Page 54 of The Bratva's Captive

“How?” I asked again. “How has someone kind of controlled you before?”

“I grew up in the system and?—”

I jerked my head up to stare at her as I washed her. “You have no family?”

I didn’t mean to cut her off when I had her talking. Getting her to speak up and answer me was like pulling teeth, but her confession about being a foster kid was important. If she didn’t have any relatives, that would make my goal easier to reach. No parents would be looking for her. No siblings would be putting out a missing persons report for her absence. It would simplify my attempt to keep her here. Plus, the fact that she had no one might prompt her to be more willing as my mistress.

She huffed, clearly annoyed that I’d interrupted her, but she didn’t give me too much sass about it. “Yes. I was told that my parents dropped me off at a fire station when I was a baby. And then I grew up in the system.”

“You were never adopted?”

She shook her head but changed that to a slight nod. “I ended up with a woman in a small town in Connecticut, but when Iwas in high school, I met Derick and we became high school sweethearts.”

Jealousy hit me at her mention of another man, but I comforted myself with how she referred to him in the past tense.

“Derick wanted to move to the city, so we left town and came here. But it didn’t take him long to cheat on me and then run up debt on all my credit cards.”

“Aha,” I said. “Is that why you were stripping?”

She narrowed her eyes again, apparently not a fan of that judgment and prejudice about her chosen career. Gesturing at her wet, soapy body, she dragged my attention down. She indicated her huge tits with water streaking over them, then lower to point at the apex of her bare mound and that sweet pussy between her legs. The visual of her body taunted me to refrain from licking, sucking, nipping, and worshiping every inch of her smooth skin.

“With a body like this, why wouldn’t I?” she quipped.

A slow smile tugged at my lips. That was cocky of her to say, but it was also true. She had the body of a siren, and it was sexy of her to own up to her beauty.

“It’s not like I went to college or could’ve gotten a better-paying job. I’m just using what I’ve got, trying to survive like everyone else in the world. So yeah, being a stripper isn’t fun, but there’s no doubt that it pays well.”

“Not well enough to get you out of debt?” I asked.

She lowered her head slightly, but I tipped her chin up with my fingers.

Rolling her eyes then looking to the side of the shower stall, she seemed reluctant to answer.

“Sloane?”

She sighed and faced me, but I couldn’t read her expression. Immediately, I became skeptical, worried that she was hiding something from me with her slowness to answer. She was opening up to me little by little, and that was a good start, but I saw how hesitant she was and how nervous she still acted.

Something about her guarded expression at this moment made me tense.

“Sloane.”

“What?” She frowned, defensive again.

“Are you ashamed of being in debt?” Maybe that was it. Perhaps it could be something as simple as that. She wouldn’t hesitate to strip, but her debt might be too humiliating to address.

It was clear she wanted to keep something a secret from me, and I knew I’d be wise to stay cautious.

I can’t trust any woman.

I had gotten into the habit of not wanting to trust any Mafia women, but Sloane wasn’t one. She was just a stripper off the streets. A woman who was an orphan. Someone deep in debt.

“I’ll clear it,” I stated as I finished rinsing her off.

She blinked and watched me closely. “Just like that?”

I nodded. “Just like that.”

“Because that’s what you do? Find strippers and save them for no reason at all?” She was too skeptical, but I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t fully trusting her either so she was merely meeting me in the middle.

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