Bind Me(Capture Me: Book 2)(9)

“What do you want?” I ask, studying the girl.

“I don’t know,” she surprises me by saying. “I just wanted to see you, I guess.”

I blink. “Why?”

“Because you killed all those guards and almost killed Lucas and Julian.” Her expression doesn’t change, but I hear the tightness in her voice. “And because for some reason, Lucas has you in his house instead of strung up in the shed, where they take traitors like you.”

So I’m right to be cautious. The girl hates me for what happened—and possibly has a thing for Lucas. “Do you like him?” I ask, deciding to be blunt. “Is that why you’re here?”

She flushes brightly. “That’s none of your business.”

“You’re here to look at me, which makes it my business,” I point out, amused. The girl looks to be only a little younger than me, but she seems so naïve it’s as if decades separate us instead of years.

Rosa stares at me, her brown eyes narrowed. “Yes, you’re right,” she says after a moment. “I shouldn’t be here.” Turning quickly, she ducks out of sight.

“Rosa, wait,” I call out, but she’s already gone.



* * *



At least two hours pass before Lucas returns, and my stomach is painfully hollow by then. According to the clock on the wall, it’s one in the afternoon when the front door opens—which means my early breakfast of Rosa’s soup was nearly seven hours ago.

Despite my hunger, a prickle of awareness dances over my skin as Lucas approaches, walking with the athletic, loose-limbed gait of a warrior. Like yesterday, he’s wearing a pair of jeans and a sleeveless shirt, and his body looks impossibly strong, his well-defined muscles flexing with each movement. I’m again reminded of an ancient Slavic hero—though a Viking raider comparison would likely be more apt.

“Let me guess,” he says, kneeling in front of me. His blue-gray eyes glint at me. “You’re starving.”

“I could eat,” I say as he unties my ankles. I could also use a form of entertainment that doesn’t include watching lizards, and a more comfortable chair, but I’m not about to complain about such minor things. After my stint in the Russian prison, my current accommodations are positively luxurious.

Lucas chuckles, rising to his feet, and walks around me to free my arms. “Yeah, I bet you could.” His big hands are warm on my skin as he undoes the knots. “I can hear your stomach rumbling from here.”

“It does that when I don’t eat,” I say, an inexplicable smile tugging at my lips. I try to contain it, but it breaks through, the corners of my mouth inexorably tilting upwards.

It’s bizarre. I can’t possibly be genuinely happy to see him, can I?

It’s because he’s about to feed me, I tell myself, managing to wrestle the smile off my face by the time Lucas removes the rope and tugs me to my feet. It’s because I’m subconsciously associating his arrival with good things: food, restroom, not being tied up. Even orgasms, as unsettling as those may be.

It’s only my second day here, but my body is already becoming conditioned to regard my captor as a source of pleasure, much like Pavlov’s dogs learned to salivate at the sound of a bell. I know that one day soon Lucas may hurt me, but the fact that he hasn’t so far has gone a long way toward soothing my fear of him.

There’s no point in being terrified if torture and death aren’t imminent.

“Come,” Lucas says, his fingers an unbreakable shackle around my wrist as he leads me to the kitchen. “We still have some soup, and I can make us a sandwich.”

“All right,” I say. I’m hungry enough to eat wallpaper, so the sameness of the meals is not a problem. Still, as we stop in front of the table, I can’t help offering, “Do you want me to try making something for dinner? I really can cook.”

He releases my wrist and looks at me, his lips curving slightly. “Oh, yeah. You and knives. I could see that working out.” He pulls out a chair for me. “Sit down, baby. I’m going to make those sandwiches.”

Baby? Sweetheart? It’s all I can do not to react as he takes out the sandwich ingredients and pours soup into bowls. It’s a small thing, those pet names, but it’s a reminder of what passed between us earlier.

Of the way he caught me at my weakest and tried to make me crack.

Lucas turns away, focusing on microwaving the soup, and I take a calming breath. This is not worth getting agitated about. The invasive doctor exam, yes, but not this. I need to be playing along, acting like I’m starting to trust him. That way, when I slowly open up to him, it will be believable.

