Page 33 of Taken By the Convicts
Where was he going? Melina sank back down to the floor and pulled her knees up against her chest. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.
“Zev?”
Complete silence. He wasn’t coming back. She was locked in a dark room with no one outside.
“Please don’t leave me here,” she begged, but no one was there to hear her.
Melina wrapped her arms around her legs, closed her eyes, and pretended she was on Baccula, running along the grassy hills by her childhood home, chasing her brothers before dinner. It’s the last time she’d felt safe, before the lottery, before Namir, before Veenith.
Chapter Eight
IVAN
The chunks of raw serilium clanked as Ivan tipped his haul onto the scale. A lousy 15.3 kilograms. Pathetic, even for a single shift, let alone a double.
Every bone in his body ached. The serilium wasn’t enough to buy the food he needed from the commissary. He hoped the others were making out better. If fucking Manager Obray, the manager of Mine #17, hadn’t pulled him aside to talk about the number of fights that had been breaking out in the mine, Ivan would have made his quota. Despite his gut telling him he needed to get back to the bunker, he couldn’t brush off a manager. Piss off a manager and he’d cut your rations, and right now Ivan had to earn extra, not less. The woman wouldn’t be working at the med-center, earning her food credits.
He could let her go, except everything in him said she belonged to him. Did he need revenge or something more from her? Sure, she was gorgeous, with a beautiful face, lush ass, and curvy body, but this need to have her went beyond sex or he would have taken her by now.
Maybe he should take her, get past that need to sink into her and see if that settled whatever the hell was driving him crazy.
Fuck! He’d started thinking like Jayce. This planet would destroy him in time, warp his mind until he forgot what it meant to be honorable.
“A rather small load for you,” a thick voice said from behind. Ivan turned swiftly, surprised he hadn’t heard Hawke approach. He was fucking lucky the man hadn’t stabbed him.
“What do you want, Hawke?”
“You took something that belongs to me.”
That’s why Hawke hadn’t attacked. He needed to find Melina first.
“The woman belonged to no unit. I had as much right to her as you. You lost. Get over it.”
“She belongs to me, Perilov, and I will have her. The question is how many men will die for me to get hold of her.”
“Fuck off.”
Hawke stepped into his path. Ivan could take him, would love the chance to take him, but Obray was on this level with his guards. There was no way Ivan would get away clean. And Hawke wasn’t stupid enough to have come alone. Most likely he had at least three men beyond the next bend.
“A month’s worth of serilium,” Hawke offered.
Flashbacks of Hawke’s men ripping her clothing off, of Hawke about to rape Melina, sent his blood boiling. “She’s not for sale. You lost, Hawke. Forget it and move on.”
“I can get you off Veenith.”
Ivan arched a brow. If Hawke could get off Veenith, he would have left. Either way, Hawke had his attention now. “How?”
“I have connections. For the right price. You know where to find me.” Hawke shoved his way past Ivan. Sure enough, three men emerged from the shadows, joining Hawke as he disappeared down the bend.
Ivan had been warned and given a chance to give Hawke what he wanted. The man wouldn’t ask again. He’d attack, undermine, and do whatever it took to get what he wanted, including killing whoever stood in his way.
Fuck, he really hadn’t thought any of this through. He couldn’t give her to Hawke, he couldn’t hand her over to that animal.
Ivan took a longer route than usual to return to the bunker in case Hawke had left men behind to tail him.
The bright sun outside reflected off the snow, practically blinding him as he swiped his tatt along the access panel. The second he entered the bunker, Ivan was plunged into darkness. Something was wrong. The lights in the stairwell should have flicked on automatically. As he waited for his eyes to adjust, he reached behind his pants for a gun and came up empty. He couldn’t shake the urge to draw his gun, even though he hadn’t had one on him since being dumped in this hellhole of a planet. Ivan slipped his hand into his boot and withdrew a knife as he descended the stairs.
A beam of light struck his face. “Sorry.” Zev lowered the light. “I found a flashlight. The place has been dark for all fucking day, Ivan, and I can’t find a reason for it. You’re the first one back.”
