Claim Me (19 page)

Oh God. The rush of blood to my brain almost makes me dizzy. My cheeks turn hot, then cold as rage fills my stomach. How dare Lucas tell this to a fourteen-year-old? I never wanted Misha to know about Kirill. From what I’ve been able to pry out of him, it seems my brother has suppressed most of what happened to him at the orphanage. He remembers that it was bad, but he doesn’t know the extent of it. Something like this could bring back those horrible memories, and even if it doesn’t, I don’t want him exposed to that kind of ugliness. It’s bad enough that Misha’s uncle deceived him; now my brother is going to think the whole world is made up of awful people.

For a moment, I’m tempted to deny everything, but that would make me just one more person who’s lied to Misha. “Yes,” I say, my voice strained. “It’s true. But I was a little older than you—fifteen—and they did keep him away from me after they learned what happened.”

Misha’s hands curl as I speak. “Are you making excuses for them?” His voice rises incredulously. “For these… these
monsters
? After everything they’ve done to you? I thought Kent was making it up so I’d hate him less, but he wasn’t, was he? That’s what the two of you were talking about back at the black site. I heard you, but there was so much going on I didn’t really register it. Kirill hurt you, and I…” His face twists painfully. “Oh, fuck, I trained with the guy. I liked him.”

“Mishen’ka…” Pushing my anger at Lucas aside, I reach out to touch Misha’s shoulder, but he steps away, shaking his head.

“I’m such an idiot.” Stumbling over a root, he catches himself on a tree and continues to back away, muttering bitterly, “I’m such a fucking idiot…”

“Michael.” Pushing my concerns about his suppressed memories aside, I make my voice stern. “I don’t want you to use that kind of language. Do you understand? You’re not an idiot, and you’re certainly not a fucking anything. There was no way you could’ve known this, just like you couldn’t have known that Obenko was lying. Nothing about this situation is your fault.”

Misha blinks. “But—”

“No buts.” Wiping all emotion from my face, I come closer and stop in front of him. “I don’t want to hear any more whining. What’s done is done. It’s in the past. This, here and now, is the present. We’re here, and we’re not going to look back. Yes, we’ve been through some bad things, and we’ve known some bad people, but we survived and we’re stronger now.” Softening my voice a little, I reach out and squeeze his hand. “Aren’t we?”

“Yes,” Misha whispers, his fingers tightening around mine. “We are.”

“Good.” I release his hand and step back. “Now let’s go. Diego told me he might take you to shooting practice this afternoon, since you’ve been good and all. You don’t want to be late for that.”

I turn and begin walking, and Misha trails next to me, the bitterness on his face replaced by a look of bewilderment. I’ve never spoken to him like that before, and he doesn’t know what to make of it.

Despite my simmering fury at Lucas, I smile as we approach his house.

I’m Misha’s big sister, and it feels good to act like one.

L
ucas

“
H
ow could you do this
?”

The minute I walk through the front door, Yulia stalks toward me, all long legs and flowing blond hair. Her blue eyes are narrowed into slits, her nostrils all but breathing fire.

“Do what?” I ask, confused. I did receive a rather gruesome update from Ukraine this morning, but I don’t see how Yulia could’ve found out about that. “What are you talking about?”

“Misha,” she hisses, stopping in front of me. Her hands are clenched at her sides. “You told him about Kirill.”

“Oh.” I almost smile but think better of it. Yulia looks ready to deck me, and given her restored health, she might land a blow or two before I subdue her. Keeping my expression carefully neutral, I say in a reasonable tone, “Why shouldn’t I have told him? He deserves to know the truth. You know that part of his anger is because he feels deceived, right? Nobody likes to be manipulated.”

Yulia’s teeth snap together. “He’s fourteen. He’s still a child. You don’t tell children about brutal rape—especially children with his kind of background. Kirill was his trainer. Misha admired him—”

“Yes, exactly.” I catch her wrists as a preemptive defense measure. “Your brother kept talking about the bastard and all the things he taught him. Do you think that was good for him? Healthy? How do you think Michael would’ve felt when he found out that you let him respect your rapist? And he would’ve found out, believe me. Truth has a way of coming out.”

