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I continued to drift in the pool now that he wasn’t keeping me centered anymore. He said he bought me to piss off someone else, but he’d already accomplished what he set out to do. What was the reason he continued to keep me?
I knew I was missing a piece of the story.
I just didn’t know what it was.
Nine
Carter
I hung up the phone then walked back into the dining room where Mia was sitting. I’d made salmon and rice for dinner, something light after all the booze I’d had that day. We hadn’t said much to each other since she asked me to let her go.
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
I didn’t want to keep lying to her.
From her point of view, there was no reason for me to keep her as a prisoner anymore. Sex was consensual, and she said she would keep sleeping with me if I let her go. I knew she meant it. It wasn’t just a trick to escape.
So I had no reason to keep her.
Now that I knew what Egor did to her, I hated the bastard even more. I had never cared about Mia’s mistreatment because I’d purposely tried not to connect with her. I steered away from personal questions. It was smart not to get attached to her so I could hand her over to that demon without feeling guilty about it. But the second we screwed, all that went out the window.
She came on to me.
She kissed me. Fucked me. Came for me.
The attachment I tried to avoid had already happened.
Egor took away her ability to have children…which was so despicable I wanted to murder him. It was worse than rape and torture. It was just cruel.
Now I had to give her back to him…in just a few days.
Fuck.
She kept asking me to release her, and if she kept this up, she might figure out the real reason I didn’t.
I couldn’t let that happen.
But could I really return this woman to the cruel life she’d just escaped from?
There was so much money on the table, money I’d already collected. If I pulled out of the deal and wired the money back, there would be bloodshed. Egor would never accept that betrayal. He would come after me and my entire family.
I didn’t have a choice anymore.
I would try to enjoy the last days I had with her, fucking her and making her feel good, before I returned her to the master that would never let her go. Now that I was sleeping with her, I understood Egor’s obsession.
She was magnificent.
“Are you alright?” Mia’s pretty voice interrupted my thoughts.
My gaze shifted to her face, her beautiful coffee-colored eyes and her full lips. With long brown hair and a curvy body, she was a fantasy. She deserved to be with a man who would protect her from the world, who would put her on a pedestal and worship her. She was too good for that asshole. “Yeah.”
“Your face is pale.” Her eyes shifted back and forth slightly as she looked at me.
Because I was a terrible person. I bought women from the Underground and returned them to safety. That’s why I didn’t feel bad profiting from the exchange—because I was doing a good thing.
But now, I was doing a bad thing.
I hadn’t known the context of the situation when I’d agreed to do the deal, but that didn’t change anything. I was sending this woman back to a life of horror. She would eventually die in his captivity…or take her own life.
And unfortunately, I was starting to care about her.
Dammit. “That was the doctor. We’re both clean.”
“Oh.” She drank her glass of wine. “Not surprised…”
I should be hard at the thought of fucking her that night without a condom, but I wasn’t. I felt too guilty for what I was about to do. Mia wouldn’t even see it coming. I would slip a syringe into her neck and put her to sleep before I made the exchange. She would have no idea what happened until she woke up with Egor beside her. He would pick up where he left off—and she would know giving her back was part of my plan all along.
And she would hate me.
I’d done terrible things to her before, but she forgave me. She saw the good in me despite the bad situation. I held a whip in my hand and chained her to the bed, but she had the power to talk me out of it. And she’d still wanted to sleep with me anyway. She accepted me for who I was…and my money didn’t seem to impress her.
She still wanted to leave.
She wanted to be free…but keep sleeping with me. That meant she didn’t want anything from me…only me.
“I thought you would be thrilled about that,” she whispered.
