Page 9 of Bought By Sin

I was trapped in here. Caged once more.

I sat tense and barely breathing, lagging to catch up with what the hell had just happened.

I had been sold—again.

Tomas crossed out the name of my last owner and jotted down another one. Another transaction—of my life—had been completed. Without my input, regardless of my feelings, against my fucking wishes.

Don’t panic. Don’t, Mila. Don’t do it.

Anxiety spiraled through me despite my pep talk. Breaths turned shallow as my lungs raced to inflate faster and fuller. My heart raced. Dizzy and sluggish, I blinked and willed away the lightheadedness that followed suit.

Don’t…

Panic remained posed on the fringe of my mind, hanging too close to slip over me and render me hopeless. Ever since that first time when I was twelve that I’d tried to run away, and I’d been caught and beaten so badly⁠—

No. Don’t. Don’t think about that. Don’t go back there.

I forced a hard swallow and opened my eyes wide, leaning over a little bit like that would improve my breathing. It didn’t, but it was the furthest slant forward that I would allow. Putting my head between my knees wasn’t an option when I had to keep my guard up and be alert. I couldn’t be grounded without being able to look out and see where a threat was coming from. I couldn’t avoid this instinct to pass out or faint when I wasn’t able to brace myself for a hit of danger. I was alone in the backseat, but I wasn’t going to stay here on my own for long.

Sitting back, I sucked in two breaths, the second one short, then exhaled through my dry lips. Over and over, I forced myself to get my shit together.

Yes, I had been sold again.

No, I wasn’t free. Not at all.

But in a long line of shitty events, this wasn’t supposed to stand out.

I’m alive.

Even that couldn’t shock me into optimism. It seemed like a waste of time to think about it. I hadn’t been shot. With that gun aimed at my head, it was one of my closest episodes of a brush with death. But I wasn’t shot. I was alive.

I had been sold. Tomas was shot instead.

By my new master.

I gulped again, easier said than done with how dehydrated I was and how parched my mouth and throat were.

My master.

Not turning my head but swinging my gaze toward the windows, I kept forcing those double inhales and single, long exhales. My new owner was still out there, talking to the other man. Dan? No. Dean. I never forgot a name and I always made sure to label those around me, not that it ever mattered. Too many criminals and lowlifes came and went through my miserable life, but it gave me the delusional concept of power to know who was whom. To witness what they did. Knowledge, like my word, was something I could own and decide what to do with.

Of all the people I’d encountered in my life, though, I never expected to run into him. Into a famed enforcer for the Russian Mafia family in the Las Vegas area.

Lev Volkov.

When he’d told Tomas the name of the purchaser for my crumpled-up and wrinkled contract, my heart stuttered and damn near ceased to beat.

Lev Volkov, as in the man who was fearless and never hesitant to torture and kill?

Lev Volkov, as in the Mafia boss who left corpses and not victims in his wake?

Any member of the infamous Volkov Bratva was bad news—and that was saying something from someone like me who was stuck in a circuit of being contracted to serve one lousy crime lord or thug to another. I might have convinced myself that I knew the worst of the worst out there.

That would’ve been believable before I was bought by Lev Volkov, spared from certain death in a desert standoff.

Don’t panic, Mila. Whatever you do. Do. Not. Panic.

Constantly goading myself to stay one step away from breaking down was wearing on me. But I couldn’t lose. Not today. Not now as Lev Volkov took off his jacket and folded it over his arm as he talked to the other man out there. Not as he stood tall and strong, the white shirt stretching over the bulk of muscles in his shoulders, arms, and across his back as he approached the car. Through the fabric, the dark lines of ink stood out.