Chapter 12
NIKOLAI
Islam the cell door behind me, my cock still throbbing in my pants. Thirteen days. Thirteen fucking days of having her here, and I’m losing my mind.
The security monitor on the wall shows her sprawled on the cot, my cum glistening on her skin. Even from here, I can see her chest rising and falling, the way her fingers twitch like she wants to touch herself again.
I need to get her to the compound. Tomorrow. Today. Whatever the fuck time it is when the sun comes up.
My fist connects with the concrete wall before I realize I’m moving. Pain shoots through my knuckles, but it’s nothing compared to the ache in my cock every time I hear her moan my name through the speakers.
She calls for me in her sleep. Nikolai. Over and over, at this point it could be a prayer or a curse.
Both would have me just as desperately fucked up with this primal need to make her mine in every way possible.
I’ve started sleeping with the camera feed on just to hear it, and that’s when I knew I was truly fucked.
The gym is supposed to be empty at this hour. I need to burn off this energy before I go back down there and do something stupid—like give her exactly what she’s begging for.
But of course, Darius is there. The one person who sees through my bullshit without even trying.
He’s at the heavy bag, throwing combinations with that loose, easy power that makes his fights look like dancing. His shirt is already soaked with sweat, tattoos shifting with each strike.
“Can’t sleep either?” He doesn’t turn around, but I catch his smirk in the mirror. “Or did you just finish another late-night visit to your special project?”
“Fuck off.” I move to the weight rack, needing something heavy to push against.
“That’s a yes, then.” He lands a particularly vicious hook. “She’s yours. You said so. And yet here you are, hiding from her in the gym.”
I load the barbell with more weight than necessary. “She’s going to the compound. Today.’
“She’s not going anywhere, and we both know it.” Darius stops hitting the bag, turning to face me fully. “But sure. Before or after you crack and fuck her?”
The barbell clangs as I drop it into position harder than intended. “I don’t fuck the people I take.”
“She’s not one of the people you take. That’s the whole point.” He grabs his water bottle, taking a long drink while studying me. “There was no job. You just... wanted her. That’s why you’ve been walking around like someone’s got your balls in a vise for two weeks.”
I grunt through the first set, letting him think it’s been two weeks instead of thirteen days, four hours, and—I check the clock—thirty-seven minutes since I took her. Correcting him would only prove how deep she’s gotten under my skin.
“You know what your problem is?” Darius moves closer, that calculated casualness that means he’s about to say something I don’t want to hear. “You’re thinking about this like she’s just another name on a list. But she’s not, is she?”
My muscles burn as I push through another rep. The thought of moving her to the compound sits like acid in my gut. Throwing her in with the general population, letting her become just another acquisition processed through the system. My jaw clenches hard enough to make my teeth ache.
If I move her now, before I’ve had her—really had her—I’ll never touch her again. That’s the rule. Once they’re in the compound, they’re off-limits. And Jenna hasn’t fucking done anything to warrant being sold anyway. What the fuck have I done?
But fuck, I know what happens if I give in. If I push inside that tight, wet heat she’s been offering me. The way she spreads her legs now when she hears the lock turn, how she moans my name like she’s already mine.
One time. That’s all it would take. One time, feeling her pussy clench around my cock, and I’d be done for. The wanting would turn into something darker. Permanent. I’d need her under me, around me, filled with me. Not just once, but constantly.
The barbell shakes in my grip. Images flood my mind—her wrists bound to my headboard, her body marked with my cum, her belly swollen with my child.
Keeping her in my quarters where I could wake her up by pushing inside, where I could bend her over my desk between meetings, where she’d learn that her only purpose is taking my cock whenever I need to empty myself.
“Shit.” The word escapes before I can stop it.
Darius laughs, low and knowing. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’re already gone on her, aren’t you?”
I rack the weight harder than necessary, the clang echoing through the empty gym. My cock throbs at the mere thought of it, and I know Darius can see it because I’m barely holding onto control. She’s already changed something fundamental in me without even trying.
“What’s the big deal?” Darius shrugs, grabbing a towel to wipe his face. “Just fuck her. You get to claim a moral high ground now when you fucking kidnapped a random woman whose only transgression in life is likely a parking ticket.”
