Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
She wasn’t just some girl.
Zoya was a leader, a leader of my enemy.
She had taken my cousin.
He was alive but injured because of her.
Zoya played a serious game.
A game that could get any of us killed, but all it would take to end her life was one injury.
I had survived gunshots, stabbings, and countless creative tortures.
All of us had.
She almost died from an accidental pistol slap.
She risked internal bleeding just to escape a chair.
The risks for her from this life were so much higher than anyone else’s.
And that was before she made an enemy of my family.
I couldn’t be sure if she would survive the games that she played.
The games she started.
The games it was my job to end.
I couldn’t rip my eyes from the stain and everything it represented.
Her mortality, her weakness.
And the choice I would have to make…
CHAPTER 17
ZOYA
Iwoke up in his arms. I’d actually slept next to a man without wanting to kill him—without actually killing him.
How strange. No. How dangerous.
This man was holding me captive, using me as a pawn. Just because he fucked me didn’t mean he was now my boyfriend and we’d suddenly have a normal life filled with arguments over getting a dog and whose turn it was to pick the next Netflix movie.
This was all just a game. A fucked-up twisted one, but still a game.
One I intended to win.
“Does this mean you will let me go?” I asked, before pressing my face into the crook of his neck.
Roman was warm, so warm.
Having his arm slung around my waist, holding me close to him, tucking me against his hard body, was surprisingly comforting.
He made me feel more than just warm; he made me feel safe.
That wasn’t something I had ever really felt.
Stop it. Remember. Violent kidnapping enemy. Not my new fucking boyfriend.
It was a trick. My body was just weary and worn out from everything that had happened, and the hormones coursing through my body after having sex for the first time.
That had to be it.
It wasn’t because Roman had taken care of me in the shower. It had nothing to do with the tender way he washed my hair, or the way my entire body felt like it was set on fire when he kissed me.
There was no way that it had anything to do with the intensity of the pleasure that wracked my body as he took me in a way no other man ever had, or the way he looked at me with passion and admiration as I slid up and down on his cock.
It had to be hormones, not the way he made me feel.
Right?
Roman’s breath was steady, his chest rising and lowering against me.
For a moment, I thought he hadn’t heard me. I thought maybe he was asleep.
Did that mean this was my chance to escape?
I wasn’t chained to anything, only his arm banded tightly around my waist. But if he was asleep, perhaps I could move it without waking him?
I turned my head slightly, just enough to meet his dark eyes staring down at me.
His hand moved to brush a lock of hair out of my face, his fingers trailing over my jawline and his thumb caressing my lips.
So much for sneaking away while he was asleep.
“Well?” I asked. “Does this mean you’re going to let me go?”
His lips twisted in a soft smile. Then he exhaled sharply.
“What do you think?”
I huffed out a breath of annoyance. The frustration simmered just beneath my skin.
Of course, he wouldn’t give me a straight answer. Why would he do that when he could just toy with me instead?
Rolling back over, I stared up at the ceiling. My eyelids were heavy. I would’ve given in to the need for sleep, wrapped in Roman’s warmth, even if it was just some sick little game, if the weakness hadn’t also been crawling up my limbs and hunger wasn’t clawing at my empty stomach.
My body ached for sustenance.
I needed food.
I had lost too much blood, and I needed protein, iron, and nutrients to replace what was now soaked into the sheets on the other side of the bed.
“If you’re not going to let me go, can you at least arrange to feed me?”
His fiery gaze stayed on my profile for a moment. The weight of it burned my skin until his arm tightened around me, pulling me back into his chest.
“What’s wrong, printsessa? Didn’t like my cooking?”
He had made that dish he fed me?
I ignored the way my heart skipped a beat, knowing that he had prepared that food for me himself.
Instead, I rolled my eyes. “I don’t even know what that was.”
He chuckled, the low rumble moving from his chest through my body. I felt it more than heard it.
“Ropa vieja. It’s a dish my mother used to make when she was homesick, or she thought that I needed comfort food. She said it would fill my stomach as well as provide important nutrition to my soul and connect me to my people.”