Page 37 of Forced By the Bratva

My foot caught on something taut across the path. A wire. My leg jerked out from under me, drawing an abrupt breath from my lungs.

A branch swung out of nowhere, its sharp spikes lashing along its length, cutting through the air. In a split second, my whole life flashed before me as I caught a glimpse of it swinging toward me.

Everything else happened so fast after Ilya slammed into me from the side.

The spikes whooshed past us as we hit the ground, tumbling down a gentle slope. We rolled together through mud and wet leaves, our momentum carrying us down until the ground finally leveled out.

I landed flat on my back with a jolt, and a deep grunt escaped my lips. In a heartbeat, he flipped me over, and then I was on top of him, palms braced against his chest.

At the base of the slope, he lay beneath me, his arms wrapped tightly around me. Confused, I stared down at him as rain poured over both of us.

Then I looked up, chest heaving, and saw it.

The branch, its spikes buried deep in the trunk of a tree above us. Right where I would have been standing.

If he hadn’t reached me in time, I would have been pinned to that tree.

That’s when it made sense to me why he’d been yelling at me to stop. He’d saved me.

I jumped off him the second I remembered Whiskers. The box had flown out of my hands during the fall, and now I was worried that I had lost my little companion.

“Whiskers!” I called out, scanning the woods.

He meowed in response, drawing my attention to where he was standing on his feet, unharmed. He’d landed safely.

“You’re all right. Thank God.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

“What is wrong with you?” His voice came from behind me.

I closed my eyes for a second before turning around to face him.

“What the fuck were you thinking?!” he snapped at me for the first time.

“I wanted to get away from you,” I said, my voice breaking.

“You could’ve gotten yourself killed, Iris!”

I flinched at his harsh tone, tears stinging my eyes. “Don’t you yell at me; this is all your fault!” I shot back with the same intensity. “If you hadn’t kidnapped me and kept me locked away from my friends and family, none of this would’ve happened!”

“I was trying to protect you!” he barked.

Lightning flashed overhead. It lit his face for a second before the dark swallowed it again.

“You’re the one who got yourself into this mess in the first place. I’m just trying to clean it up while making sure you keep your life!”

“So this is my fault now?” I growled.

“That’s not what I said.” His tone was calmer.

“You think I wanted this?” I stepped forward, my tears mixing with the rain. “You think I didn’t have my whole life figured out before you showed up at my doorstep at 8:30 at night and ruined everything?” The words spilled out in a frantic rush, my voice cracking.

Silence.

Lightning streaked the sky above.

“Living with you in that house is torture, Ilya!” I wept, gesturing with my hands as I spoke. “I sit around doing nothing productive all day, every day for weeks now, while the rest of the world thinks I’m dead!”

“Iris…” He reached out to take my hand.