Yulia’s wrists are stiff in my grasp, but she doesn’t kick me or try to get away. I take it as a sign that I’m getting through to her and say, “Also, he’s not a child. Not really. You know your brother already slept with a girl, right?”

“What?” Yulia’s mouth drops open.

“Yes, he told Diego about it.” I use her shock to pull her closer, molding her lower body against my hardening cock. “The trainees went out to a club a few months ago, and he hooked up with an older girl there. He’s crazy proud of it, like any teenage boy would be.”

Her throat works. “But—”

“Don’t worry. He used protection. Diego asked.”

And before Yulia can recover from that, I lower my head and kiss her, enjoying the way she struggles before melting against me.

It takes a long time before we sit down to dinner that evening, but I don’t regret a minute of the delay.

A
s our new
life together continues, I find myself increasingly obsessed with all things Yulia. Everything about her fascinates me: the way she hums under her breath when she’s cooking, how she stretches in the morning, the purring moan that escapes her lips when I kiss her neck. Her body has filled out again, her sickly pallor fading, and one look at her golden beauty is all it takes to get me hard these days. I fuck her every chance I get, and it’s not enough. I want her constantly, with a need that consumes me. Every time I take her, it’s the best feeling ever, yet I’m still left craving more.

Sometimes I think I’ll go to my grave wanting her.

If it were just a sexual itch, I might’ve been able to handle it. But my hunger runs deeper. I want to know everything about her, every tiny detail of her life. I don’t like thinking of my past, so I’ve never had much interest in that of other people, but with Yulia, my curiosity knows no bounds.

“You know, you never told me your real name,” I say as we’re eating lunch one day. “Your last name, I mean.”

“Oh.” She blinks. “Why do you care about that?”

“Because I do.” I put down my fork and stare at her intently. “You have no one to protect anymore, so please, tell me, baby.”

She hesitates, then says, “It’s Molotova. I was born Yulia Borisovna Molotova.”

Molotova.
I make a mental note of that. I haven’t forgotten what she told me about the headmistress of her orphanage, and I intend to use this information to track the woman down. I debate disclosing this to Yulia, but I’m not sure how she’d react, so I decide to keep quiet for now.

Changing the topic, I ask, “Have you ever killed anyone? Not in a fight or as self-defense, but outright.”

To my surprise, Yulia nods. “Yes, once,” she murmurs, looking down at her plate.

“When?” I reach across the table to cover her slender hand with my palm. “How did it happen?”

“It was during training, as the last part of the program,” she says, her gaze veiled as she looks up at me. “None of us were supposed to be assassins, but they wanted to make sure we’d be able to pull the trigger if it came to that.”

“So what did they do? Have you kill someone?”

“In a way.” She wets her lips. “They brought in a dying homeless man. He had Stage Four liver cancer. He only had a few days to live at best, and he was in terrible pain. They shot him full of drugs, and then, instead of a paper target, they strung him up. Our goal was to make a killing shot.”

“So all of you shot at this one guy?”

“Yes.” Yulia’s fingers twitch under my palm. “We used marked bullets, and he was autopsied afterwards to see whose bullets hit the target. A couple of trainees couldn’t bring themselves to shoot.”

“But you could.”

“Yes.” She pulls her hand out of my grasp but doesn’t look away. “The autopsy revealed that three bullets hit his heart.”

“Was yours one of them?” I ask, leaning back.

“No.” Her gaze is unflinching. “Mine was found in his brain.”

T
hat night
, Yulia clings to me with a passion bordering on desperation, and I realize my questioning brought back some bad memories. I know I should leave her alone, let her live in the present the way she clearly wants to do, but the questions keep gnawing at me, and I finally give in.

“Have you ever slept with a man of your own initiative?” I ask as we lie tangled together after a long bout of sex. By all rights, I should be sinking into sleep, but my body hums with energy and my thoughts keep returning to this topic.

