Page 80 of Captive Prize

I needed to get her back. Once I had her, and she was safe, then I’d get my shit together and figure out what to do with her.

If I had to crawl out of this house with my shoulder barely held together with fucking duct tape, I would do it.

If I had to take on an entire army by myself with one arm literally tied behind my back, I would.

Because if anyone was going to decide Zoya’s fate, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be the men who didn’t understand her strength.

They looked at her and only saw a woman.

She had fought, bled, and survived more than most men I knew. I wouldn’t let her die reduced to anything less than what she was.

“Are you done?” I asked Mikhail.

“You should really get some blood?—”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Yeah.” He clipped the line and wrapped a bandage around my shoulder. “I’m done. But you need rest and?—”

I didn’t listen to whatever the fuck else he said.

I sat up. The room buckled and spun, but I stayed upright, fists pressed hard into the table. When I opened my eyes again, the room was steady, and I was determined. Heat flushed my face. My shoulder screamed. But the thought of her dying sobered me fast.

“No one touches her,” I said as I got to my feet.

“You—” Pavel started, but I cut him off with a deadly look.

“I said no one touches her.”

She was going to survive the night.

I didn’t care if I had to tear through the entire Ivanov family tree to save her.

She was mine.

Only mine.

CHAPTER 20

ZOYA

Afist grabbed the hood along with a good chunk of my hair and pulled it away, blinding me with the pain and the light.

Why was it always the hair?

I winced, closing my eyes, trying to give myself a moment to adjust. That same hand was back in my hair, pulling, lifting my chin, while another hand grasped my jaw.

“Open those pretty little eyes, bitch,” an all too familiar voice said.

I didn’t need to open my eyes to know who it was.

But I still did, just to confirm my worst fear.

Mateo.

The man who was supposed to be my second in command had me tied to a fucking chair in a concrete room with nothing but a small table in the middle, a single caged light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and two armed guards at the door.

We were in my warehouse. My fucking warehouse.

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