Page 25 of Bought By Sin

She shrugged, giving me a stern once-over at the sink as she took my plates. “One house to clean.” She dismissed me with an immediate wave before I could speak. “Not that you make a mess. I mean you’re always with him anyway, as it is.” She nodded her head in the direction of where he paced in the other room, like the emphasis was even necessary. “Why not just simplify it and be here where he wants you?”

I shook my head, confused how she could come to that conclusion, that it would be “simple” for me to live here.

“Selma, I’m not some mistress or kept woman.”

She snorted. “It’d be easier to believe that if he didn’t watch you the way he does.”

I rolled my eyes. “He’s trying to figure out what to do with me.”

“Oh, he’s got plenty of ideas of what he wanna do,” a maid said as she breezed through the kitchen, laughing lightly.

That was what I thought, that first day when he tricked me into thinking he was interested in me. In my body. In the concept of our bodies naked and touching and⁠—

I shook my head. “He’s my owner. Nothing more.”

Now it was her turn to roll her one eye and smirk. “Mila, I’ve seen the slaves. The recruits and the captives and all them.” She flicked her hand at me again. “And none of them sit at that counter right there and eat meals with him. None of them are glued to his side and meeting all the other Volkovs.” She raised her brows, silently daring me to question what she said with so much authority.

Lev returned then. “Ready to go? I need to meet with Adrik.”

Annoyed that my chance to talk to Selma—or to let her talk to me—was over, I nodded once. But as I turned, Selma and the maid had such shit-eating, I-told-you-so smiles that I couldn’t help but scowl behind Lev’s back as I followed him out of the house.

They were wrong.

I was a slave.

And deceiving myself to think that I could be “okay” here with an ambiguous and unidentified role was stupid.

On the drive, he asked me—again—about my past. I revealed nothing, hedging answers, because it made no sense to me why he’d care. Why he’d be invested in learning about me. I understood that he valued me as someone to work for his family. I was uniquely skilled at things a Mafia boss would expect from an employee. With him holding that contract over my life, I was his possession.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

We arrived, and I was bothered by how familiar I was with the Volkov mansion already. How things seemed “normal” and expected.

Dammit. I’m letting what Selma said get to me.

I wasn’t included. I wasn’t one of them. Not like Elena and Carina were.

They sat out on the patio in the back, seeming to talk about smuggling routes or the payments for security with them. Adrik kissed Elena’s cheek as she continued speaking, turning her laptop toward Carina.

“I’ll be back,” he told her as he approached Lev. Nikolai was also there, waiting to speak with his brother and cousin.

Lev turned to me. “We’re going to go check something out.” The tilt of his head indicated something further back on the property, past the ornamental gardens behind the massive house. “I’ll be back.”

I blinked and frowned. He didn’t need to tell me. He didn’t report to me.

Am I supposed to be with Elena and Carina?

I couldn’t waltz in and join their conversation.

Am I supposed to stand here and wait for you?

I wasn’t invited here as a guest.

What the hell am I supposed to do now?

He didn’t give me an answer, though, and as he walked away with his cousins, I fought the urge to gape at him.