Sentenced to Marriage novel Chapter 93

His friends

I was still extremely pissed at Jack and Chris for treating me this way, but apparently, my glaring daggers at them only brought them more amusement. Luckily, the tape Chris used wasn’t too strong, and I finally managed to glue off the piece that was gagging me.

“Seriously guys?!” I yelled. “You could have told me what you were planning, not kidnap me!”

Chris, who was driving the car, snorted. “Really? Do you want us to believe that you would willingly leave your husband even if you haven’t left the clinic for the last eight days?”

I wanted to protest, but when I opened my mouth I realized that there was no way I would have left Aren. I already felt anxious, as I had left his room nearly ten minutes ago, wondering if he had started to wake up while I was away from him.

“I don’t want him to see that I’m not there when he wakes up…” I mumbled.

Jack, who was sitting in the passenger’s front seat, turned around and looked at me with a frown. “Cora, you must be aware that this is insane. He would never have blamed you for going away, sleeping, resting… or drinking with us.”

“Although I wouldn’t be so sure about that last one,” Chris added, smirking.

I knew they were right, but somehow inside my stupid mind, I felt guilty that I was even considering having momentary fun while he was unconscious. Yet then I reminded myself that I used to think the same way when my Grandma fell into a coma. I used to sleep by her bed as well. Then I spent hours talking to her every day, but after a while, I had to move on and live my life just to keep my sanity. With Aren, I was doing the exact opposite- I was losing my mind and drowning in my own restlessness. Perhaps I really needed to drink…

“Where are we going?” I asked, watching us pass the Brooklyn Bridge. “We’re going to my place,” Chris replied, taking a turn on Charles Street and heading toward the Hudson River.

That made me realize that I knew nothing about Chris, except for the fact that he was a military specialist. Since I met him, I only saw him wearing combat pants and a T-shirt, and the only thing that changed today was the fact that he wore jeans instead of those combat pants… which didn’t bring me any closer to finding out anything more about him. I knew that Aren trusted him, and that made me trust him as well, but that didn’t change the fact that I wanted to punch him for using such methods on me. Once we’d arrived at the spot, I finally got untied. As I got out of the car, I realized that we had stopped in front of one of the fancy apartment buildings. That only made me raise my eyebrows, wondering if it truly was the place Chris lived. Five minutes later, it turned out that not only did he live there, but he owned the entire building. He inhabited the top-floor apartment, which looked almost as expensive as Aren’s penthouse. I stood on the threshold with my mouth wide open, taking in the astonishing space of the cream-white hall, magnified by the row of wall-size windows.

“Surprised?” Chris chuckled, watching my growing confusion. “Get yourself comfortable on the sofas near the balcony. Food and drinks are coming in just a moment,” he said, pointing at

the spot deeper in the hall.

Jack grabbed my hand and pulled me into the apartment. “Come on, Cora!” He laughed.

I could see that he felt quite comfortable in Chris’s apartment, almost as if he lived there as well. He led me to one of the cream sofas standing at the corner of the hall that opened to a big kitchen. He sat on the other sofa in front of mine. My eyes directed at the kitchen quickly widened in shock again as I saw Chris, putting on a chef’s apron and taking out food from the fridge.

“What about you, Jack? Do you also have your shares of Lan Diamond Corporation?” I smirked, turning my eyes on him.

Jack sighed, painting a wry smile on his face. “I wish I had… when I met Aren and Chris, the Lan Diamond Corporation was already doing great on the market. I could never afford to buy those shares with my agent’s salary.” “So how did you guys meet?” I leaned forward on the table, excitedly blinking my eyes. Jack scratched his head, laughing awkwardly. “Well… I shot Chris in the leg and almost shot Aren…”

“What?!” I straightened up, my eyes shifting from Jack to Chris, trying to figure out whether he was joking. Chris nodded. “Yup.” He pulled his pants up above half of his calves. “I still have a scar right there.”

“How did that happen?!” I exclaimed, thinking that I was the only one in the room who didn’t find that fact amusing.

Jack chuckled. “Well, long story short, the FBI was preparing an ambush on illegal weapon dealers, and it turned out that those guys got under Aren’s skin. The issue was that our interviewer initially identified Aren, Chris, and their men as being part of those dealers, and they were armed, and I—”

“We had sleep darts while Jack was shooting bullets,” Chris interjected. “The whole action took place at the old, abandoned factory, and while we were on the ground level, Jack hid on the roof, making us look like shooting ducks. After I got shot, Aren got furious. He flew up the stairs faster than a bolt of lightning and lurched at Jack, pinning him to the floor before he could even find the trigger,” he said with a mischievous grin. Jack gave him a wry smile and continued the story, “We let me go when he noticed that I was an FBI agent. We sort it all out, and every time we’re engaging in something together, he teasingly reminds me that we only use sleep darts, as if he was afraid that I would accidentally shoot someone.” He wrinkled his nose as he mentioned it, but then quickly smirked. “Anyway, that’s how we became friends.”

I laughed awkwardly, staring at the two men sitting in front of me before I turned my eyes to my empty glass. “I think I need more alcohol…”