Page 116 of Captive Souls

The way he spoke to her, looked at her, betrayed a gentleness that mixed with his rough exterior.

You could feel it. The way his existence was tied to hers, how he was wrapped up in her, dedicated to her in a way that wasn’t healthy but in a way I coveted.

Elizabeth took a deep breath and looked to her husband, her expression relaxing as a small smile lit up her lovely face.

“I’m ready,” she nodded.

He stroked her neck. “This is not required of you, you’ve done enough,izyubov moya.”

The endearment struck me with its tenderness and the smooth way in which Lukyan spoke it, betraying a heritage that I guessed was eastern European.

Elizabeth looked back up at him, her expression sharp. “It is something I would hope someone would do for me if it was you,” she returned in a low voice.

He stared at her for a long while before leaning in to kiss her lightly on the lips in a gesture of tenderness that felt illegal for me to see. I crept backward then made purposefully loud steps on the marble floor to announce my arrival.

By then, they had their masks in place. But they were still close to each other, as if it were impossible to stand farther apart, connected by an invisible string. One made of titanium.

A team.

“Ready?” Elizabeth asked, directing her question at me. None of the vulnerability, fear I thought I’d glimpsed, remained.

I nodded.

“Ready,” I lied.

I’d never been on a private jet before. The level of wealth was beyond my comprehension. The actual flight was beyond my comprehension. I listened intently to Lukyan offering me advice on how to play my hand, what to do, what not to do. I’d nodded and replied at the appropriate times, but I could not, for the life of me, remember the majority of what he said.

And it was my very life that depended on survival tips from a hitman.

The absolute absurdity that was my life would’ve been funny if, well, if it were happening on a movie screen instead.

I had watched New York City underneath us, trying to prepare myself for it to be my battleground. My entire future, or lack thereof, would be decided there in just a few hours.

My fingers had clutched the arm of the seat as we landed, then I’d gotten into the black SUV waiting for us on the tarmac without speaking. Elizabeth and Lukyan stayed close together, the latter almost never taking his eyes off his wife.

I couldn’t watch them for too long. They were the image of what I might have if I was lucky enough to be successful. They were also the image of what I might’ve already lost.

It was only when we were almost at our destination that I spoke.

“This could go bad,” I said, wringing my hands.

“It likely will,” Lukyan agreed.

Not comforting.

“You can still pull out,” he remarked. The offer was given in a tone free of judgment, yet I still felt the label ofcowardhovering in the air, waiting to be plastered on my forehead if I took him up on it.

We could turn around, go back to the expensive house with the no doubt comfortable bed I could safely toss and turn in all night while Knox did … whatever he did.

“No.” I straightened my shoulders.

“No, I can do this,” I repeated. Who was I talking to? Lukyan? Myself?

Lukyan nodded then didn’t say anything else. Nor did Elizabeth, though I locked eyes with her, and she gave a smile that wasn’t just warm. It was dark, cold, knowing. A flash of feminine power that communicated that she had faith in me to do women’s work.

Not the work of cooking, cleaning, bearing children, but bringing down the men who sought to control us.

I had tried to live up to that, hadn’t I? I talked the talk, walked in women’s marches?

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