Page 72 of Captive Vows
“Collect?” Luka scoffed. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
I tensed as they chuckled, glancing at each other.
“Come on. You know,” one replied cockily.
“No. I don’t. I don’t have anything that could belong to you. Or are all of you Rivera dumbasses too slow to make sense?” Luka lifted his gun higher, ready to fire.
“Easy, man. Easy.” The shorter one straightened his arm, aiming his gun back at us. “We’re just here to collect her.”
Me?My heart hammered against my ribcage at his words. It couldn’t be true!
“She’s mine,” Luka growled. “I don’t know or care why you’re confused about that fact, but she’s not going anywhere.”
The balding man sneered. “That ain’t how we were told to interpret it at the Rivera headquarters.” He tilted his head to the side, narrowing his eyes. “According to Mr. Miguel Lopez, he’s reconsidered his business with you and is willing to sell her to us.”
I clutched the back of Luka’s jacket. Fear filled me. Rage fired me up. Locked in shock, though, I couldn’t even think straight.
“He didn’tsellher to me. I took her. She was given,” Luka argued. “She ismine.”
“Well, it sounds like he’s giving her to us,” the short man replied with a shrug.
“She’s not his to give,” Luka bit out.
Every word they said sliced at my heart. I wasn’t a thing. I wasn’t a product or item to negotiate like this! Alarmed by the fact that they’d barter with my life like this, I resisted the urge to sink into complete hatred for the man I was supposed to call my dad.
He gave me to Luka, and that had been a godsend.
But now he wanted to sell me? Again?
“She is mine,” Luka repeated. “I own her.”
His statement was bold and true, but the meaning behind it chilled me.
I wasn’tsomeoneto him. I wassomething. Still, he would objectify me.
Scolding myself for ever trying to see him as a lover and duping myself into believing we were really together despite the tumultuous way we’d met, I had to remember that he was a criminal. He was okay with owning lives. Taking them. He’dcaptured me, and it was only some sick sense of fate that we’d bonded like we had.
“She is mine,” Luka declared.
“Yeah,” one mocked. “For now. But the terms have changed. We’re here to take her and that bastard in her belly.”
Oh, my God!
He’d announced my secret.
These Italian Mafia men knew I was pregnant!
Luka opened his mouth to reply, but right then, his car pulled up, intercepting us.
Ivan exited the backseat, opening the door and urging us to get in.
Another Dubinin got in and began firing at the Rivera men who ran away, darting behind parked cars.
I was desperate to know Luka’s reaction to what that man said, but right now—living in the damn present—I concentrated on following him into the backseat of his car and taking his offer of safety and security, no matter how short-lived it might turn out to be.
27
LUKA
