Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
It was time to take my wife home.
And it was time for me to find the truth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
SERAFINA (ELYSSA)
I woke to the scent of cedar and leather.
My eyelids fluttered open, heavy and a little uncooperative.
The ceiling above me came into focus first… tall, coffered, painted in a shade of cream that I’d memorized during the weeks I’d spent staring at it.
The familiarity of it made my stomach drop before my mind had fully processed what my eyes were seeing.
The perfect crown molding gazed back at me, beautiful and silent.
No. Oh God, no.
My gaze traveled downward as the room fully came into focus now, my vision no longer as blurry with unconsciousness. The walls were deep burgundy, almost black in the dim light filtering through heavy, velvet curtains that weren’t drawn. There was an armchair by the window, similar to the one I had sat in during those first days of my marriage as I plotted against my husband.
This was Adrian’s bedroom. In his estate.
My heart stuttered, a violent, arrhythmic lurch that sent a wave of nausea through my gut.
I was back in New York.
I squeezed my eyes shut, and a low sound of anguish escaped my throat.
How could this have happened? I turned my face against the pillow, holding back a choked cry. God, my body ached so much, a deep, bone-level exhaustion that told me I had been unconscious for some time.
How long? Hours? Days, maybe?
The last thing I remembered was the hotel room, the confrontation, the rotting truth spilling from my lips like blood from an open, festering wound.
Then nothing. A void where memory should have been.
He had… drugged me. Fuck… this wasn’t good. I shouldn’t have been back here. I couldn’t be back here, not after Adrian knew the whole truth now. About my life. My real identity.
Behind my closed eyes, I could still see Adrian’s face, shifting through shock, anger, and disbelief.
He couldn’t decide if he was pissed that his wife outsmarted him or if he should be proud. Only Adrian Salvatore would find unhinged pride in my lies and deceit.
But that didn’t matter now.
He drugged me and brought me back here—back to his gilded cage, his fortress of control, the place where he had first shown me what it meant to be owned.
He’d trapped me. Again. The irony of it was so bitter I could taste it on my tongue.
How could he? How dared he?
“You will believe me eventually."
His words from the hotel suite echoed in my skull, hollow and mocking. This was how he planned to make me believe him? By removing every choice, every fragile thread of freedom I had managed to weave together? By bringing me back to the place where I had been less his wife and more of our families’ pawn?
Hatred and rage swirled inside me, a storm of emotions. I hate him.
I fucking loathed everything about my husband.
A soft whine cut through my thoughts and the silence of the room.
My body went rigid. Thud.
Every muscle locked into place, my breath catching in my throat, and cold, primal fear slithered through my veins. It was almost instinctive, a human reaction to recognizing the danger.
There it was again, another whine. This time it was closer.
I slowly turned my head toward the sound and opened my eyes. My vision swam for a second, the room tilting and righting itself in a nauseating lurch.
And then I saw it. Them.
Three shapes materialized from the shadows near the foot of the bed, dark and muscular.
Adrian’s dobermans.
I recognized them instantly.
I had seen them patrolling the grounds when I lived here before, their sleek bodies moving with a predatory grace that had made my skin crawl even from a distance. Adrian’s personal guard dogs—trained to kill, to maim, to tear apart anything that he deemed as a threat.
And now they were in the room with me.
I knew their names were Shadow, Orion and Nyx… but I couldn’t tell which was which.
My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
The scream that lived in my chest remained trapped behind my teeth, locked in place by a terror so absolute it had paralyzed my vocal cords.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t… breathe.
I could lie here, helplessly pinned to the mattress by the weight of my own fear, as three sets of dark, intelligent eyes fixed on me with an attention that felt almost human.
Please stay away. Please don’t come near me.
One of them, the smallest, slowly stepped forward, approaching me with a subtle dominance. Its claws tapped against the hardwood floor—click, click, click—each sound a tiny detonation in the silence. The closer it got, I realized it was the female, Nyx.
Her ears were pricked forward, her body tense, and I could see her muscles moving beneath the short, glossy coat—rippling, powerful, designed for speed and destruction. She was beautiful in the most frightening way imaginable.