Page 57 of Captive Prize

"How dare I do what?" I asked, putting an edge in my voice. I may have been at a disadvantage—hurt, groggy, and confused. But that didn’t mean I was willing to show weakness.

"How dare you fight me like you had nothing to lose!" He turned, facing me and putting his hands flat on the mattress on either side of my feet.

His eyes glowed with an intensity that froze my heart.

There was so much going on behind his eyes, I wasn’t sure what he was thinking. If I didn’t know what he was thinking, I couldn’t gauge my answers appropriately.

I hated being at such a disadvantage, being in a position of weakness. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t the woman I had worked so hard to become.

Carefully, I pushed myself up further, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. My limbs were slow to obey. Everything felt heavy and tingled with poor circulation as I moved.

It wasn’t until I was sitting fully upright, feet on the floor, that I noticed the plastic tube going from my arm up to the metal pole hidden behind the post of the bed.

I had an IV.

There were two plastic bags hanging from the pole. One was the standard large saline drip, something I was very familiar with. The other was less familiar to me.

Narrowing my eyes, I tried to focus on the small text.Tranexamic Acid (TXA).

I had taken it in shots before, and in pill form, but never as an IV.

"Answer me," Roman growled.

"I forgot the question," I said, raising an eyebrow, showing him an attitude that I didn’t feel.

"I said"—his jaw clenched so hard I was a little worried his pearly white teeth would shatter—"how dare you fight me like you had nothing to lose!"

A bitter laugh escaped my dry lips as the taste of pennies filled my mouth. "I dare, because I have nothing to lose."

My voice was hoarse, and each word scratched its way out of my throat, but I didn’t let them waver. I didn’t let the weakness I was feeling seep into my voice.

Roman had seen far too much of my weakness already.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath as he raked a hand through his dark hair.

Stupid fucking disease.

I knew the drug the doctor gave me would force my blood to clot over the next day like a "normal person." Too bad it wouldn’t last. It was too risky to take on a regular basis. Too many side effects. The medication always left me heavy-limbed and tired.

The side effects would clear soon enough, but it did nothing to get me out of this… situation.

If Roman’s doctor gave me TXA, then more than likely Roman knew what that meant. He wasn’t stupid. He would have asked or done his own research.

The doctor likely would have told him what it was, and why I got it. Even if he hadn’t, one quick Google search and Roman would know how to break me.

He knew about my disease, and worse, he knew that the medication granted him time. Because not only did it stop my bleeding, it also stayed in my system for hours.

So he knew he could hurt me, and it wouldn’t kill me. He knew how fragile I really was.

No.

He knew how fragile my body was.

I was more than just my body.

I pushed my shoulders back and took a deep breath. Ignoring the aching from my ribs and the sharp pain radiating from the shoulder I had landed on—at least I didn’t have to worry about internal bleeding anymore—I faced him.

"This changes nothing," I said with a glare that made grown men shrink.

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