Lucas wrenches his hand out of my grasp, cutting off my plea. “I told you. There’s nothing I can do for him.” There’s no pity on my captor’s face, no hint of mercy. “Esguerra decides these matters, not me. You’re shit out of luck, beautiful.”
My vision darkens at the edges, blood pounding in my ears. “Please, Lucas—” I reach for him again, but he grabs my wrist and twists my arm upward, preventing me from touching him.
“Do not fucking beg for him.” Squeezing my wrist painfully, Lucas pulls me to him, and I see scalding fury in the icy depths of his eyes. “You’re lucky to be alive yourself. Don’t you fucking get that? If you weren’t such a hot lay—” He stops, but it’s too late.
I hear his message loud and clear, and the fragile remnants of my fantasies turn to dust.
23
Lucas
Yulia’s eyes are enormous as she stares at me, her slender wrist caught in my grasp. She looks like I just tore her heart out, and something resembling regret cools the burning fog of rage surrounding me.
Releasing her wrist, I say in a calmer tone, “Yulia, that’s not what I—”
“Why don’t you just do it right now?” she interrupts, her gaze unflinching as she steps back. “Go ahead, kill me. You will anyway. When I’m no longer such a ‘hot lay,’ right?”
“No, of course not.” My anger returns, only this time it’s directed at myself. “I told you—you’re safe with me.”
“Not if your boss wants me dead.” Her upper lip curls. “Isn’t that what you just told me?”
“That’s not what I meant.” I curse myself ten ways to Sunday. Esguerra seemed as good of an excuse as any to stop her from pleading for her lover, but I should’ve realized how Yulia would interpret my words. “I promised you I’ll protect you, and I’m going to keep that promise.”
“Then why can’t you protect him?” Her gaze fills with desperate hope as she comes toward me again. “Please, Lucas. He’s an innocent—”
“Stop.” I refuse to hear her beg for him. “I don’t give a fuck about his guilt or innocence. I told you—one person only. That’s the deal.”
I expect Yulia to back down then, to accept that she lost, but she lifts her chin instead, her eyes like blue coals in her starkly pale face. “Then spare him. I want Misha to be that person, not me.”
Misha. I file that name away even as my ribcage tightens with renewed fury.
She’s ready to die for him—for her weakling of a lover.
“What you want doesn’t matter.” My words are as caustic as the jealousy burning my chest. “I decide who lives, not you.”
She reacts like I just struck her. Her lips quiver, and she backs away, folding her arms around her middle.
“Yulia.” I come after her, her pain cutting me like a blade, but she turns away to face the window as I approach. I lift my hand to lay it on her shoulder, but change my mind at the last moment. There’s nothing I can do to make her feel better, except the one thing I’m not willing to promise.
I want this Misha dead, and I won’t let her manipulate me into sparing his life.
Lowering my hand, I step back and survey Yulia’s rigid figure. My captive is even more gorgeous than usual today, her short white dress making her look innocently sexy. With her hair streaming down her back in a sleek waterfall, she’s temptation personified—and I know it’s on purpose.
Like everything else Yulia has done over the last couple of days, her dressing up today is an attempt to save her lover.
The thought fills me with bitter anger. Turning away, I pack up the remainder of the meal and wash the dishes, using the time to cool down. Yulia doesn’t move from her spot by the window, and when I approach, I see she’s still deathly pale, her gaze distant and unseeing.
Steeling myself against an irrational urge to console her, I reach out to take her arm. “Let’s go. ” My voice is quiet. “I have to tie you up.”
And holding her arm tightly, I lead Yulia to the library.
* * *
She doesn’t say a word as I secure her in the armchair, making sure the ropes don’t cut into her skin. When I’m done, I step back and look at her. “Which book do you want?”
She doesn’t respond, her gaze trained on her lap.
“Yulia. I asked you a fucking question.”
She glances up, her eyes dulled with pain.
“What do you want to read?” I repeat, trying not to let her obvious distress get to me. “Which book?”
She looks away, but not before I catch a glimmer of moisture in her eyes.