Yulia stiffens in my arms. Turning over, she pulls back to look at me. “What do you mean? I was only forced that one time—”

“I mean, did you ever date anyone who wasn’t an assignment?” I say, placing my hand on her hip. “Go to bars, clubs? Hook up with a guy just for fun?” I’d intended the question to be a casual one, but as I say the words, I realize that Yulia with another man will never be a casual topic for me.

I want to commit murder at the mere thought that someone who wasn’t me touched her.

Yulia’s gaze lights with comprehension. “No,” she says softly. “I never dated. It wouldn’t have been fair to the guy.”

“So there was a guy?” My jealousy sharpens. “Someone you wanted?”

“What?” To my relief, she seems startled by the notion. “No, there was no one. I just meant that I was always on assignment, so I would’ve been a terrible girlfriend.”

“So not even a casual hook-up?” I press.

“No.” She bites her lip. “I didn’t see the point. I had classes and school assignments on top of my job, and I didn’t have much free time.”

“So you’re telling me that other than your three assigned lovers and myself, you’ve never been with anyone else?”

Her face tightens. “You’re forgetting Kirill.”

“I’m not forgetting him.” The fact that we still haven’t found him or his body is like a festering splinter under my skin. Suppressing the flare of rage, I say evenly, “He was your assailant, not your lover.”

“In that case, yes.” Yulia’s blue eyes are clear and guileless as she looks at me. “I’ve had four lovers, including you.”

I stare at her, hardly able to believe my ears. My seductive spy—the beautiful girl who used her body to get information—has slept with fewer men than an average college student.

“What about you?” she parries, propping herself up on one elbow. “How many women have
you
slept with?” The look in her eyes is a mirror image of my earlier jealousy.

“Probably not as many as you think,” I say, pleased by her possessiveness. “But definitely more than four. Like your brother, I started fairly young, and… well, I wasn’t much of a relationship guy back then.”

Her eyes narrow. “Really? And you are now?”

“I’m in a relationship with you, am I not?” I say, my cock stirring at the sight of her nipple peeking out from under the blanket. “So yeah, I’d say so.”

Yulia opens her mouth to reply, but I’m already pulling the blanket away. Rolling on top of her, I push her legs apart with my knees and grip my cock, positioning it against her opening. She’s slick from our earlier session, so I thrust in, invading her silky tightness with no preliminaries. She doesn’t seem to mind, her arms and legs wrapping around me to hold me close, and I begin to fuck her in earnest, taking her hard and fast. It takes only a few minutes before my orgasm starts to build, and I force myself to slow down, wanting to prolong the moment.

“Tell me you love me,” I demand, stroking deep into her body. “I want to hear you say it.”

“I love you, Lucas,” she breathes in my ear, her legs squeezing my hips. Her pussy is like a hot, slippery glove around my dick, and my balls pull tight against my body as I feel her spasms begin. We detonate together, and in that moment, I feel as if we’re one, as if our ragged halves have fused, forming one unbroken whole. Our lungs work in tandem, our breaths intermingle, and when I raise my head and see Yulia looking at me, something hot and dense expands inside my chest.

“I’ll always love you,” she whispers, curving her hand around my cheek, and the feeling grows stronger, the dense heat spreading until it fills every hollow corner of my soul.

With Yulia, I feel complete, and I treasure the sensation.

Y
ulia

I
n some bizarre way
, it feels like Lucas and I are newlyweds, and this unusual period—this lengthy truce between us—is our honeymoon.

Part of it is definitely the sex. Far from fading with time, the attraction between us only burns hotter, the magnetic pull intensifying with each passing day. Our bodies are attuned to each other in ways I could’ve never imagined. A look, a breath, a touch, and the flames ignite. Neither one of us can get enough. As many times as Lucas reaches for me, I respond, my body craving his no matter how sore I get. His touch reduces me to someone I don’t recognize, a primitive being of wants and needs. It’s like I’ve been programmed to exist solely for his pleasure, to desire him in all ways. He pushes me past my limits, and I want more. Rough or gentle, my captor consumes me, my need for him tethering me tighter than any ropes.

