Page 19 of Bought By Sin

Nikolai nodded and called over the supervisor who personally trained the newest members to the family. He was partly a drill sergeant and partly a coach. Known for weeding out the weakest and spotting the threats of potential moles, he was precisely the older, rugged disciplinarian I wanted. He’d give me an independent opinion of what Mila could do.

If I were to personally and directly run Mila through the exercises and tests to see her worth, I’d get too close. If I watched her run and go through trials in the training course, I’d be that much more addicted to the mystery she was. That first test that I’d given her last night—to see if she’d respond to my slight attempt at seduction—proved how much she could impact me.

Letting Roman start this recruitment process gave me a little distance.

I watched it all, though, sticking around and seeing how she handled it. The fitness assessment with running, weights, and general endurance took up most of the time.

Roman huffed with a wry laugh after her time trial in the massive gym. “She beat all those other fuckers.”

I smiled. “I saw.” It wasn’t often that a woman could outrun all the men.

“Short but fast,” he commented.

“And I suspect she’s smart, too.”

I knew she was sexy, as well, but I didn’t need to admit that to him. Hell, anyone with eyes could see that for themselves.

Throughout that first day of seeing what Mila could bring to the table, I stayed close by the recruitment gym and watched from afar. I handled calls. I arranged a few meetings. I followed up with some texts, but I mostly paid attention to how Mila was standing up to the pressure to perform.

The bottom line was that she did. She performed—excelled—with all that Roman put her up to. Other trainers and supervisors weighed in, too, instructing her through field exercises. No matter what she did, she proved that she was highly observant and quick on her feet. During the scavenger-hunt exercises, she showed an instinctive and acute understanding of risk. It wasn’t just that she could figure her way through a maze or figure out the best way to hide. It was how she demonstrated something deeper. She could pick up on deception. She was keyed in to following and learning behavioral patterns.

All in one day.

“But how do you know if you can trust her with anything?” Alexei asked me as evening approached. He’d come to talk to me about some other matters I had been helping with, and he stayed by my side to observe her as well.

I shrugged. “It’s not like she has a choice to behave in anything but a trustworthy manner.”

He arched a brow at me, skeptical.

“She’s not here by choice,” I reminded him.

“That doesn’t inherently mean you can force loyalty from her, though.”

“No, it doesn’t. But who else would she want to favor or go to? She’s not from any one family. She’s not indebted to anyone else but who currently has her in contracted servitude.”

Which was me.

I understood his hesitation. Letting anyone in was a risk. When Maksim married Carina, he had to deal with the worry that she was a spy. And when Adrik was given Elena, he had issues with whether that would backfire.

But Mila was distinct. As a slave, she wasn’t anyone’s to count on for intel.

“I’ve got a couple of men looking into her background,” I told him. Adrik would’ve insisted on it, anyway. I was too much of a control freak to allow the most basic questions to go unanswered.

“And? Anything showing up?”

I shook my head. “No. Not much at all. A birth certificate, and that’s it.” I refused to believe she was a nobody. Mila had a story. She had to in order to be this tough and defiant.

I only had to bide my time and peel back her layers to get it.

The next day, I arranged for her to do more assessments. More like survival tests, and she aced them all. Her stamina was impressive. Her lack of critique and complaints was a bonus.

Again, at the end of the day, her strength and stubborn unwillingness to speak much got to me. She wasn’t some expendable worker. She had the mind of a warrior with animal-quick reflexes that many men failed to perfect.

I walked her back toward the safehouse, once more asking a series of questions about her past. The IT guys hadn’t found anything else about her, but details were lingering out there somewhere.

I asked who she used to work for and she replied, “You mean who owned me?” The distinction mattered to her, suggesting she would rather be free.

I asked which Cartels she had been with, and she said, “You’re better off asking which ones I wasn’t with.” I read between the lines to understand she’d been bought and sold multiple times.