He says it like it’s one category. It isn’t.
The women in those cells earned every hour of what’s coming for them.
Jenna learned to count exits at four in the morning because someone taught her the world hurts you.
She isn’t one of them. She’s what they make.
Darius doesn’t bother with the difference.
I’ve never once managed to stop. I grab my water bottle, avoiding his gaze. “It’s not about morals.”
“Then what?” He leans against the mirror, studying me like I’m one of his manipulation targets. “She’s not interested? Playing hard to get?”
A bitter laugh escapes me. “She wants it. Stays naked in there now, waiting for me.” The words spill out before I can stop them. “Sucked my dick on day three. Keeps calling out my name in the night, dreaming of me.”
Darius’s eyebrows shoot up. “You told her your name?”
I don’t answer, but my silence says everything.
“Well, fuck.” He shakes his head, but there’s amusement in his eyes. “Get that dick inside her then, if she’s begging for it. What’s stopping you?”
My jaw tightens. “She might be trying to manipulate her way out.”
“Yeah?” Darius tosses his towel into the hamper. “That occurred to you, huh? The girl spreading her legs and moaning your name might have an agenda? You mean maybe an agenda like the one you had when you took her?”
“Yes,” I admit through clenched teeth, setting down my water bottle harder than necessary. “At first. But the way she responds…” I trail off, remembering how wet she gets, how her body shakes when I touch her, the desperate sounds she makes. “Some things you can’t fake.”
“So she wants your cock and you want to give it to her. I’m still not seeing the problem.” Darius moves toward the door, then pauses. “Unless the problem is that you don’t just want to fuck her. You want to keep her.”
The words hang in the air between us. My hands clench into fists, and I can still smell her on me from earlier, that sweet musk that makes my cock throb.
“Look,” Darius says, his voice dropping to almost gentle. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it. This halfway shit? It’s making you sloppy. Either fuck her and get it out of your system, or release her. But stop torturing yourself.”
He heads for the door, then glances back. “Just be aware—if she is playing you, she’s doing a damn good job. Even got you telling her your real name.”
The door clicks shut behind Darius, leaving me alone with the weight of his words. He’s right. This halfway shit is making me weak, distracted.
I grab my phone and pull up the intel Marcus sent two hours ago.
Dr. Elena Vasquez, one of the original architects of the psychological conditioning protocols.
The woman who developed the empathy elimination techniques they used on us.
After three years of false leads and dead ends, she’s here. In Chicago. In our fucking backyard.
My jaw clenches as I scroll through the surveillance photos.
She’s older now, hair gone gray, but I’d recognize that cold, clinical face anywhere.
I was twelve when she first assessed me, documenting my responses while they hunted me through controlled environments.
Taking notes while I learned to think like prey.
The gym door opens again. Raphael enters, already dressed for tonight’s op.
“Ezra’s running final probability models,” he says without preamble. “Ninety-three percent chance she’ll be at the medical conference this afternoon. Private security, but nothing we can’t handle.”
I nod, forcing my mind to shift gears. Hunt mode. Target acquisition. This is what I’m good at, what I was made for.
“Team meeting in twenty,” Raphael continues, studying me with those calculating eyes. “You good?”
“Always.” The lie comes easy. I’ve been lying about being fine all my life.
He doesn’t look convinced, but he knows better than to push. “Damon’s working on entry points. Marcus has eyes on the venue. We’re looking at a four-man team, unless you want more.”
“Four’s enough.” I pocket my phone, already mapping the approach in my head. “Tell Ezra I want contingency routes for a ten-block radius. If she rabbits, I want to know every possible exit before she does.”
Raphael heads out, leaving me to shower and gear up. The cold water helps clear my head, washing away the scent of Jenna that clings to my skin. By the time I’m pulling on my tactical vest, I’ve almost convinced myself I can focus.
Dr. Vasquez. The woman who helped turn children into weapons, who documented our psychological destruction with the detachment of a scientist studying lab rats. She’s been hiding behind false identities and security systems for over a decade.
But she made one mistake. She came to Chicago.