Beyond the sex, however, there is a growing emotional intimacy between us. Every day, Lucas demands my love, and I give it, helpless to do anything else. It’s not an equal exchange; Lucas never says the words back or gives me any indication of his feelings. However, after we have sex, he holds me close, as if afraid to let me stray to the other side of the bed, and I know those quiet, tender moments are as important to him as they are to me. They give me hope that one day, I might have more of him—that I might reach the man underneath the hard shell.

“You know, you never really told me how you ended up here… how you went from being a Navy SEAL to Esguerra’s second-in-command,” I murmur one night when we lie there like that, wrapped in each other so completely it’s impossible to tell where one ends and the other one begins. Tracing a circle on his powerful chest with my finger, I say, “All I know is what I read in your file, and there was nothing that explained why you did it.”

“Killed my commanding officer?” Lucas’s voice doesn’t betray any emotion, but his shoulder muscle flexes under my head. “Is that what you want to know? Why I killed the bastard?”

“Yes.” I scoot back a little so I can look at him. In the dim light of the bedside lamp, my captor’s face is as harsh as I’ve ever seen it. It doesn’t deter me, though. “Why did you do it?” I ask softly.

“Because he killed my best friend.” Cold, ancient anger creeps into Lucas’s voice. “Jackson—my friend—caught Roberts selling weapons to the Taliban, and he was going to report him. But before he could, Roberts had him killed… made it look like an ambush by hostiles. I was there when it happened.”

“Oh, Lucas, I’m so sorry…” I reach up to touch his face, but he intercepts my hand, catching it in a viselike grip.

“Don’t.” He glances at me, his eyes slitted. “It was in Afghanistan, a long time ago.” His gaze returns to the ceiling, but he doesn’t release my hand. Holding my fingers tightly, he says, “In any case, I survived. It took several days for me to return to the base, but I made it. And when I got there, I killed the bastard. I took his own gun and peppered him with bullets.”

Of course he did. I stare at my captor with a mix of sadness and bitter understanding. Like me, he had been betrayed by someone he trusted, someone who was supposed to have had his back. I don’t know what I would’ve done to Obenko had he lived, but it neither shocks nor appalls me that Lucas chose this brutal method of retaliation.

“So what happened then?” I prompt when Lucas remains silent, his gaze locked on the ceiling. “Were you arrested?”

“Yes.” He still doesn’t look at me.“I was taken back to the States for a court martial. Roberts had friends in high places, and my allegations against him were swept under the rug faster than I could make a formal report.”

“How did you escape then?”

Lucas finally turns to face me. “My parents,” he says in a hard, flat voice. “They couldn’t tolerate the embarrassment of having their son tried for murder, so they arranged for me to disappear. My father made a deal with me: he’d help me vanish in South America, and I’d never contact them again.”

“They wanted you out of their lives?” I gape at him, unable to fathom any parent making such a deal. “Why? Because of the murder charge?”

“Because, according to my father, I’m a bad apple—‘rotten to the core’ is the way he put it.”

“Oh, Lucas…” My heart shatters on his behalf. “Your father was wrong. You’re not—”

“Not a bad man?” He quirks an eyebrow, a sardonic smile flitting across his face. “Come now, beautiful, you know what I am. My parents sent me to all the best schools, gave me every advantage they could, and what did I do? I threw it all away, joined the Navy so I could satisfy my urge to fight. That’s pretty fucked up, no? Can you really blame my parents for wanting to have nothing to do with me?”

“Yes, I can.” I swallow, holding his gaze. “You were still their son. They should’ve stood by you.”

“You don’t understand.” Lucas’s eyes glint with ice. “They never wanted a son. I was to be their legacy. A perfect extension of them… a culmination of their ambitions. And I ruined all of that when I became a soldier. The murder charge was just the last straw. My father was right to offer me that deal. I didn’t fit into their lives—I never had—and they certainly didn’t fit into mine.”

