Page 5 of The Enemy's Defector
For months, we’d been dealing with small but accumulating attacks on the Ivanov Syndicate. Our properties were targeted. Our men were attacked. Fraud occurred more frequently. It was the theme of antagonism that we faced that had my older brother, Maxim, musing that we had been experiencing a calm before the storm.
Someone was intent on ruining us.
An enemy was out there, plotting to end my family.
But this wasn’t the first time we’d faced that. And it wouldn’t be the last.
I had to do my part to tough out this jockeying around. Just for a little longer, I had to let myself stay captured so I could unearth who was ultimately responsible for this strike.
“Over there,” one of the men said.
“I see it.”
Ididn’t see shit, but I knew that was all part of their plan. As a rule of thumb, the more a captive was transported and relocated, the smaller their chances were to escape. Staying mobile and not keeping me in any place for long was all part of these assholes’ plan.
Sooner or later, they’d slip. Any day now, I’d have more of an idea of who’d ordered me to be taken.
And when that day comes… As soon as I know…
They’d be dead. It was as simple as that.
Staying limp and letting the men drag me, I furthered this ploy of appearing unconscious. They weren’t gentle about it, holding me under my arms and hauling my body over gravel until they let me drop inside an unfurnished room. It was cool, but that didn’t tell me much. After all the steps they’d lugged my body down, I had to be in another basement level where they’d try to torture me again.
Even that didn’t intimidate me. They’d made it clear from the first day that I was to remain alive. That was their first giveaway. I was more valuable living than dead. And now I only had to figure out what they wanted me for in the first place.
Do they want Maxim to pay for me? With a deal or money?
That was entirely possible, and it’d fit into the idea of keeping me intact and alive.
Are they just trying to stir trouble as we wait for Father to recover from being poisoned?
If that were the case, they’d be bragging about this capture, not hiding me.
Or did they take me because…
I wanted to shake my head as I was tossed into the corner of a damp, chilly room. Two walls braced my bruised back, but still, I refused to let them know I was awake. Even when they yanked off the hood over my head, I played dead.
They couldn’t have taken me because of Katerina…
That was the only other reason that came to mind, though. Katerina Kozlov had once been my childhood friend. Kind of. Then she was supposed to be a potential enemy of the family with her father dead and her uncle in charge.
As of that one night when I asked her for help hacking into surveillance feeds the time my father was poisoned, though…
She’d become my lover.
For that one forbidden night, I’d dared to act on my deepest desires and fuck my enemy.
If someone knew about that?—
I shut down that possibility, that I could’ve been taken because I slept with Katerina that one night. If someone knew that I’d consorted with the “enemy” like that, she’d be in more danger than me.
The men left me slumped on the wet, smelly floor. Tracking the sounds of their footsteps, I waited until they’d left. A doorwas pulled shut after their disappearing steps. The metal hit securely against the frame until aclicksounded.
Then nothing.
Silence reigned.
Only the sounds of my breath were noticeable.
