Page 52 of Kidnapped Bride

She had no idea I'd been taken.

Or maybe she did and she was handling it the way she handled everything, which was to look the other way so she didn't have to feel the hurt.

What I wouldn’t do to speak to her.

But I couldn't, even if I wanted to.

No one was coming to rescue me.

And hey, if I didn't think about it too hard, Niko wasn't all that bad. He already treated me better than my father treated my mother.

I just didn't know how a man twice my age, who kidnapped me, could ever truly love me.

It was so twisted and wrong.

I was doomed to be trapped here until he got tired of me or realized my father was never coming and sent me to an early grave.

A tear ran down my cheek and I wiped it away quickly, but Anya caught the action. She set her stitching aside and reached across the table and laid her hand over mine.

"You should lie down," she said gently. "You look tired, Kira. Rest would be good for you."

I wanted to argue but the nausea was getting worse and the tears were threatening to come back and I didn't want to fall apart sitting here across from her.

And I especially didn't want to vomit right here either.

"Yeah," I said. "Okay."

I slid off the chair and Vlad walked me upstairs without saying anything.

He opened the bedroom door and I went through and he pulled it shut behind me.

When I curled up in bed, the tears came.

This time away from my family had taught me a few things.

First of all, my father didn't care if I was dead or alive.

And second, that I missed my mother more than I ever told anyone.

But mostly, that I had a husk of a heart that had been hollowed out by watching my family disintegrate over the years, wondering why my mother ran away.

I had always blamed her for running.

Father was there.

He provided.

He was home every night.

But the shouting and the coldness… It had never been right. To a child's brain, having their parents together meant more than having them happy.

As an adult, I realized he never treated her right, but it took this situation to open my eyes all the way. Nikolai stole me off the street but he'd been nothing but loving and kind since.

He provided what I needed. He was genuine with me, even when it was uncouth. And he cared when I was hurting, even if he didn't know how to show it.

I couldn’t say that same thing about my own family.

Maybe I'd been too hard on him.