Page 88 of Captive Prize

“What? No.”

Was I? It hadn’t really occurred to me before. I just knew there was something about her, something that I wasn’t ready to let go of.

“There’s chemistry between us, sure. That incredible spark was definitely present and the way she melted under me was—intense. But I don’t know. Zoya is incredibly strong.”

“Doesn’t that just make her a bigger threat?” Pavel asked.

I ignored him.

“Zoya already faced so much, and she didn’t give in. She isn’t a woman who would just break. There’s something about her.”

“Explain it. If you’re going to risk everything, if you’re going against Artem and Gregor’s orders, if you’re betraying your family, it better be worth it. So, explain it to me and I will see if Ican explain it to them. It won’t stop the fallout, but it may lessen the sentence.”

“I don’t give a shit about the sentence.”

“Said every dumbass ever, before committing the crime.” Pavel rolled his eyes, and I took a seat on the bench next to him.

Pausing for a moment to enjoy my cousin’s company before walking into what could very well end up being a suicide mission. Not because I was worried about the threat from the enemy, but because I was worried about the threat from my family.

“I just need to protect her. You know she was Egor’s daughter?”

“Yeah.” Pavel nodded. “He sold her off to some shady business dude who got iced like right after the wedding, right?”

“Kind of,” I said as I tightened the laces on my combat boots. “The marriage was against her will, so she slit his throat when he tried to fuck her.”

“No shit?”

“No shit,” I confirmed. “She heard about what happened to his previous wives and how he absolutely killed them, and she protected herself. Then she was the one who got her father locked in that Siberian asylum.”

I tried to keep my tone even and unemotional. Just the facts. Stick to the fucking facts.

“She was born into a family that treated her as a pawn. They controlled her and never protected her. She used that to her advantage, proving that she was far more capable than her brothers.”

“Eh, her brothers were not that impressive.”

“Still, you know how we thoughtLos Infideleswas pretty much done?”

“Yeah, then those psychos came up out of nowhere like fucking cockroaches.”

“That was her,” I said. “She took the shattered remains of her father’s bratva empire—after we put her brothers in the ground—and used her dead husband’s money to build an empire of her own.”

Pavel rubbed his jaw. “Yeah, and used that power and money to fucking targetourfamily.My wife and child. You see where I’m going with this, cousin?”

Anger radiated off him. Not the direction I wanted to take this. He was my most important ally in this fight, since he was the one wronged.

I raised an eyebrow. “After we attacked her family and offed her brothers.”

“Brothers she didn’t give a shit about.”

I shook my head. “Still family.”

“Technically, they attacked Nadia first.”

Leaning my forearms on my thighs I joined my hands to keep from fisting them. “What the fuck do you want from me, Pavel? You want me to start singing the fuckingCircle of Life,the mafia version?”

“Fair point.”

Pavel was silent for another moment, taking it all in. He understood the world that we lived in. He knew how much power, how much strength that took for even a man to pull off, let alone a woman.

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