18. Amy

18

AMY

N ik confused me.

One minute, he was so mad, fuming as he clenched his teeth, fisted his hands, and stood so rigidly unapproachable.

The next, he softened his tone in the privacy of his wing and told me that he was sorry I was suffering all that I had. In his arms, I melted into his hug, wishing that I could count on him with my heart, not just my body.

When he kissed me, almost chastely with delicate tenderness, I felt the opposite of love. I was an obligation, a transaction to secure, not a woman he wanted out of affection.

My heart couldn't take this aching pain, but I kept my chin up.

He stepped back too soon, but I'd be damned if I'd let my body chase the warmth of his.

"I'll be back."

I couldn't help the huff that left my lips. Again. Locked up. Again .

"I'm going to get cleaned up and…" He pointed at his face, then his body. "We have a medic in training. He'll stitch me up."

I opened my mouth but slapped it shut.

"What?"

I shook my head.

"Tell me."

I rolled my eyes.

"Please."

"I could do it."

He crossed his arms, stalling at the door. "You could?"

I nodded. "I work—" My throat struggled to swallow past the lump of emotion that rose with realizing my error. I wouldn't work anywhere. I'd never earn my own way in life. Independence was a joke when I was locked in this wing like this. "I worked at a vet clinic. I'm a vet tech."

"Yeah." He rubbed his jaw. "I remember. You told me the first night."

"I have experience stitching all kinds of wounds. I mostly did paperwork, but I am skilled at more than your usual first aid."

He smiled slightly, almost sadly. "I wouldn't want to trouble you." Giving me his back, he turned for the door.

I stared after him. The clicks of the locks being engaged didn't follow his exit, but I refused to read too much into that. He was buying me—paying for my freedom from being Diego's bought slave. That amount of money also ensured I would be Nik's. Not out of love, but of something that seemed like cold, bland duty.

"Don't expect me to wait up," I muttered dryly, turning back toward the bedroom to try to sleep for the rest of the night .

I doubted I'd rest at all with all that had happened in the last hour. So many things had upended my life, and as I sank into the bed's cushiony surface, I wondered if and when he would return and if he would join me in bed.

I wanted him to, on a physical level, but I dreaded it in the same stroke.

He didn't want me. He only had me here because there was no other option to keep me alive.

If he'd saved me for the sake of having a handy, personal fuck toy…

I sighed, nestling into the pillow and squeezing my eyes shut tighter.

I eventually slipped into sleep, though, because I woke late. The sun streamed through the curtains. My first move was to look for Nik, and I knew before sitting up that he wasn't in the bed.

It hurt. He'd want me here with him, but not as his .

I didn't smell his musky scent. I didn't hear his deep, steady breaths. For all the times we'd fucked, he'd never once slept with me. Even that first night we'd shared, he'd left without a goodbye.

He wasn't hiding far. On the couch in the living room, he lay sprawled out and deeply asleep. His feet hung over the end, and that awkward angle of his neck on that pillow meant he had to be uncomfortable.

My steps were silent, bare on the plush carpet, but he woke as I exited the bedroom.

Blinking and rubbing his face, he sat up slowly and regarded me. "Sleep well?"

I shook my head. "I spent all night trying to fall asleep, wondering something."

He yawned. "What's that?"

Damn him, sounding all husky and sleepy. I had to resist his allure .

"If there is any way out of this."

He pressed his lips in a firm line, annoyed.

"If there is any way I can avoid this fate." I took a chair across from him, not wanting to stand over him and try to look bossy. "I prefer to determine my own fate. Above all else in the world, I value and treasure my independence."

He looked away for a moment. "You're independent to a fault."

I shrugged. If he was waiting for an apology, he'd be waiting forever.

"If you weren't here, with me, where do you think you could go?"

I licked my lips. "Are you saying I'd be with someone else in your Bratva if I wasn't with you?"

He glared at me. "No."

"You don't share and offer women around to sample?"

"No." He repeated it with lethal sincerity. "The soldier who said that, the one I stopped from striking you, he's been punished and dealt with."

I nodded, grateful that I wouldn't have to worry about him.

"The Valkov Bratva does not condone trafficking women. We participate in many avenues of business, but we do not kidnap women like the Cartel and other organizations for the purpose of selling them."

His words should've reassured me, but I still held on to this stubborn doubt.

"What happened to the other women?" I had to know.

"They've been secured at locations in our territory."

I arched a brow. "You didn't release them?"

"It's complicated." He sighed, rubbing his face. The rasp of friction on his stubble shouldn't have sounded so compelling, making me wonder what it would feel like to have his face between my legs again. "Alek has yet to figure out how to release them. The law enforcement's partnership with the Ortez Cartel complicates things."