Fuck.
“All right, suit yourself.” I grab a random thriller off the shelves and place it on her lap. “I’ll be back before dinner.”
Yulia doesn’t acknowledge my words in any way, and I leave before the fury simmering inside me boils over.
24
Yulia
I don’t give a fuck about his guilt or innocence. It’s out of my hands. If you weren’t such a hot lay…
Lucas’s words echo in my mind, replaying on a sickening loop over and over again. He had been so cold, so cruel. It was as if the last two weeks had never happened, as if our time together meant nothing to him.
My heart feels sliced into ribbons, the pain so vast it smothers me. I take in shallow breaths, trying to cope with the agony, but it just seems to grow and expand, sinking deeper into my chest.
I failed. I failed my brother. Everything I’ve done from the moment Obenko approached me at the orphanage has been for Misha, and now it will all be for nothing.
The man on whom I pinned my last hopes is a merciless monster, and I’m a gullible fool.
Don’t humiliate yourself. It’s not going to work.
Somehow Lucas knew about my brother. He knew I was going to ask him to spare Misha’s life. He knew I was trying to soften him up all these days, and he let me.
He took everything I had to give, and then he drove a knife straight into my heart.
A bitter bubble of laughter escapes me as I think of the genius of his sadistic plan. I have to admit, Lucas Kent’s idea of vengeance is exquisite. No physical torture would’ve hurt as much as his blunt refusal to save my brother.
My laughter turns into a sob, and I gulp it down, choking off the sound. Even to my own ears, I sound mad, hysterical. The agency therapist had been right. I’m not cut out for this job. I’m not like Lucas or Obenko.
I don’t have what it takes to remain sufficiently detached.
“Your loyalty to your brother is admirable, but it’s also your biggest weakness,” Obenko told me a couple of months into my training. “You cling to Misha because he’s a part of your past, but you can’t have a past anymore. You can’t have a family. You need to come to terms with that, or you won’t be able to cope with this life. There will be times when you’ll need to get close to people without letting them get close to you. You’ll need to be in control of your emotions. Do you think you’re capable of that?”
“Of course I am,” I answered quickly, fearing he’d kick me out of the program and place my brother back in the orphanage. “Just because I love Misha doesn’t mean I’d get attached to anyone else.”
And I worked hard to prove that. I was friendly with the other trainees, but I didn’t become friends with any of them. Same thing with the instructors. I kept my emotional distance from all of them. Even after the incident with Kirill, I did my best to deal with the trauma on my own.
I was such a good, diligent trainee that Obenko gave me the Moscow assignment less than a year after Kirill’s assault.
Another sobbing laugh rises in my throat. I swallow the hysterical sound, but I can’t control the tears that spill down my cheeks. I thought I was good at what I did. I smiled and flirted with my assigned lovers, but I never fell for them. Even with Vladimir, who taught me about sexual pleasure, I remained cool and detached. No one mattered to me except my brother.
No one until Lucas.
In my effort to get close to my captor, I opened myself up too much. I lost control of my emotions. I let a ruthless, treacherous man get close to me, and he used that closeness to devise the cruelest of all punishments.
He figured out the best way to destroy me.
25
Lucas
I have a shitload to do before we depart tomorrow morning, but I go to the gym because I can’t focus on anything, my thoughts occupied by Yulia and the agony in her gaze.
As I pummel the sandbag, I try to push away images of her sitting there, so distant and wounded. She looked at me like I betrayed her—like I hurt her beyond belief.
The bag sways from side to side as I ram my fists into it, landing one hard blow after another. The idea of her feeling betrayed by me makes me want to beat someone to a pulp. What the fuck did she expect? That she’d give me a couple of blow jobs and I’d happily save her lover? That I wouldn’t question her desire to spare this Misha’s life?
An innocent, she called him, as if that would matter to me. As far as I’m concerned, the man deserves to die for nothing more than touching her. Add to that his being part of UUR, and he’ll be lucky if I kill him quickly.
“Lucas. Hey, man. Are you almost done?”