Page 112 of Captive Prize

My nails were ready to sink into his flesh and rip and claw until I drew blood.

If he expected me to run away like a scared little girl, to give him an excuse to hunt me down like some predator looking for a snack, he had misjudged the situation.

That scared little girl was gone, left in the past.

I was backed into a corner and my only way out was to fight.

The Ivanov men had held me captive in their home, and their wives took care of me. Which meant Gregor had shown his hand and I had nothing left to lose.

Just being here meant I was a liability that they weren’t afraid of anymore. I realized the truth moments after Gregor left. I had two options, but Russia wasn’t one of them.

I could stay and be kept as Roman’s pet, signing all my power, my wealth, and my voice over to him.

Or I could die.

Even in Russia, I was a threat to them. I had allies there, more than they did after both halves of their family moved to this side of the world. Even if I never set a single toe on American soil again, I was a threat.

In this century, I didn’t need physical access to a man to hurt him.

Gregor Ivanov was not going to allow a threat, especially one that knew where he lived, to have the chance to hurt his family again.

He had put all the pieces together. Not justLos Infideles, but my influence and manipulation of Solovyov. He knew that old fool would not have been able to follow Marina across an ocean and still find her.

Hell, he wouldn’t have even known how to set up the meetings with United States senators, let alone figure out who had the power, and who would be more open to bribes.

Gregor had known for months that someone was working behind the scenes—chipping away at his crew, bleeding them dry move by move.

Now he knew it was me.

I’d been hiding in his blind spot the whole time—the little Novikoff sister, too insignificant to register as a threat.

And yet here I was, a direct challenge to his authority, his leadership.

His glaring mistake.

A humiliation he couldn’t let stand.

That was why it was time to eliminate me.

I wasn’t just a problem.

I was the reckoning he should’ve seen coming.

I’d bet Artem agreed.

Gregor probably even thought he was being chivalrous by giving me a choice between being Roman’s kept woman or death.

It made me wonder, though.

How far would Gregor go with this charade?

I assumed the only reason he was keeping it up was for Roman’s sake.

So would Gregor take me to the airfield and then kill me on the plane? Or would I not even get that far?

If I made it all the way to Russia, who would Gregor send to kill me? The Ivanov demon didn’t want to kill me, he wanted to keep me. Or was my refusal enough to change Roman’s mind?

There were so many variables and none of them ended in my freedom.

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