Page 28 of Bought By Sin

“Was that a test?”

She’d asked it when Adrik and I approached her at the house. When the alert came from the guards that someone was trying to sneak onto the property and was rushing toward the women on the patio, we hurried back. The surveillance feed showed live on his phone, and we all witnessed how Mila acted in defense. How she’d acted in defense without any express instruction to do so.

I had only brought her along with me because it felt natural to be near her. To keep her with me as I waited for some sign of a path to get her to crack and open up to me.

Adrik had been quick to thank her. Nikolai aided the guards with securing the property. Once it was determined that the intruder had been acting alone and the estate was secure, I knew there wasn’t a chance my conversation about negotiations with a smaller Bratva family would continue.

In the car now as I brought Mila back to my place, though, I wondered what to do with her. What I should do about her instinct to protect.

She didn’t know Elena or Carina. She had met them, loosely, but she couldn’t know them well enough to care about them. She hadn’t known me long enough to care.

Maybe that’ll never come.

Maybe she was too far into this identity of a damaged soul, traumatized and owned as a slave, used and beaten and expected to perform in the manner of surviving.

It could be wishful thinking on my part that she had wanted to tell the women to hide from danger out of some misplaced concern for them. She could very well have just been acting like the robot and worker she’d been conditioned to be. To treat us as a separate class of humanity that she will always be inferior to and serve.

“No.” I cleared my throat and knew that my delay to answer her probably hadn’t been wise. I was that flummoxed about her motivation to act like that, though. And I struggled with looking too far into it.

If she can care about them… she could care about the rest of the family, too.

Not in the line of duty and as someone employed by the Bratva.

But to care about us because we protect her now.

To care about… me.

Her submission remained an elusive figment of my imagination, a faraway goal. The rest of the ride passed in silence, but I couldn’t settle the storm of questions and unknowns that swirled in my mind.

What if she can care?

What if she is still capable of being a person and not a shell of one?

I gritted my teeth after she walked to her safehouse, wishing that if I asked her why she’d wanted to protect the women, she’d answer. I restrained myself from roaring my frustration over how hard it was to get through to her and reach her at all.

The next morning, I had a clearer path of how I could train her next.

Even if the idea hadn’t come to me in the early hours of the morning when I lay in bed and imagined her with me, it seemed that I wasn’t the only one to reconsider Mila’s purpose.

Adrik had texted me overnight.

Adrik: She’s not meant to be a runner.

Adrik: You’ve floated the idea of her possibly being trained as a spy.

Adrik: I think we should escalate her training and include the basics of combat.

If he hadn’t suggested it, I would have. Based on what she’d shown yesterday, it seemed that she had an inclination to protect, to be a member of selective security rather than just a dime-a-dozen smuggling operator or runner.

After breakfast, that seemingly domestic routine where she’d never fully appear like a guest nor as an employee, all her silence and mute obedience accumulating as I struggled against this impatience to know her, to see her and feel her, I explained what to expect.

“In light of how you acted yesterday, Adrik has requested that I incorporate alternative training protocol for you.”

She nodded once, as she often did. Too quiet, but still opinionated. I always saw the defiance and sharp intelligence in her eyes.

I led her to Roman in the training facility and stepped back.

“I heard about your quick thinking,” he told her.