Cool air kissed my skin as I crawled inside, but it didn’t soothe me. With how chilled I felt down to the bone out of panic and fear, I felt like I would be iced over under this air conditioning.
A tall man sat on the seat across from the one I’d taken. Unsure how to behave, what to say or if I should speak at all, I chose to scoot back just slightly on the opposite side of the stranger. With just me and him in here, the rest of the world blocked off with the door closed, I couldn’t endure the pressure of avoiding eye contact. His stare burned me. Feeling his glare on me heated me up with the expectancy of facing him. Uncomfortable and feelinglike I was under intense scrutiny, I swallowed once and glanced up.
Longish brown hair hung over his brow, but it wasn’t enough to shield his penetrating and steely brown gaze locked on me. Calculating and measured, he took me in as I used up every ounce of bravery I possessed to face him directly.
Lean angles made up his masculinely rugged face that looked like it could’ve been carved from granite. Muscles showed in his neck as he tilted his head to the side slightly, as if that minor deviation could give him a new perspective of who I was.
Relaxed as he lounged there, he looked exactly like what I imagined a powerful Mafia man would be. Cool. Calm. Acting like he could play God and never suffer through the kind of depression that came with dreading another nine-to-five of working a job he didn’t want.
No one bossed this man around.
No one could order him to wither away with a meaningless life.
He ruled. Without learning his name, discovering what his role was in his Mob family, or acknowledging a single detail about him, power exuded from him.
This man was a leader. A ruler. A controlling figure who determined important decisions.
In this stare-down that had me feeling stripped bare and defenseless, I surrendered to only one question.
My fate.
Would this serious man make a life-or-death decision about me now?
Or later?
“What’s your name?”
I blinked.
Of all things, a simple introductory question hadn’t seemed likely. “You… He…” I licked my lips, stunned that I could still be so shocked. “You mean my father didn’t even tell you myname?”
That settled it.
Any family bond with him wasover. Perhaps in light of his disabusing any concept of acting like a father to hand me over as a sellablething, feeling incredulous about the fact that he hadn’t even provided my name was a petty thing to care about.
The man only stared at me.
“Elena.” I swallowed. “My name is Elena.” Needing his approval now, I felt obligated to answer.
“Elena Morovov.”
I pulled my lower lip into my mouth and pressed my teeth down on it to avoid him seeing how it trembled. Tears stung my eyes all over again. I shook my head. “Not… not anymore.” I swallowed hard. “He said I’m expected go with you. He handed me over as a… as collateral damage.” A pathetic huff left my lips. “A thing to give up. I’m not a Morovov anymore. He decided that, didn’t he?”
He raised his brows. “You will not be a Volkov.”
I hadn’t imagined that I would be. Not one of his family. But his thing. I’d been sold to him.
“Then I guess I’m just Elena.”
Before I could lower my gaze, another man entered the backseat. Tall, with dark-brown hair, and bearing a family resemblance, he had to be another Volkov brother or cousin. I didn’t know names, but I understood that they had a large family, as most of those crime organizations did.
“Should we go, Adrik?” the other man asked.
He nodded, and the driver took off.
Facing two of them didn’t threaten me any more than just sitting here with Adrik did. In fact, the other man seemed… not kinder, but less intense.
“Miss Morovov?” he asked.
