LEV
Mila never spoke up unless she was addressed first, but on the ride back to my place after I brought her with me to Adrik’s house, she did.
She spoke up, stunning me. I was already surprised by her actions at the mansion.
Seeing how quickly she noticed trouble and how expertly she moved to block the other women had rocked me.
“Was that a test?”
She’d asked it when Adrik and I approached her at the house.
When the alert came from the guards that someone was trying to sneak onto the property and was rushing toward the women on the patio, we hurried back.
The surveillance feed showed live on his phone, and we all witnessed how Mila acted in defense.
How she’d acted in defense without any express instruction to do so.
I had only brought her along with me because it felt natural to be near her. To keep her with me as I waited for some sign of a path to get her to crack and open up to me.
Adrik had been quick to thank her. Nikolai aided the guards with securing the property. Once it was determined that the intruder had been acting alone and the estate was secure, I knew there wasn’t a chance my conversation about negotiations with a smaller Bratva family would continue.
In the car now as I brought Mila back to my place, though, I wondered what to do with her. What I should do about her instinct to protect.
She didn’t know Elena or Carina. She had met them, loosely, but she couldn’t know them well enough to care about them. She hadn’t known me long enough to care.
Maybe that’ll never come.
Maybe she was too far into this identity of a damaged soul, traumatized and owned as a slave, used and beaten and expected to perform in the manner of surviving.
It could be wishful thinking on my part that she had wanted to tell the women to hide from danger out of some misplaced concern for them.
She could very well have just been acting like the robot and worker she’d been conditioned to be.
To treat us as a separate class of humanity that she will always be inferior to and serve.
“No.” I cleared my throat and knew that my delay to answer her probably hadn’t been wise. I was that flummoxed about her motivation to act like that, though. And I struggled with looking too far into it.
If she can care about them… she could care about the rest of the family, too.
Not in the line of duty and as someone employed by the Bratva.
But to care about us because we protect her now.
To care about… me.
Her submission remained an elusive figment of my imagination, a faraway goal. The rest of the ride passed in silence, but I couldn’t settle the storm of questions and unknowns that swirled in my mind.
What if she can care?
What if she is still capable of being a person and not a shell of one?
I gritted my teeth after she walked to her safehouse, wishing that if I asked her why she’d wanted to protect the women, she’d answer. I restrained myself from roaring my frustration over how hard it was to get through to her and reach her at all.
The next morning, I had a clearer path of how I could train her next.
Even if the idea hadn’t come to me in the early hours of the morning when I lay in bed and imagined her with me, it seemed that I wasn’t the only one to reconsider Mila’s purpose.
Adrik had texted me overnight.
Adrik: She’s not meant to be a runner.
Adrik: You’ve floated the idea of her possibly being trained as a spy.
Adrik: I think we should escalate her training and include the basics of combat.
If he hadn’t suggested it, I would have. Based on what she’d shown yesterday, it seemed that she had an inclination to protect, to be a member of selective security rather than just a dime-a-dozen smuggling operator or runner.
After breakfast, that seemingly domestic routine where she’d never fully appear like a guest nor as an employee, all her silence and mute obedience accumulating as I struggled against this impatience to know her, to see her and feel her, I explained what to expect.
“In light of how you acted yesterday, Adrik has requested that I incorporate alternative training protocol for you.”
She nodded once, as she often did. Too quiet, but still opinionated. I always saw the defiance and sharp intelligence in her eyes.
I led her to Roman in the training facility and stepped back.
“I heard about your quick thinking,” he told her.
She didn’t reply and merely acknowledged him with a look.
“So I’m not surprised that teaching you some basic combat moves and defensive katas is next.
” He cracked his knuckles and smiled. “So, let’s go.
” He tilted his head to the side and led her toward another part of the gym.
Men could spar here. Punching bags hung from the racks and beams. Protective gear for all manner of martial arts rested on the shelves.
She stepped onto the mat, unafraid and attentive.
Like always.
And so it began. It came to no surprise that she adapted quickly. No matter what stance Roman showed her and which trainer ran her through a series of deflections, hits, and dodges, she proved to be a quick learner.
“She has to have had experience with this before,” Alexei commented later that day when he and Viktor stopped over to speak with me about some issues Stefan Rossi, the boss of the Mob family in New York, had talked about recently.
I nodded. “I think she has, but not officially.” I gestured at her sparring with a soldier on the mat. “She’s approaching this on instinct. She’s learned to defend herself naturally. But I don’t think she’s been trained before.”
Once again, I wondered about her past. Where she’d come from and how she’d managed to survive to be this strong. To be this defiant and not intimidated.
What does it matter?
Over the course of the week, her third one here as my latest ‘purchase’ and most serious obsession, I stayed nearby and watched as she trained.
My brother and cousins all checked in, sparring with her too.
They were just as curious about this quiet mystery woman as I was, or rather, they witnessed how committed I was to having her serve her purpose with us to the best that she could.
What does it matter if I know about her past?
She’s not showing any sign of lowering her guard about being in the present here.
I’m not supposed to care about her future, either.
But that was the catch that kept me in this proverbial chokehold.
I did care.
Something about those haunted eyes, something in the way she seemed trapped in her trauma and wariness. Mila had lassoed me with a tether of concern that wasn’t only a form of desire and lust.
I cared. I was curious.
And the longer she remained so elusive to my hope of taming her, of even breaking through to get to know her, the more this slow-burning ire simmered in my veins.
Especially now.
I narrowed my eyes, just arriving from dealing with some drug dealers on the Strip.
She’d been here, training and focusing on all that Roman was teaching her, and I hadn’t considered interrupting her and bringing her with me while I reinforced the lesson of what happened to dealers who wanted to try to steal product from us.
But I regretted being gone this time.
Nikolai was on the mat with her, sparring and giving her a chance to practice all the skills she was acquiring.
Seeing his arms wrapped around her as he tried to bring her down to the mat lit a fuse of anger within me.
Watching him put his hands on her, even in the manner of blocking her and deflecting her hits, spiked this curling twist of envy in my chest.
I hated the idea of another man—even my cousin—touching her.
I loathed the possibility that he could be enjoying this interaction with her.
Although it was strictly professional, in the spirit of teaching her and not at all sexual, I had to fight back the urge to storm out there and shove him away from her.
Witnessing any man with her was becoming a challenge. Recognizing how deeply possessive I was becoming of her couldn’t bode well for me, either.
She was supposed to be mine.
My woman.
I took her from the Cartel and I spared her life in that standoff.
I brought her here with few directions of what I could do with her. With too many raw and primitive urges and wishes of what I wanted to do to her.
Resisting the possibility that I had set myself up and had met my match—a stubborn woman who wouldn’t ever break for me—I fisted my hands and breathed through the rush of adrenaline that consumed me.
This excitement to stay in the fight to reach her.
This burning energy to commit and not let her slip away from me.
I saw something in her from that very first second, a determination to never back down, and it was about time that I applied that concept to myself.
The wait would be worth it.
She would be mine.
I would break her, and in doing so, this feeling of being out of control would never disturb me again.