Page 54 of Bought By Sin

Bucking against the fact that this violent world was forever and always a man’s world, I hated how I would never be equal to a man. Just inferior.

Because I was a woman, my words would never matter. I would never be worthy of respect and power. Like I was just an insignificant thing.

No matter how many tests and trials I did, how many tasks and races I aced and came out on top, I wouldn’t be “good enough” for respect. It shouldn’t matter if it was a man or a woman. Someone’s strength and ability to survive were measured in the scale of their determination. Deep down in the marrow of my bone, I knew that I was strong, fast, and smart enough to work for any crime family. On a good day, I could internally gloat that I was stronger, faster, and smarter—conditioned to be like that from the need to survive the grim life that I had been forced into.

Having those men at the last meetup look at me like they wanted to take me and use me was nothing like what I was coming to experience with Lev.

Since the day that he had taken me on the mat and ordered me to tell him what I wanted, it was harder and harder to see him as only my owner. I viewed him not as the person who bought me from the Hernandez Cartel. I struggled to label him as my owner and boss.

Now, I could categorize him as a man I cared about. As a man a woman would want to belong to in all the ways that counted and surpassed what a contract paper said. The more he took me with him everywhere under this loose title of being his assistant, I saw him as a man I simply wanted to work with and be with.

He had taken me. He bought me and owned me. There was no dispute about that. But it was a multi-layered concept since he didn’t just own me with the contract in his hand. He owned my body with how easily he could make me shudder and shiver under his touch. He owned me with the ease by which he could complete me under the press of his lips on mine.

Lev hadn’t been happy when that one man at the last meetup had tried to make a pass at me. I had a good hunch that after he spoke with Maksim and saw him out of the house that he would come out here to the training facility and burn off some of that energy working out.

I tried not to look into it too deeply so that he wasn’t taking his energy out on me. Or with me.

Sure, I lusted for him.

Yet, I was too busy basking in how I had been included so far. Not as an accessory or a thing to show off like a trophy, but as a part of this mission against Gregori. Every time he brought me along under the guise of my being his assistant, I felt like I was contributing—even as backup when he asked me what I thought of what we heard and didn’t hear. I felt like I was a player on the team, not just someone hanging off to the side.

Reminding myself that I was only a slave to him felt like a lie.

When I moved on toward the weights, I wondered if it could ever be true. If I could be seen as just a member of the strong family I’d found.

“I don’t know about you,” Nikolai said as he approached, apparently just getting done with some reps at the bench press, “but I could have sworn we were about to have a blood bath at the club yesterday.” He raised his brows. “When that idiot actually put his hand on your shoulder…”

I turned toward him, hesitating to wait on my warm-up for a workout. “I’m still surprised it didn’t end like that.”

He laughed once, ever the charmer. Of all the Volkov men, he was the most laidback and easiest to approach. Not that I approached any of them and tried to act like they were my friends or relatives. I was still going through the learning curve of acclimating to Lev being more than my owner.

“I can’t blame him.”

I furrowed my brow at him.

“No. Not that Konstantin moron.” He shook his head. “He had no right to act like he could touch you at all. I meant my cousin.”

Lev had practically attacked the other man for looking at me for too long. When the man put his hand on my shoulder, he’d vibrated with rage.

“I don’t blame Lev. He’s made it clear that you’re with him.”

I cringed, lowering my gaze toward the weights and dumbbells on the racks. “I’m not.”

He huffed that amused laugh that suggested he wasn’t fooled. “You are.”

I jerked my head up to face him. “I’m just his…”

“His.” He nodded, like he was proud of a child for catching on to what one plus one equaled.

“His—”

“Assistant?” he suggested.

“Yeah.” Technically, that was what Lev had stated. That I was his assistant. And I was accompanying him everywhere to assist with… whatever he wanted from me.

But other times, he’d wanted me. To kiss me and worship my body, all while not even pausing to glance at or acknowledge the scars that littered my back and stomach.

“Is that all?” he asked.