Chapter 16
Roman
Daylight breaks over the estate as I take a sip of tea, eyes on the monitor wall in my office.
Perimeter cameras. Hallway feeds. Her door.
My men rotate shifts without being told—habit, not mercy.
I’ve been up for hours already, not able to sleep after denying myself the pleasure of interacting with Zoya.
I don’t think that plan is going to last very long.
She is still asleep after tossing and turning most of the night.
The sheet has slipped down her body, exposing her perfect tits to me.
“Fuck it,” I mutter and slam the teacup down, sloshing it over the desk, but not caring. I rise and leave my office, taking the stairs two at a time.
Sliding the bolt back, quietly, I hesitate for one second before dismissing it. She’ll be furious that I’m here while she’s asleep and naked—but she doesn’t know about the cameras, or that the feed runs to my office. Nothing in my house is unobserved.
It brings a smile to my face. I will protest my innocence and make her even more angry.
I ease the door open and step inside, the hush of the suite wrapping around me.
Grey silk slides over her waist, baring skin I shouldn’t see and can’t forget.
Heat spikes low. Control answers, a cold hand at the back of my neck.
I wait for her to wake, not moving closer, not speaking.
“You are a creep,” she murmurs, but she doesn’t pull the sheet up, she simply props herself up on her elbow and glares at me.
“This is my house. I go where I please.”
“Even when this is my room, and I’m sleeping.”
“Who said it was your room?”
The question catches her off guard, but she still doesn’t move to cover herself. “You did with all the clothes and books.”
Her gaze drops to my lips as I give her a half smile. “Don’t you wish to pull the sheet up, or do you enjoy me looking?”
“Look all you want. I know they’re a nice pair of tits.” She doesn’t cover herself—doesn’t rush. Only her fingers curl hard into the silk at her hip, knuckles whitening for half a second before she remembers to relax.
For a second, my body answers before my brain does. What has changed with her? Yesterday, she would have been clawing my eyes out. But then it strikes me, and I file it away. A tactic. She is playing me.
And it was working, for all of a few seconds.
Striding over, I pause next to her before reaching out to pluck the sheet between my fingers and pull it higher, covering her glorious body.
She glares at me, but clutches the silk, relief flooding her eyes for a second.
If she thinks she can get to me by seducing me, she has no idea who she is playing against.
“What is it you want, Zoya?” I ask, stepping back.
“I want to get out of here.”
“Even though you know it is unsafe out there?”
“I don’t know that I’m safe here.”
“Unsafe from me isn’t the threat.” My voice stays even. “Unsafe from them is. Unless it wasn’t me?” I narrow my eyes while I wait for her reply.
“Which part of hijacking my car and locking me up is meant to be the reassuring part?”
I ignore her question. “Who scared you?” I ask. “Nik’s people? Mine? Or someone who shouldn’t even know you’re here?”
I read the flinch in her eyes before she strangles it. She wants to deny me anything real. She always does. But the tremor is there, a chink in armour I forged myself.
“Nobody,” she says finally, chin up. “Your pet bulldog has a face like a funeral, that’s all.”
“And?” My voice is quiet. Too quiet.
“He existed. That’s offensive enough.”
“Are you angry that I didn’t bring you dinner last night?”
She tilts her chin, haughty little queen. “I’m angry that your presence is the only thing in this mausoleum that makes the silence shut up.”
Honesty. It surprises me. It excites me. “Noted. You are bored.”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“I provided enough reading material to last you the rest of your life.”
“Is that how long you intend to keep me locked up?”
“It is how long I intend to keep you. I would rather see you live to your golden years than release you and see you gunned down by a fearful little boy who doesn’t know what he is doing.”
She licks her lips as that sinks in. “What if I say I won’t run? I want to live, Roman. I am not an idiot. I know Nik will either shoot me or marry me off to the highest bidder.”
Her quick change of tactic is noteworthy. “And yet less than a minute ago, you said you wanted to get out of here.”
Her eyes flash. “This room, Roman. I was not made to be caged.”
“Flying free isn’t safe.”
“Then fly with me.”
“What is it you are asking?” Usually the sharpest man in the room, she knocks my timing off by half a second—enough to be dangerous.
“To leave this room. Did I stutter?”
“And do what?” I grit out. “You cannot leave this estate. Nik will—”
“Who said anything about leaving the estate. I said this room. And I don’t mean to go to the gym,” she adds before I can respond.
I stare at her, trying to decide if she’s playing me or telling the truth. Probably both. With Zoya, motive is a prism—tilt it, and the colour changes.