The emotional bond between us will feel real.

“So,” Lucas says, placing one soup bowl in front of me, “how is it that you speak English so well? You don’t have an accent.” He takes a seat across from me, his pale eyes regarding me with impassive curiosity.

And so the gentle interrogation begins.

I blow on my soup to cool it down, using the time to gather my thoughts. “My parents wanted me to learn English,” I say after swallowing a spoonful, “so I took extra classes, beyond what they taught us in school. It’s easy not to have an accent if you learn a language as a child.”

“Your parents?” Lucas raises his eyebrows. “Were they preparing you to be a spy?”

“A spy? No, of course not.” I eat another spoonful, ignoring the ache of old memories. “They just wanted me to be successful—to get a job in some international corporation or something along those lines.”

“But they were okay with you being recruited?” He frowns.

“They were dead.” The words come out harsher than I intended, so I clarify in a calmer tone, “They died in a car crash when I was ten.”

He sucks in a breath. “Fuck, Yulia. I’m sorry. That must’ve been rough.”

He’s sorry? I want to laugh and tell him he has no clue, but I just swallow and look down, as if the subject pains me too much. And it does—I’m not acting this time. Talking about the loss of my parents is like picking at a barely healed scab. I could’ve lied, made up a story, but that wouldn’t have been nearly as effective. I want Lucas to see me this way, real and hurting. He needs to believe I’m someone he can crack without resorting to brutality or torture.

He needs to see me as weak.

“Are you—” He reaches across the table to touch my hand, his fingers warm on my skin. “Yulia, are you an only child?”

Still looking at the table, I nod, letting my hair conceal my expression. My brother is the one piece of my past Lucas can’t have. Misha is too closely associated with Obenko and the agency.

Lucas withdraws his hand, and I know he believes me. And why wouldn’t he? I’ve been completely truthful with him up until now.

“Did any of your relatives take you in?” he asks next. “Grandparents? Aunts? Uncles?”

“No.” I raise my head to meet his gaze. “My parents didn’t have any siblings, and they had me in their mid-thirties—really late for their generation in Ukraine. By the time the accident happened, I had one grandfather who was dying of cancer, and that’s it.” It’s the truth once again.

Lucas studies me, and I see that he already knows the answer to what he’s about to ask. “You ended up in an orphanage, didn’t you?” he says quietly.

“Yes. I ended up in an orphanage.” Looking down, I force myself to resume eating. My stomach is in knots, but I know I need food to regain my strength.

He doesn’t ask me anything else while we finish the soup, and I’m grateful for that. I hadn’t expected this part to be so difficult. I thought I’d gotten past it after all these years, but even a brief mention of the orphanage is enough for the memories to flood in, bringing with them the old feelings of grief and despair.

When we’re done with the soup, Lucas gets up and washes our bowls. Then he pours us two glasses of water, makes the sandwiches, and places my portion in front of me.

“Is that where they recruited you? At that orphanage?” he asks quietly, taking his seat, and I nod, purposefully not looking at him. We’re getting too close to the topic I can’t discuss with him, and we both know it.

I hear him sigh. “Yulia.” I look up to meet his gaze. “What if I told you that I want the past to be the past?” he asks, his deep voice unusually soft. “That I no longer plan to make you pay for following orders and just want to find the ones truly responsible—the ones who gave you those orders?”

I stare at him blankly, as though trying to process his words. I had expected this, of course. It’s the logical next move. First, sympathy and caring—some of it genuine, perhaps—then an offer of immunity if I give up my employers. Bringing me to his house, washing me, feeding me—it was all leading up to this. Only sex wasn’t part of the equation; the intimacy between us is too raw, too powerful to be staged.

He fucked me because he wanted me, but everything else is part of the game.

“You’re going to let me go?” I say, sounding appropriately incredulous. Only a total idiot would fall for his non-promise, and hopefully, Lucas doesn’t consider me quite that stupid. He’ll have to work to convince me that I can trust him—and during that time, I’ll be working on getting him to lower his guard.