Page 21 of Hunted Bride

Leave her there, stunned and draped over Alisa’s bar. Sit in the car for a few minutes, just breathing, before I start the car and drive slowly away from this house, where I can keep her for another day, at most, before I have to let her go—for good.

11

MILENA

Stunned in the aftermath, I listen to my khishnik walk away without so much as a goodbye.

Why didn’t I use the safe word?

You didn’t want to.

I pull my trembling, exhausted body upright. Sticky fluid clings to my thighs. He told me not to wash it off. I stare at my breasts. My belly. At the mess on my legs.

Womanly. He wanted me badly enough to go to great lengths to stalk me, keep my attention, and imprison me for his own pleasure. Maybe it’s fucked up—definitely fucked up—yet the way he’s pursued me makes me feel special. Desired.

I want him. Whomever he is. Whatever he looks like behind that mask. He belongs to me, and I belong to him.

Why would he keep his identity a secret?

A stupid question, considering he knows my parents are in the bratva. I puzzle over the question while I help myself to ice cream from Alisa’s freezer for dinner. Can’t order takeout. Don’t feel like cooking. Might as well eat junk and sit on the couch watching TV while I wait for him to come back.

Obviously, I’m not getting out of this house. He said that if he caught me, he was keeping me forever. Unless Alisa is in on his scheme—horrifying thought—he can’t keep me here indefinitely. She’ll return eventually. I just have to wait until my family notices I’m gone.

Until then, I can relax.

Enjoy the peace and quiet whenever he doesn’t show up out of nowhere and fuck me senseless.

I might be waiting a long while.

It’s not all bad. I’ll deal with the likelihood that I’ve lost my job and catch up on the class work I’ve missed whenever this is over. That’s for a future time.

I assume my khishnik won’t be returning for a while, which makes it safe to take a long, hot shower and crawl into the guest bed to sleep. I pass out and sleep like the dead.

Near dawn, I’m awakened by a hand over my mouth and a naked man in the bed with me. He holds me by the throat and fucks me for a long time, sliding deep into my pussy with his long, thick cock. I try and twist around to look at him. His grip tightens and he eases out, waiting until I’m cooperative again. An unspoken command not to look at him.

Is he handsome?

Is he hideously ugly?

Probably the latter. A hot guy could have any woman he wants. Not knowing only drives my curiosity higher.

He never says a word, but when he’s finished and I’m a boneless, satisfied rag doll, he kisses my shoulder and slips out of the bed.

We’ve never kissed. Thinking about it pinches my heart.

I should get up and wash him off my thighs. Instead, I fall back asleep with his mess all over me. Inside me.

He might just get his wish after all.

Rion

I sneak out of the hotel where I’ve set up a temporary base to run traces on Alisa. When she took off, she left her car and cell phone behind. She hasn’t called her parents from anywhere. Hasn’t logged into any of her internet accounts. The usual ways I have to track a person down are all failing me. All I know is that she’s in the hands of the Volkovs and that there’s a ransom note that was less than enlightening. Breaking into another faction’s system is tedious and slow work. Their tech teams are almost as good as me and Luka are, and Luka is still missing.

Without Luka’s help, it took me most of the night to hack into the LAPD’s surveillance system and track down Milena’s car. I finally get a hit from a license plate reader heading south.

But I can’t tell my family how I know it’s Alisa in that vehicle without confessing that I am intimately acquainted with her little sister.

My family has been through a lot in the past few weeks. First my father’s death. Then Nik running off and kidnapping a complete stranger. Granted, that bit of drama was Mamochka’s doing. Succession battles are always bloody. She managed to keep us from going at one another’s throats with her marriage scheme. Her plan has avoided bloodshed—so far—but it’s still full of violence and drama.