“Where do you want to go?” I ask.
Her chin tips up. “Outside.”
“With me.”
Her lashes flicker. “Not with your guard.”
I tilt my head and everything shifts. Right now, I would give her anything she asked for except to leave me. But she is asking for the opposite. Fly with me. “Fine. We will go for a walk on the grounds. You behave, you get more. You try anything, I take everything back and make the cage smaller.”
She hesitates. “Not walk. I want to run.”
“Not on an empty stomach.”
“Then feed me. I’m waiting.” She pushes the sheet down and climbs off the bed.
Her naked body brushes past me as she walks to the bathroom. She is testing me. Testing my control. I won’t give in, even though I want to push her to the bed and ravage her. She is playing a game with me, but I haven’t figured out what it is. Yet.
Before she closes the bathroom door, I say, “When we fly, I don’t hold your hand.” My voice drops. “I hold your throat. If you panic, you signal me once and I release. You don’t test me with it.”
“You said you wouldn’t touch me unless I asked.”
“Don’t play with me, Zoya. I dislike games, and there will come a time that I take what I want, whether you are ready for it or not.”
“Start with loosening this leash, and we will see if I ask.”
She closes the door leaving me annoyed at how much I want to give it.
She is bargaining with me when she should be compliant with my every demand.
My research into her by invading her home, learning her habits, checking her dress size, didn’t prepare me for the spirit she possesses.
She is not the Bratva princess she shows to the world.
She is adapting to her circumstances. She is adapting to me. To my rules.
I slip out and bolt the door behind me, heading back to my room to change. She wants to run. She can run until she collapses as long as she continues to finish the game by doing exactly as I say. I text Katya to send up a protein shake and porridge with honey. If she wants to run, she fuels first.
I change into black joggers and a fitted tee, then shrug into a low-profile chest rig. The straps bite lightly over my shoulders as I seat the pistol and check the retention with a hard tug. We do this armed or not at all.
When I return to her room, the bolt slides back under my hand. She’s at the table in one of the sets I bought—black leggings, white zip-front hoodie, hair in a high knot that makes her cheekbones look lethal. She eats every bite of the porridge before gulping back the shake.
“Ready,” she says, an air of excitement practically vibrating the air around her.
“Rules. You stay on my left. You keep pace. You do not deviate. If you try, I will carry you back, and you will never breathe fresh air again.”
Her eyes narrow to obsidian slits, jaw muscle twitching beneath porcelain skin. “Understood.”
“You want more leash, you earn it.”
She pulls the zip up half an inch, jaw tight. “Stop yapping and let’s run, Voronov.”
My brain stops working for a split second as I crash headlong into something far deeper than lust, older than obsession and something that doesn’t care about plans or vows or bloodlines. Something that recognises her as mine in a way possession never could.
“Move,” I grit out, not wanting her to see the cracks in my control that are becoming more apparent every second I spend in her company.
I take her down the corridor and out through the boot room.
Cold air greets us as I open the external door.
She breathes it in like a drug, eyes bright, jaw set.
The need to kiss that expression right off her face buzzes through my veins.
I channel it into command. A guard at the terrace corner straightens, eyes flicking to the pistol on my chest, then away.
My men don’t stare at what belongs to me.
“Left,” I murmur, stepping past her onto the flagstones.
She falls into place at my side. I set an easy pace across the terrace as we warm up, then down the steps to the lawn.
The ground gives underfoot where last night’s rain softened it.
Her trainers sink and spring. She doesn’t complain.
She’s alive now, kinetic. This is what she asked for.
The path curves along clipped hedges and angles towards the tree line.
I take us wider, keeping distance from the outer wall and the only blind spot I haven’t fixed. She scans anyway.
“Eyes forward,” I say, aware of the cameras tracking our route.
“You think I’m going to bolt on a mile of open lawn?” Her breath puffs warm in the cold.
“You’ll try when you think you see an opening. I’m saving you the embarrassment.”
She huffs something that isn’t quite a laugh. “Generous.”
We hit the track that cuts the grounds into neat quadrants. I up the pace. From here, the perimeter wall is visible through the trees. She marks it. She’s counting paces. I let her, because hell, I can’t stop her from counting. I can, however, stop her from bolting.
“Faster,” she says, already matching me.
She glances at the copse to our right, where the wall curves away. She adjusts her footfall and angles a fraction, testing my warning without breaking stride.
“Don’t,” I say. Calm. Final.
She flicks me a look, a flash of fox-bright calculation, then corrects her line back to mine.
“Don’t make me correct you twice.”