Page 28 of Marked By the Devil

No matter how confusing he could be.

No matter how tempting he could be, either.

9

VIKTOR

Wren and I settled into a routine.

It wasn’t a structured, tidy pattern that we followed for the sake of having some guidance to my unconventional approach of keeping her captive in my house.

But we fell into a rhythm.

Every night, she would give me her back as she sat on the sofa in my room instead of getting into bed with me. Except for that first night. She thought she could slip out and stay in a guest room, where I found her and carried her right back to my room.

Each morning, I would join her for breakfast and shrug at her request to know why she was still a prisoner in my house.

Then the rest of the expected interactions would follow suit.

She’d try to ignore me as her “captor-slash-roommate,” which was how she referred to me when Maksim questioned her.

I’d test the limits of my patience, asking her about anything that could pertain to that night of almost death.

We’d eat together.

My brothers and cousins would come over to ask what she knew.

And still, her story stayed frustratingly the same.

Before I would consider giving up completely, I had to plan to seduce her for intel.

But the more that we cycled about this simmering chemistry that bubbled up between us, I got hooked on the idea of seducing her for the sake of my sanity.

I couldn’t be there every day for that first week. I still had to manage all the other things that fell on my shoulders. And I did. I was able to leave my house and know that Paul and the other guards would keep her there. I was able to focus on all that I supervised and know that my brothers and cousins would try to get answers out of her too.

“Look, all I’m saying is that her story doesn’t change,” Nikolai admitted when I came home.

“And the more that you just… live with her like this,” Maksim said, “it seems like a waste of time to expect her to have anything useful for us.”

I shook my head, watching her clean up the kitchen from where she’d made dinner. It might have been a trick of the eye, but I could’ve sworn I saw Paul’s mouth move, like he was helping her clean up and actually talking to her.

“I beg to differ. She could still unknowingly hold onto the critical intelligence we need.”

My brothers shared a glance and didn’t comment.

“And because we’re being so careful not to mention Gregori specifically when we ask her anything, it’s a slow approach to getting answers,” I said. We’d all agreed not to mention him by name because if she was at all involved with any bribes from him or his leaders within the network he’d formed, it would be giving away what we knew about his activities.

They left, and I wondered if I was dragging this out too long. If I liked having her here and was duping myself to see her not as an agent who’d have to go back to being the enemy again, but an ally.

She asked daily for clarification as to why she was my prisoner, and I ceased acknowledging her question. But as I stood out on the patio in the dark after my brothers left, I studied her cleaning up the kitchen. She acted like she just fit here, like she could belong here.

She’d met all my brothers and cousins, which should have felt like a risk, letting her see and meet the top of the Bratva leadership, but it hadn’t. It felt more like introducing her to my family and seeing how she’d get along with them.

She’d gone along with me to their houses, which should have seemed like an awkward test. Instead, she’d merely accompanied me and acted like a friend reluctantly tagging along on an errand.

“What the hell am I going to do with you?” I muttered aloud.

No one had posted anything about her being missing.