Even before I embraced my criminal tendencies, I believed in keeping as much of my life off the internet as possible.
“Oh, I looked for you.” Yan’s gaze darkens, his hand moving lower to trail over my collarbone. “After all, your pussy—”
“What did he hire you to do?” Ilya cuts in rudely as more color floods my face. His brother’s possessive touches and crude references to our night together seem to bother the big Russian nearly as much as they do me. Is it because, as Yan said that day, Ilya is upset his brother didn’t share?
Do these two share women often?
Pushing away the X-rated images in my mind, I say steadily, “You already know. I was to shoot one of the arresting agents, prompting them to fire on Sokolov. Except at the time, I thought his name was Garin.”
If I’d known my target’s real name, I would’ve remembered Ilya mentioning it at the bar, and I wouldn’t have taken the job. I’d been in desperate need of funds, but not desperate enough to cross someone as dangerous as Yan.
“Is that all?” His fingers are now streaking fire over my ear, gently playing with every piercing I have there. “Think carefully before you lie to me, Minochka.” The diminutive Russian version of my name—something you’d call a child or a loved one—sounds cruelly mocking on his lips, especially when he smiles and adds softly, “Peter Sokolov is very good at extracting information.”
Despite myself, I swallow, my empty stomach roiling. I’ve been trying not to think about that, about what would happen if I can’t give them the answers they’re after. I don’t fear death that much—with Henderson’s payment sitting in my account, Hanna should inherit enough to cover her expenses for a good long while—but I can’t deny that the possibility of torture chills me.
“There is one more thing,” I say, deciding to just give them everything. Maybe if I’m cooperative enough, they won’t feel the need to resort to Sokolov’s methods of extracting information. “Henderson also needed men who’d be skilled in certain matters… and up for anything.”
Yan’s gaze sharpens with interest. “Do tell.”
“There’s a team I’ve worked with on a few jobs in the past.” Or rather, Gergo has—but I’m not about to drag my mentor and trainer into this. “I gave their names to Henderson. I don’t know what he needed them for”—though after watching the news, I have an awful suspicion—“or where they are right now, but I can tell you who they are. Maybe if you find them, they’ll know where Henderson is.”
“Go ahead,” Yan says as Ilya pulls out his phone to take notes. “Tell us.”
I rattle off all the names in the file I handed over to Henderson. I’ve actually only met those men once and hated them on sight, so I don’t feel particularly bad that I’m betraying them. Gergo might be upset to lose them, but he’ll get over it. After all, it’s his fault I’m in this predicament.
He’s the one who sent Henderson my way.
“Did you get all that?” Yan asks, glancing at his brother, and Ilya nods.
“Got it.”
“All right.” Yan rises to his feet. “We’ll see what we can pull up.”
“Wait,” I say as he turns to leave. “I need to pee. Please.” I’m not lying; my bladder is uncomfortably full. But I also need them to take me out of this shed, so I can assess my surroundings and figure out what my chances of escape are.
They’re most likely zero, but I have to try.
Yan’s lips curl in a cruel smile. “Really? Then go here.”
Ilya rounds on him, massive fists curling. “I’ll take her out. In fact—”
“I’ve got it.” Yan’s voice takes on a lethal tension, one mimicked in the stiffness pervading his tall, muscled frame. “You can get started on the names.”
Ilya visibly bristles at the order, and so much testosterone fills the air I can practically smell it.
Are they about to come to blows? Over who takes me out to pee, no less?
At the last second, however, Ilya turns on his heel and stomps out of the shed, slamming the door, and I’m left with Yan.
My captor.
The man I fear and desire in equal measures.
9
Mina
Yan’s gem-green eyes glitter coldly as he sweeps his gaze over my face, lingering for a second on my lips before fixing his attention on the pulsing vein in my neck. My heart starts beating even faster. His proximity both frightens and excites me, the danger that he represents perversely heightening the attraction. As warped as it is, my body reacts to him exactly as it did in Budapest, and when he grabs my wrists to work on the knot of the rope, the touch elicits an involuntary response, like the zap of an electric shock.
He unties me with the smooth efficiency of a killer who knows his way around ropes. Flipping me around, he forces my arms behind my back. My muscles protest at the violent change, my arms aching as the blood circulation reverses. Keeping me flat on the bench with a knee pressed on my lower back, he easily grips both of my wrists in one hand and uses the same rope to tie them back together, winding it around several times before knotting it a little too tightly.
Roughly, he pulls me to my feet. With my hands tied behind my back and after having been immobile for so long, my balance is off, and I stumble. He catches me with a strong arm around my waist. A flash of recognition goes off in my brain, a memory of warm arms and a strange feeling of security, but before I have time to digest the response, he yanks me back against his hard chest with one arm squeezing around my stomach and his free hand finding purchase in my
