Bitter Truths: A Twisted Arranged Marriage Romance (Crimson Falls Duet Book 2) by Dani René (best fiction novels to read .txt) 📗

My phone vibrates in my pocket moments later, and I glance at Scarlett before pulling it from my pocket. She’s finally asleep. At least it looks like it from where I’m sitting. A message on the screen has me grinning.

Time to get this game started.

8

Lycan

When my eyes snap open, I find Kahn standing at the door talking to a couple of men dressed in black. I don’t recognize them, which has me wondering if he’s hired new guys. I try to shift, and my chest aches. Agonizing pain shoots through me the moment I scoot higher on the single bed.

Looking around the room, I notice it’s one of the VIP suites at Crimson Falls General. I didn’t think I would wake up from the shots Darius fired. The asshole hit me twice and took off after Scarlett.

Shit.

My wife.

“Kahn,” I call out, causing him to spin on his heel. He tells the guys something more before they nod and leave. When he enters the room, shutting the door behind him, he looks at me with worry in his eyes. “Where is she?” Even as I ask, the answer is clear—Darius has her. If she was with Kahn, he would’ve probably brought her to the hospital, because she would’ve fought him tooth and nail to be here.

“They had a car waiting.” He settles in the chair beside the bed. “I have my team scouring the vicinity because they couldn’t have gotten far. We found the tracker we installed on his phone on the side of the highway about five miles down the road from the manor.”

“Fuck,” I curse, moving once more, only to have my breath stolen from me. “I need to get out of here.”

“No, you need to stay right there. You almost fucking died,” Kahn tells me earnestly. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him so concerned. Usually, he’s stoic, calm even, but right now, the dark eyes of my right-hand man seem to burn with fear.

“How long have I been in here?”

“Four days,” he informs me with no emotion, but the flickering of concern in his eyes makes me think there’s more to it.

“If it didn’t hurt so much, I would’ve told you to fuck off,” I tell him, offering a smile, hoping he’ll see that I’m okay. I haven’t died, and I don’t plan to anytime soon. I need to get to my wife. Finding her is my only focus right now.

“There’s a house on the outskirts of Arizona where we think they’ve gone. I just spoken to a couple of guys now, but what concerns me is that there’s a funnel of women coming in from Mexico,” Kahn informs me. “Lorenzo’s name came up in a meeting I had with Alexei. He mentioned you told him he could come with us when we head to the convent. I’ve also asked Victor Cordero for his help.”

“This thing sounds bigger than all of us,” I remark, moving my legs in order to swing them over the edge of the bed. Pain shoots up my left side, and once again, I struggle to pull in air. Being injured is frustrating me, rather than offering me solace that I’m alive. “I want to be there when you go to the house.”

“You’re in no condition—”

“She’s my fucking wife!” My voice booms through the room, bouncing off the walls, but Kahn stands his ground. For the years he’s worked for me, he has never once answered back. He’s never responded to me in any way other than, yes sir, when I asked something of him. For him to act like this, he must’ve been more than just concerned for his boss.

“I realize that, Lycan,” he tells me, keeping his voice low. “but he won’t kill her because he’s asked for a ransom from Horatio.”

“What?” This has me snapping my gaze to Kahn’s dark eyes. “How much?”

“Fifty million,” he tells me. “Which means he needs money, and he won’t hurt her. Not until he has the cash. I have a team working with Horatio so when he does the transfer, we’ll be ready to move on the house.”

“Is it a compound? Because if it is, you know he won’t be there alone.” There is no doubt in my mind that Kahn has thought of everything, but the fear of losing Scarlett has me on edge. When I first met her, I didn’t think she’d come to mean so much to me. I didn’t expect my feelings for her to take a front seat to my own life.

But it has.

And now, I have to live with it.

“It must be, but I have fifteen men ready,” Kahn assures me. “We will not fuck this up. If I had known Darius had his guys waiting, I would’ve countered them, but I missed that. This is on me.”

Taking responsibility for something he couldn’t have known is something Kahn has always done. Even when his sister was taken, he convinced himself it was his doing. Even though their folks were the ones who allowed Lorenzo to buy the young woman, Kahn has lived with the guilt of not being there to save her.

“Don’t do that,” I tell him. “It’s on us all. I told her to run,” I say as the memory of our wedding day returns with a violent vengeance. Knowing I sent her into the fucking woods on her own doesn’t help the rage I’m feeling toward Darius.

“But I should’ve been there to catch her,” Kahn says. He shakes his head before pulling out his phone to tap on the screen a few times before looking up at me. “She’s at the house,” he informs me. “Confirmation that Darius is on the compound.”

“I want to be there.” I attempt to push to my feet, and with a sigh, Kahn helps me to stand. The moment I tug the needle from my arm, the machines go crazy behind me. Seconds later, two nurses and a doctor come racing into the room.

“You’re not cleared to leave