Page 5 of Hunter's Trial

Now it’s my turn to smirk.

I tilt my head to the side and bat my long lashes at him pointedly. “You do know that it’s greatly beneficial for a woman to have been assigned your case, don’t you? I would think that instead of sitting here testing me when I’ve more than earned my reputation, you should be attempting to convince me that you’re a man worth saving. I am the last thing between you and the death penalty. Your smart mouth won’t stop that poison from being injected into your veins. Will it, Mr. Volkovich?”

Sitting before me is a man that has been in control of every single aspect and person in his life for a very long time. Nothing happened in his Bratva without his permission. Nobody moved an inch without his say so. Being helpless here and at the mercy of a petite blonde woman? It’s got to be driving him absolutely mad.

I tuck my ankles under the chair and lean forward. I make sure that the angle of my arms pushes my cleavage up for his perusal and lean into the airheaded bimbo act that so many men like to think that I am. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

“You can sit there and think of all of the ways that you would handle a woman like me. You can imagine bending me over this table and hate-fucking me all you want. Whatever you need to do in order to sleep at night, Mr. Vokovich. But it will do nothing to change the facts here. I have you by the balls in all of the ways that you don’t want. If you don’t start doing exactly as I say, when I say it, then it’s not going to work very well for you. Understand, pumpkin?” I wink at him for good measure before sliding the papers toward him with the ballpoint pen. “Be a good boy and sign these papers for me so that I can do my job. Then, when you’re breathing free air again, we can see whose dick is really bigger. Mine or yours.”

I’ve got him. We both know it.

I ease back into my chair as he stews in his anger. He has to let me talk to him however I want. He’s helpless. I don’t think he’s ever had to sit with that particular emotion before in his life. I’m happy to be the one to cause the feeling. Nikolai takes the pen, clicking it angrily while he scowls. I won’t even try to deny the thrill of feeling powerful over a man like Nikolai as he signs page after marked page. When he’s finished, he flicks the papers toward me and I take them with a saccharine sweet smile. “Good boy.”

Nikolai’s grin widens into something bordering on feral. The lack of emotion shining back at me through those black eyes almost makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Somewhere deep in me awakens a very real and primal urge to run from him. Nobody with a soul can look like that.

Dammit if it isn’t fucking sexy though.

I stand on my side of the table, frozen, as his tongue wets his lips before he speaks.

“For the record, mine’s going to be bigger.”

I sure hope it is.

Back in the safety and quiet of my car I take a moment to collect myself. I press a palm into my chest. My heart’s beating like a rabbit’s and I can’t seem to make it slow for anything in the world. I don’t even want to consider looking at my phone. Nothing good is going to be waiting for me there. I put the car into drive before my morbid curiosity can take over.

It doesn’t occur to me to look over the paperwork that Nikolai signed until I’m thirty minutes from the prison and stuck in traffic. I cannot allow my mind to start to wander, so I flip through the pages. He’s signed every bit of my contract, but there in the last pages of the actual divorce paperwork itself - nothing at all. There’s nothing there. Bastard. Damned smug, handsome, stupid bastard.

Muttering to myself I fumble around my bag for my phone and call the prison right back, setting up another appointment with the damnable Volkovich. I’m only a few exits from turning right back around and marching back into that damned prison. Naturally, the woman on the phone can’t get me in. As if the inmates have such busy fucking schedules. Day after tomorrow, the very best that she can do.

I probably shouldn’t have hung up on her like that, but I can’t always help my own temper either.

My phone rings a second later, before I even have time to process what’s happening. Thinking that it’s the prison, I answer the phone on the first ring without meaning to. “Fuck me,” I fumble the phone and hope that they don’t hear my swearing on the other end of the line but of course they do.

There isn’t an immediate response from the other end of the line. That should have been enough of a warning sign that whatever was about to come next wasn’t going to be something that I wanted. For half a moment, I consider pulling my car onto the feeder. The number isn’t saved in my phone. My blood runs cold, waiting to hear his smug voice on the other end of the line. Did I just answer one of Billy’s calls?

“Oh well, if you ask so nicely, but I’m not sure that would be a good idea.”

CHAPTER THREE

NIKOLAI

Happy Birthday to me, indeed.

It’s not often that life gives me exactly what I need in the moment that I need it. Even more rare that I’m gifted a toy that I hadn’t even asked for. Yet, there she was - a perfect, beautiful new doll, all for me. Even better yet, I can tell that she’s got more than a little bite in her. She’s perfect.

I didn’t have any doubts about her legal skills. Her talents and reputation do, in fact, more than speak for themselves. She’s not my usual type, but I can’t deny that I’m drawn to her flame. Since my sentencing, I’ve felt more than a little trapped here. Not just in the bars-on-the-windows-and-doors-sort-of-way, no, that would be far simpler to endure. I feel almost as if I’ve been trapped on the glass slides of a microscope. I don’t know how to get out of it. There have always been eyes on my movements, it’s a hazard of living the life I did and running the organization that I had. But this is far more personal. Before now, those eyes that liked to watch me were not exactly in a position that they could touch me.

Certainly not the case now.

At this very moment the guards are leading me through the winding halls of the prison. It’s designed this way specifically to disorient us inmates. They want us to feel like rats in a maze. It works a little too well given that the inmates here have unusually high aggression levels. I can feel them radiating in my direction. Not that I don’t deserve it, of course I do. I am not apologetic for my life in the Bratva. I was always exactly the man that my father raised. Brutal, lethal and merciless. I am not going to change that just because I’m in here.

I just might not live as long with those choices.

Already rumors are circulating about which lawyer I was just meeting with. Of course, the usual rabble about her pretty face and perfect legs are stirring up the usual perversions. But her mind is sparking other debates as well. Ms. Thorne’s ‘barracuda’ reputation precedes her. Other inmates are going to try to enlist her, or outright steal her from me. She can’t represent a dead man, after all. Hell, if she manages to pull this off, and I’m sure that she will, she’s going to have more work than she knows what to do with. Hope she’s ready for that sort of notoriety. More than a handful of gangs in here would love nothing more than to have an attorney like her on permanent retainer for their organization.

If I wasn’t public enemy number one in here before, I sure as shit am now.

Most of my enemies have spent the months that I’ve been here biding their time, chipping away at me here and there. Most of them do not underestimate the threat that I represent to them. Unarmed, I can easily take most of these men here. Hell, I’m itching for a fight. They all know that. There’s a certain look that wild animals get in their eyes when caged like this. All that pent up energy with nowhere to go? I would love to see them try anything.

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