.”

10

ALINA

When my cycle doesn’t come, I refuse to panic.

I count days on my fingers while brushing my teeth, count again while dressing, and do the math a third time, slower, checking for mistakes. Stress can delay things. Shock can throw a body off. I’ve lived inside fear long enough to know it changes chemistry. I tell myself this is nothing.

The house keeps moving around me as if nothing has changed.

Guards rotate. Meals arrive on time. Doors open and close with the same quiet precision. I walk the garden every morning at the same hour, escorted by men who know my pace now. They don’t rush me or let me linger. Their attention feels heavier than it did before, but no one explains why. Or it could be my mind playing tricks on me.

Mikhail stays distant.

I see him once at the end of a corridor, jacket already on, phone at his ear. He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t look back. I don’t call his name. If I’m wrong about this, I don’t want to be the one who turns a delay into a problem.

The nausea returns two days later.

It hits without warning while I’m standing at the sink, rinsing a cup. My stomach tightens hard enough that I have to brace my hands against the counter. The room tilts. I close my eyes and breathe slowly, waiting for it to pass.

It doesn’t.

I barely make it to the bathroom before I’m sick. There’s nothing there to come up, just the dry heave and the sharp sting afterward. When it’s over, I sit on the floor with my back against the tub, head tipped forward, breaths uneven.

This feels different, and by now, I’m sure I’m not ill or nervous. I wash my face and stare at my reflection. My skin looks the same. My eyes look the same. Nothing obvious explains the way my body just betrayed me. I go through the day carefully. I eat plain food, drink water, and mention nothing to anyone. When Lira brings tea in the afternoon, she studies my face for a second longer than usual.

“You’re pale,” she observes.

“I didn’t sleep well.” Inwardly, I clamp down on the panic because I’m not ready to reveal this, not even to her. She nods, accepts it, sets the tray down. When she turns to leave, I stop her.

“Lira.”

She pauses. In this moment, I realize I need someone to know what’s going on with me in this house, because if I don’t, there’s no way I’ll be able to secure a way to verify what my body is telling me. “Do you know how to get things,” I ask, choosing each word carefully, “that don’t show up on records?”

Her eyes flick to the door. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“On why.”