Page 31 of Capturing Victory

“I’m yours,” she whispered as he cupped her chin and tipped her face up to look at him, his thumb and fingers smearing the fluid into her skin.

“Mine.”

Chapter Nineteen

“This silence has to end.”

Jaya turned to glance back at Ivan as he stepped out on the balcony to join her. She ignored him and continued to watch Jakarta at night, sure she would never get enough. It was by far the most breathtaking sight she’d ever seen. Though she was a millionaire many times over, Jaya was not actually well travelled. Well… that wasn’t actually true. She’d travelled and lived on most of the world’s continents. But she’d lived mostly in basements, in out-of-the-way backwood hovels where no one would think to look for her. Or find her if they were looking. Until Ivan.

“I will be forced to use unsavoury methods if you don’t start talking, Jaya,” he said impatiently.

This time when she refused to speak he grabbed her arm and swung her around to face him. She frowned and glared up at him, finally acknowledging his existence with a derisive snort. “Like what?” she asked. “Drug me? Hit me? You already tried those things. I’m not impressed, Ivan. Do your worst. I’ve been trained to withstand you.”

He laughed, though the sound wasn’t pleasant. “You have no idea what I can do to you, little girl. You’re the one person in the world I would hesitate to harm. Otherwise you would’ve already given me everything I wanted by now and been irreparably harmed in the process.”

She shuddered but lifted her chin and refused to back down. “You don’t scare me.”

“You sound like a child,” he said derisively with a shake of his head. “You were sent to me on purpose, a meal to a lion. Your so-called father could not have thought you would survive the experience of meeting me, yet he sent you anyway.” She opened her mouth to reply, to deny him, but he shook her, squeezing her arm in a tight grip. “Do not bother to deny what we are both intelligent enough to know is true. You must simply look past the brainwashing.”

She gritted her teeth and yanked on her arm. He refused to let her go, instead taking her other arm and forcing her back against his front. She struggled, but he simply waited her out. There wasn’t much she could do. The only clothes he’d supplied were a selection of saris so she was already limited as her limbs were bound by flowing scarves and a long skirt. She wanted to scream and shout, but finally just huffed an annoyed breath and decided to stand stiffly in his arms. Unfortunately, her exertions made her breathe heavily and each intake of breath brought with it an inhalation of his delicious scent, tantalizing and teasing her until she was ready to scream.

Ivan Vogel was her enemy. Had been her enemy for twelve years. Since the moment Father had rescued her. Yet… Ivan was determined to keep her. To give her pleasure. To twist her against Father, to make her spill her secrets. The ones she was supposed to guard with her life. She was so confused.

He dropped his face against her neck and kissed her. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Something is happening to me, to us. I can’t stand the idea of hurting you. But if you don’t give me something else, I’ll have to hand you over to Keane. He doesn’t have the attachment I’ve developed. He’ll be able to get the information we need.”

She jerked against him, her heart speeding up until she thought it would leap out of her chest and run away like a scared little rabbit. She and Keane had bonded a tiny bit but she was under no illusion that the giant Irishman wouldn’t torture her for information. A sob erupted from her throat. “I don’t want that,” she whispered shakily. Of course she didn’t. No one wanted to be fucking tortured.

“Then give me something,” he said, resting his chin on her head. “Tell me something to stop me from handing you over. Because we need something, Jaya. I’m not trying to upset you needlessly, but this is a matter of your safety. Whoever is targeting me has shown a willingness to harm you as well and I won’t have that. You are the key to finding this individual.”

She gasped and twisted her head up to look at him. “Father would never hurt me!” she insisted trying to make him believe her.

He shook his head. “I think you’re wrong.”

Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know what to say,” her voice took on a panicky edge. “I don’t want Keane to torture me! But I can’t betray Father either. He took me under his wing when I was vulnerable. He trained me, made me his protégé. He took care of me when no one else would.”

Ivan’s eyes gleamed in the darkness of the balcony and she realized that her words, as innocuous as they were, were exactly what Ivan wanted. He said as much, taking her by the shoulders and turning her to face him, the lights of Jakarta at her back. “You don’t have to betray your adoptive father, Jaya. Just answer my questions as best you can. If you do that much, with as much honesty as you can, then I won’t give you to Keane.”

She thought about it for a second, a tear escaping her eye and streaking down her cheek. “It still feels like betrayal,” she whispered. “Like I shouldn’t be here with you. Touching you. H-he hates you so much. But you confuse me, Ivan.”

Ivan’s expression melted into something close to pity. He wrapped an arm around her and held her close. For once she accepted his comfort without putting up a struggle. She tucked her head beneath his chin and wrapped her arms around his waist. She felt a slight jolt of surprise go through him at her acquiescence, the first time since they’d met. Then he tightened his grip on her and gave her all the warm strength she could hope for. When they surfaced from the hug, he led her back into the room and sat her down on the bed.

“Answer as best you can, as truthfully as you can,” he said gruffly, his voice softer now.

She nodded.

“When did you meet your adoptive father?”

She thought about it. There was no reason to withhold the information. “When I was thirteen.”

He nodded and winced a little before smoothing his expression back to its usual granite. “Shortly after your family was killed then,” he said. “You met him in Mumbai?”

She nodded, her gaze following him as he paced the floor of the bedroom.

“How did you meet him, Jaya?”

The uncompromising way he said her name told her Ivan wasn’t going to give her a pass on this question. That he wanted to know the answer and she wasn’t going to get away with the so-called silent treatment she’d been giving him. She bit her lip and tried to rapidly sift through information in her head so he couldn’t identify Father through the story of how they met. It was a unique story, yet she didn’t think it would immediately identify the man that adopted her off the streets of Mumbai.

“Speak, Jaya,” Ivan demanded, stopping in front of her, his hands on his hips, his glacial eyes laser-focused on her.

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