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A prize.

I need to remember that.

Then why do I watch him when I think he isn’t looking?

Why can’t I help but notice the nervous energy he hides by tapping his foot or checking his phone?

Why does it feel so dark and absolutelythrilling…when he calls me his?

* * *

Chapter14

MATVEI

She knowswhat she's doing.

For days, I’ve kept us secluded at my house, and she doesn’t seem to mind it. I don’t know why. Maybe she has a mild case of agoraphobia—she was fun at first when I took her shopping, but something changed. She got uneasy. Unsettled. And she wouldn’t tell me why.

She’s made no mention of wanting to leave, and instead, she’s making herself at home. She knows she can escape. But she doesn’t. Not that I’m complaining.

She’s beautiful. So fucking beautiful, my girl. And she knows exactly what she’s doing.

I made love to her the night after we went shopping. That was several days ago. Since then, I’ve been busy and let her roam through my house, adding her signature touch. At first, I didn’t understand what she was doing. It wasn’t like she changed anything major, but I started noticing—the throw blanket over the couch, the diffuser filling the air with something calming, the stack of kitchen towels where I used to only use paper.

Anissa knows how to cook.

“The fact that you have a kitchen like this and don’t use it is an absolute travesty,” she said, tying on an apron. It was ridiculous. Adorable. She didn’t look like the domestic type in the slightest, but then she rolled her sleeves up and got to work.

And she knows what she’s doing. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I never believed that shit, but every time she puts a meal in front of me that reminds me of my childhood—something warm, something familiar—I fucking feel it.

She’s doing it on purpose.

She leans too close when she’s not supposed to, just enough for me to catch her scent. I still put her to bed in her cage every night, but at this point, it’s just for show. If I really wanted to keep her here, I have other ways. And she knows that. She likes it.

She brushes her fingers over my wrist when she takes dishes from the table, a light touch—like an afterthought. But it’s not. It’s calculated. I know better.

She tilts her head just so when she speaks, her voice dipping soft, getting under my skin.

And it’s working.

I want her in my bed. Not just when I fuck her. I want her there when I roll over in the middle of the night. I want her soft skin, her scent, her heat. I want to shove her against the wall and make her stop this game she’s playing—but I don’t. Because deep down, I don’t want her to stop.

I watch her too closely now, memorizing every flicker of emotion, every micro expression. The way her lips part slightly before she lies. The way her eyelids droop when I threaten to spank her. The way she bites her lip when I do.

The way she smells—fuck, the way she smells—like something sweet beneath sharp steel. I could be separated from her for fifty years and still smell that and think of her.

But this is all an act. She isn’t real with me. She’s spent so much time shifting from disguise to disguise, I doubt she even knows who she is anymore. Authenticity terrifies her. At least, that’s my theory.

If I wasn’t so fucking dead set on getting revenge and proving my worth to the Bratva, I might find it amusing. But I don’t. It’s fucking infuriating.

She’s in my dreams.

I wake up angry. Unsettled. My cock hard as fuck. I bury myself inside her, andeven then, it doesn’t satisfy me. I don’t just want to fuck her. I want to own her.

But it isn’t up to me.

I can say the words, claim her, but until she gives herself to me—truly submits—it’s just noise. It’s just a lie.