I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to hold back the tears stinging my eyes. I can picture Lucas as a volatile, restless boy constantly pushed and prodded to be something he didn’t want to be. I can also see how his corporate lawyer parents must’ve been out of their depths trying to raise a child who was, at his core, a warrior—a boy who, by some strange quirk of genetics, was utterly unlike them.

Still, to tell their son that they never wanted to see him again…

“So you haven’t spoken to them since then?” I ask, keeping a steady tone. “Not even once?”

“No.” His gaze is pure steel. “Why would I?”

Why would he, indeed? To me, family is sacred, but my parents were very different from Lucas’s family. I can’t imagine Mom and Dad walking away from either me or Misha, no matter what path we chose to follow in life. They would’ve stood by us no matter what, just like I would stand by my brother.

And by Lucas, I realize with a sudden jolt of shock. In fact, I
am
standing by him, even as he and Esguerra lay waste to the organization I worked for. His father wasn’t completely wrong—Lucas is not a nice guy, by any means—but that doesn’t alter how I feel about him.

Maybe I’m rotten to the core as well, but somewhere along the way, my ruthless captor has become something like my family.

I push the startling revelation aside to focus on the rest of the story. “So how did you end up with Esguerra, then?” I ask, propping myself up on one elbow. “Did you just run into him somewhere in South America, and he hired you?”

“It was… a bit more complicated than that.” The corners of Lucas’s mouth twitch. “I was actually hired by a Mexican cartel to guard a shipment of weapons that they purchased from Esguerra. But when I showed up to do my job, I discovered that one of the cartel leaders had gotten greedy and decided to steal the shipment for himself, double-crossing Esguerra and his own people in the process. There was a nasty shootout, and at the end of it, Esguerra and I were among the few survivors, each of us pinned behind cover. He was running low on ammunition, and I had only a few bullets left, so instead of us continuing to try to kill each other, he offered to hire me on a permanent basis. Needless to say, I agreed.” He chuckles darkly before adding, “Oh, and then I shot a guy who was sneaking up behind Esguerra to try to gut him. That sealed the deal, so to speak.”

“Is that why you said Esguerra owes you?” I ask, remembering his long-ago words. “Because you saved his life that time?”

“No. That was just me doing my new job. Esguerra owes me for something else.”

I look at him expectantly, and after a moment, Lucas sighs and says, “Esguerra was hurt last year in a warehouse explosion in Thailand. I carried him out and got him to a hospital, but he was in a coma for almost three months. I kept things together for him during that time, made sure the business didn’t fall apart, his wife was safe, et cetera.”

“I see.” No wonder Lucas was confident that Esguerra would let him keep me. True loyalty had to be rarer than unicorns in the arms dealer’s world. “And you weren’t once tempted to take it all for yourself? Esguerra’s business has to be worth billions.”

“It is, but Esguerra pays me quite well, so what would be the point?” Lucas gives me a wry look. “Besides, I kind of like the guy. He used his contacts to take my name off the wanted lists after I started working for him. Not to mention, he doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what he is, and that works for me.”

Of course. I can see how that would be appealing after his commander’s betrayal in Afghanistan. Still, many men in Lucas’s position would’ve been blinded by greed, and that he wasn’t speaks volumes about his character.

My captor may not be close to his family, but in his own way, he’s as loyal as I am.

A
s our extended
pseudo-honeymoon continues, I find myself with a strange problem: I have an excessive amount of free time. I have no assignments or classes, no real responsibilities of any kind. Initially, it had been nice; the illness and the traumatic events that preceded it had taken a lot out of me, leaving me exhausted mentally as well as physically. For several weeks, I’d been content to read, watch TV, spend time with Misha, and putter leisurely around the house, but as the weeks turned into months, I began itching to do more. I’d always been busy—first as a student, then as a trainee, and the last few years as an active spy on assignment. Free time had been a luxury I treasured, but now I’m awash in it and I don’t like it.

