That stubborn bond that I’ve failed to break.
I can’t be a failure. I need to fucking focus.
“Go on. Report back to me,” I tell the men with a dismissive wave of my hand.
They leave without hesitation, and I’m close behind them.
But I’m not attending to my duties as I should be. I’m on the way to my bedroom.
How did Dominik know that she’s like a drug that I have to take a hit of to keep my mind straight or I have withdrawals? Because he’s been in my shoes?
When I walk into the bedroom, Alina is peeling the skin off a mandarin orange as she sits in her usual corner. Relief cuts through me when I see her eating, and I hate myself for it.
She cocks an eyebrow at me as I lean my back against the closed bedroom door. “What?”
“Is this what you did while staying under my brother’s roof? Sit where he told you to and behave?” I ask her, genuinely curious.
Whenever I visited his place, I never really got to see what she was doing in her free time. Did she follow Dominik around like a puppy? Did she stare out of the window wishing for her brother to show his face and save her?
I know so little about her. Yet, she lingers in my mind and refuses to leave.
Alina drops the peeled skin on the floor before halving the orange, moving too slowly and casually for my preference. “What do you think I did at Dom’s?”
“I know what he wanted to do,” I assure her, keeping my distance. For now.
Alina rolls her eyes as she chews on a small slice. She swallows. “I already told you that we didn’t have sex. Not even close.”
“Then what made him get so attached to you so quickly?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess…maybe Dom and I became close because we went through things together. We…bonded, despite the awful circumstances.”
Something burns in my chest that I don’t want to name. It pesters me, though, as I gaze at her through the bars. “You didn’t want him to fuck you?”
Alina blinks at my forwardness. “I didn’t say that. We just never got a chance.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
She frowns. “Not after he almost died. He was injured. Are you having his bullet wound taken care of?”
I wave off her worries. “He’s healed. No infection. Barely even a scar once the stitches were removed.”
At least I assume that’s the case since Yelena hasn’t mentioned having any concerns.
Alina exhales slowly, relief written all over her face. “That’s mainly why. He would’ve ripped open his stitches if I hadn’t stopped him.”
I push off the wall and wander toward the cage, watching her place another orange slice between her lips. “So, what did you do then? Read books? Knit?”
Alina licks a glimmer of juice from the corner of her mouth, causing desire to surge through me as I imagine how good her tongue would feel on me. She’s so damn sexy in her lingerie that it should be illegal. “I mostly kept to myself until we got closer. Then, he talked to me about what was happening, and I helped however I could with trying to…trying to convince Archer to do the right thing,” Alina remarks. “I liked hearing Dom talk about his plans to go after the bikers, how his men got the guns back, the way he made the bikers give him names and information...”
I don’t miss the spark in her eyes when she speaks about the attacks and torture. She’s being honest, and fuck that’s hot. Even if she wasn’t born into this life, she found a way to find her footing in it while she was a captive.
Most women would’ve been terrified. They wouldn’t have approved of using violence against the bikers.
I think Alina liked being a part of the excitement. She enjoyed the thrill of the chase, just like I do.
“You liked having a front-row seat to the drama?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I guess it would be more fun to see how the…business is handled when my brother isn’t the enemy.”
