Page 39 of Captive Prize

I was close. So fucking close to taking what wasn’t mine to take.

No matter how much I wanted it.

Somehow, that little fuckingprintsessahad stolen more control than she ever should have had.

Any other woman would’ve shattered under what I gave her.

The spanking I delivered wasn’t playful—it wasn’t even meant to arouse.

It was punishment. Raw. Ruthless. My palm still ached from the force.

But she took it. Every single strike. And judging by how wet she was, she loved it.

Not just tolerated it—got off on it.

She wasn’t some porcelain doll. She was a goddamn masochist.

Maybe it wasn’t the pain.

Maybe it was me.

Wishful thinking.

With the men she’d been around in her orbit—her brothers, her father, that pathetic excuse of a husband—I wondered if there was something to it. None of them knew what she really was. None of them appreciated her strength, let alone knew how to tame it.

A woman like Zoya needed a man who could see what she was made of, then break her down and rebuild her stronger.

Not one of them was capable of that.

I forced myself to think about something else, anything else, to clear my head.

I hadn’t eaten in hours, and I had no idea when the last time she ate was.

So, I started makingropa vieja.

My mother’s recipe.

She made it every time I got sick or upset. Called it the ultimate comfort food—beef, tomatoes, spices that warmed the body and soothed the soul.

I didn’t understand that as a child. Now I did.

I cooked it when I missed her. When I missed the life I had before she died.

I wasn’t always the black sheep of the Ivanov clan.

For the first ten years of my life, I was loved.

My mother was Cuban. My father, Russian—an Ivanov. The younger brother of Artem’s and Gregor’s fathers.

They taught me things my cousins were only just now learning the hard way.

They taught me love wasn’t a promise. It was a plague.

True love didn’t conquer all—it destroyed everything in its path. Left nothing behind.

My parents fought it at first. She was a diplomat’s daughter. He was a bratva prince.

They met at university. Clashed in the middle of class—neither one remembered what the fight was about. Only that each was convinced they were right, and the other was wrong.

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