To fill up the hours, I begin experimenting with new recipes. Lucas grants me access to the Internet—on a monitored computer, since he still doesn’t trust me completely—and I find myself browsing various websites in search of new and interesting dishes. Lucas is all for my new hobby—he enjoys the results of it at every meal—and I gradually develop a kitchen repertoire that ranges from classic Russian dishes like
borscht
to exotic fusion cuisine that incorporates elements from Asian, French, and Latino cooking. I even come up with my own variations, like cilantro-curry sushi topped with pickled beets, Peking duck stuffed with apple-flavored cabbage, and arepas with Russian eggplant spread.

“Yulia, this is phenomenal,” Lucas says when I make delicate pastries layered with shiitake mushrooms and Camembert cheese. “Seriously, this is better than any high-end restaurant. You should’ve been a chef.”

“It really is amazing,” my brother chimes in, devouring his fourth pastry. He’s taken to eating lunch with us almost every day, and I suspect my cooking is a big reason for that. He’s even willing to tolerate Lucas these days, though they’re still far from being best buddies.

“Good. I’m glad you’re enjoying it,” I say, getting up to carry my plate to the sink. I’m full to bursting after two pastries, but Misha and Lucas seem to have infinite room in their stomachs. I conceal a grin as Lucas reaches for the second-to-last pastry and my brother instantly grabs the last one, stuffing it into his mouth like he’s afraid it’ll run away.

“Do you have any extra?” Misha asks after he chews and swallows. “Diego and Eduardo begged me to bring back some leftovers.”

“What the hell?” Lucas pauses mid-bite to give Misha a glare. “They can make their own pastries. We won’t have any leftovers.”

“Actually, I made an extra batch just in case,” I say, heading over to the oven. This is not the first time the two guards have begged for food through my brother, and I suspect it won’t be the last. If Lucas allowed it, they’d come over to eat here every day, but since he doesn’t, they find other ways to benefit from my new hobby. “Just tell them to eat the pastries before they cool completely. They won’t be as good reheated in the microwave.”

“Of course,” Misha says as I put plastic wrap over the foil tray and hand it to him. “I’ll give it to them right away.”

Lucas observes us with an unhappy frown. “But what about—”

“I’ll make more soon,” I promise, grinning. “For dinner, I’m making enoki pasta with cashew sauce, and chocolate bread pudding with yuzu-raspberry topping. If you’re still hungry after that, I’ll make these pastries again, okay?”

Misha listens with clear envy before asking, “Do you think you’ll have some bread pudding left if I come by after dinner? The guards invited me to a barbecue tonight, but I’ll probably have some room for dessert…”

“Yes, of course.” I beam at him. “I’ll be sure to save some for you.”

“Yeah, him and half the guards,” Lucas mutters, getting up to wash his plate. “Next thing you know, we’ll be feeding the whole compound.”

I laugh, but before long, Diego and Eduardo start finding various excuses to stop by, often bringing a couple of their friends with them. I don’t mind cooking larger portions—it’s a fun challenge for me—but Lucas gets irritated, especially when our meals get interrupted by frequent visitors.

“This is not a fucking restaurant,” he roars at Diego when the young guard “just happens to swing by” with six of his buddies at lunchtime. “Yulia cooks for me and her brother, got it? Now get the fuck out before I give you an extra shift.”

The guards leave, dejected, but the next day, Eduardo comes by right before Lucas is due to return for lunch. “You wouldn’t happen to have any of that shrimp salad left, would you?” he asks, keeping a wary eye on the front door. “Michael mentioned that you made some last night, and—”

“Sure.” I suppress a grin. “But you better hurry. I think Lucas and Michael are almost here.”

I give him a container of the leftover salad, and he thanks me before rushing out the door. The next day, Diego copies Eduardo’s maneuver, stopping by a half hour before dinner, and I give him a whole extra cranberry-and-rice stuffed chicken I made for just such an occasion. He thanks me profusely, and for the next week, I surreptitiously feed the guards that way. On the following Monday, however, Lucas catches me in the act, and he’s not pleased.