"If I could leave, would you let me?" I was scared to ask it, but I had to. I wanted to be here, safe with Nik, but not without love.

He grunted. "Like I said, where the fuck would you go, Amy?"

"I'd run away. Far. I'd start over, on my own terms, and?—"

"Where?" he repeated. "Where do you think could be safe from a determined, psychotic sadist with billions at his disposal to hunt you down?"

I swallowed. "I'd hide. I wouldn't tell anyone about your organization. About anyone here. I won't say anything to anyone."

He stood, bitter as he scowled. I fought not to look at his bare chest. He only wore gray sweatpants that hung low on his hips. Bandages covered his skin, but even injured and wounded, he was the hottest man I'd ever seen. If anything, the evidence of his beating made him look more rugged, like a true bad boy.

"You're starting to really piss me off, Amy."

I furrowed my brow at him. "Why? Why are you so mad?"

"You were raped !" he bellowed. "I'm angry that such an unspeakable thing happened to you!"

His immediate fury bothered me. Was that why he didn't want me? Did he view me as damaged goods—falsely? The idea of another man being inside me made him that mad?

You're the father! I wanted to scream it.

"I want…" I stood as my stomach revolted at the suggestion of any movement. "I want out, Nik. "

"No." He crossed his arms, making his muscles bulge. "There is no way you could run far enough. There is no way you could hide from a monster like him. You don't understand how this world works."

"You're right. I don't. And I don't want to!"

He clenched his teeth, stalking up to me. I didn't back down, craning my neck to look up at him defiantly.

"Would it be so bad?" He licked his lips, his eyes sparking with frustration. "Would it be so fucking bad to be near me? To deal with my life here?"

Words dried up on my tongue. I refused to cave to how hard he put me on the spot like this. I'd missed him so much. I'd dreamed of seeing him again. Now that I "had" him, it was with the knowledge that he felt forced to protect me.

"Would you rather risk your life—and the life of your child—out on the streets and know that Diego would always think he owns you, no matter what?"

I shuddered, shaking my head. I didn't know why that sociopath of a customer had to be at the Cartel's warehouse that day. I didn't want to learn the intricacies of events that led to my walking down that specific sidewalk at the exact time those thugs went prowling for innocent women to snatch.

"No. I don't want that life." Looking over my shoulder constantly wouldn't be a life. It would be nonstop paranoia and fear, even if it did mean I had my independence.

"But…" I lowered my gaze for a moment, hating that what I wanted to say sounded like a rejection. After all he'd done for me, and with all he planned to do yet in paying millions for my safety, I had to be honest. "But I don't want this life either. I don't want to be trapped and without any choices about my life. "

I don't want to be with a man who doesn't want me for anything more than a convenient fuck.

I couldn't tell him my deepest secrets, my heartfelt wishes.

I want to be with a man who loves me, desires me, and cherishes me. A man who chooses me. Not a man who was forced to keep me close and safe to the point of imprisonment.

I lowered my hand to my stomach again, reminded that I had to change my perspective. I wasn't making choices for just myself. I was a package deal.

Is that why he's so against anything more with me?

He'd been ambivalent since he learned that I was pregnant. He kissed me without heat, without anything more than polite concern. He'd slept on the couch, away from me. He hadn't wanted me to nurse him or help him with his wounds.

Avoidance. He was ignoring me, and the biggest change was my revelation that I was pregnant.

He was the father, but I was too skittish to tell him that now. I felt guilty for not coming clean about that detail last night. I wanted to get it all out, to tell them all that I'd lied about anyone raping me. It had been on the tip of my tongue to reveal that Nik was the father of the new life inside me.

But it hadn't been the right moment. I'd been rocked and stunned with the news that Diego was hellbent on claiming me, that men were paying money to "keep" me like a goddamn possession.

Right now, alone here with Nik, I had an opportune moment to tell him the truth, but I didn't. Fear held me back. I'd been so scared to tell Mila that I was pregnant at all, and without knowing that Nik loved me—or could find it in his heart to love me beyond any sense of obligation—I was terrified to add another layer of complications to this already messy web. He would only be madder that I kept the fact that he was the father a secret even longer. And he'd be furious that I'd resorted to a quick lie to Mila. I was in so deep already, I would only make things worse by coming clean.

But the longer I don't tell him, the worse it will be yet.

I cringed, not knowing what to do and hating that I couldn't trust my gut instinct around him when my heart beat so strongly for a morsel of his love.

He exhaled a long breath and turned away, leaving me without another word.

The locks weren't engaged, but I knew that meant nothing at all.

I was stuck here, with him, and no matter how badly I wished things could be different, I knew that I couldn't even make him fall in love with me half as much as I already had for him.