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He’s planned everything from the murder to the police to how they never mentioned any detail about me. But he’s been playing his cards, one by each one in a methodical, psychopathic way. He never planned to give me any choice to begin with. He came here with the purpose of turning me into his wife, and I can do nothing to escape this fate.
“Why…” I swallow the tears and the clog in my throat. “Why didn’t you use that threat from the beginning? Why did you give me hope that I could refuse this?”
“It wasn’t my intention to give you hope. And you couldn’t have refused me, Winter. You’re a nobody. A pest everyone stomps on without looking twice. A nameless, forgettable face no one remembers down the line. Be grateful that I’m giving you this offer. Say thank you and go with it.”
I raise my hand and slap him across the face so hard, pain bursts over my palm and shoots down my arm.
A weird type of anger took hold of me at his words, and I needed to relieve it somewhere. This is the only solution my brain came up with.
One that I now realize could cost me my life.
The stranger’s eyes darken and a muscle tics under his stubbled jaw.
I fully expect him to strike—or punch—me back, and I squeeze my trembling lips together in preparation for the impact.
However, his hand loops around my nape and he hauls me over so that my face is mere inches away from his. “The last person who dared to touch me is now buried six feet under.”
I gulp down the lump in my throat. His words alone are suffocating me and digging my grave. I would’ve preferred he hit me instead.
“This is the first and last time you do that. Repeat it and you’ll meet a worse fate than being buried in a grave.”
He releases me with a shove and I stumble back toward the door, my heart beating so loud, I can hear the buzzing in my ears.
“What are you going to do with me?” My voice is small, fearful.
“Whatever I wish.”
My teeth chatter for a different reason than the cold weather, but I can’t resist the feral need to ask the question, “Are you going to hurt me?”
His attention fixes on me, his eyes turning ashen, blank. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether or not you’re good at following orders.”
I stare up at him with another swallow. I’m not, I’m really not. But I need to start to be, because I don’t want to give this man a reason to hurt me.
Not that he’d need one.
“You’ll be cleaned up before you come to my house.” He gives me a condescending glance, cementing the fact that he does indeed think of me as a pest.
“When will that be?”
“Now.”
“N-now?”
“You have an objection?”
I shake my head once. I want to see Larry again, but that will probably put him in danger with these men, so I opt not to do it. I’ll have opportunities to come see him once I’m…someone else.
That realization hits me deeper than I would’ve anticipated.
I’m going to live as someone else.
I won’t be Winter Cavanaugh anymore.
My thoughts are reinforced when the Russian says, “From now on, you’re Lia Volkov. Wife of Adrian Volkov.”
