Ilya stepped forward, his face now less stern. “Talia. Let’s go back to the Hamptons. Your father has too much to concern him without us mentioning this. Any of it.”

I closed my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

I heard Savin say something to Ilya about the syringe Brandon had tried to inject me with. I heard them talking in low whispers, then I heard them scoop it off the ground.

As I pictured the mass of people tonight in the club—men with women, women with women, men with men—my heart felt like it physically cracked down the center. I could see their happy faces as they danced carefree. I wanted someone to dance with. Someone to look at me the way Luka looked at Kisa, the way she always looked at him. Like they were the reason their worlds turned.

I pictured me alone and washing Zaal. I could see my hand running down his rugged face, I could feel him lean in, his breath drifting past my face. My heart kicked into a sprint.

“Ms. Tolstaia?” Ilya called. I quickly blinked away the vision.

“I’m ready to go,” I said abruptly, giving up any fight lingering within me. I set off down the dank alley, walking ahead of Ilya and Savin, feeling the heat of their bodies behind me.

Stopping dead, my arms crossed over my chest, trying to block out both the cold snap in the air and the humiliation I felt.

I turned to my guards. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I won’t pull anything like this on you again. I shouldn’t have put your lives in danger like that. I … I couldn’t live with myself if something ever happened to you both because of me.”

Nothing was said in return to my apology, but I could feel the tension leave the three of us as we approached the bulletproof black Lincoln my byki used. A thought suddenly occurred to me, and I turned to ask, “How did you find me? How did you know where to come looking?”

Ilya and Savin kept their neutral expressions, and I knew why they weren’t explaining it to me.

Without anger, I said, “You’ve got a tracker on me, haven’t you?” They stood, not meeting my eyes, instead focusing on nothing over my head and I glanced down. My purse. There must be a GPS in my purse.

I couldn’t muster the will to even be annoyed.

I moved toward the Lincoln, and Savin brushed past me. He opened the back door of the car and I silently slid inside.

Both of my guards slipped in next to me, shielding me in the center of the backseat. Both of them were in full protection mode, fixing their attention out of the windows, checking for any more potential threats.

I laid my head back against the heated leather seat and closed my eyes. Then my chest constricted as my thoughts drifted back to Zaal. But this time I didn’t fight my want of him. I embraced it. I’d tried to get away from him tonight. From my obsession, from my inexplicable draw to the forbidden slave. It hadn’t worked. In fact, it only served to remind me of the life I was in regardless. One of danger, violence and death. There was no point in fighting who I was, the life I belonged to.

I would never be normal.

Therefore I would no longer crave normal.

And because if that, I knew when I arrived back in my Hamptons home tonight I’d be going to see Zaal.

I had to touch him again.

There was no choice.

I had to be close.

Because something inside me had snapped, and just as my babushka had proclaimed, I knew I would never be the same again.

Chapter Ten

Zaal

“You think it will work this time?” Master asked the man who wore a white coat.

I started shaking at Master’s voice. He was cruel. He would punish me if I ever remembered them, he’d punish me if I didn’t do as he said.

“I fixed the chemical balance, so it should work. We’ll see.”

“It took the dog weeks to recover from the last shot.” I stiffened. Master was angry and my hands shook harder.

I stared at the ceiling. I was strapped down, I couldn’t move. The man in the white coat came closer. My body froze. My chest tightened and I couldn’t breathe.

He hurt me.

He always hurt me.

My eyes widened when I saw what he held in his hands. A needle. A long needle. I tried to lift my hands to stop it going into my arm. The straps held me down. I kicked my feet and thrashed my body trying to escape. The man in the white coat stepped back.

“221, stop!” Master’s voice echoed in my ears. I stopped moving.

Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me anymore, I pleaded in my mind.

Someone laughed as I tried to breathe. “You’ve got him well trained.”

Master laughed. I recognized his laugh. He laughed at me when he hurt me. He laughed at me when he made me bleed, when he hit me, when I cried.

“He’s a weak dog that I broke. Stripped him of his name and that fucking family he belonged to. Now he’s mine. Now he heels only to his master’s voice.”

The laughter got louder, but Master’s command kept my body unmoving on the bed.

The man with the white coat again came closer but he stopped. He was looking at Master. “If I remove the straps will he stay down when I inject him?”

“He’ll do anything I command.” Master paused. “Watch.”

The man in the white coat unfastened my straps. I wanted to move, until Master ordered, “221, stay still. Do not move or you will be punished.”

At his command, my shoulders pressed into the bed. Not even my fingers could move.

“Impressive, Levan,” the man in the white coat congratulated.

“What will be even more impressive is if this shot works. It’ll clear any memory of who he was, and fuel his rage, yes?”

“Yes … flawlessly,” the man confidently replied. I could see the white coat out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t want to see him inject me, so I closed my eyes. A sharp pain spread through the arm. The man in the white coat pushed the needle harder and deeper. I wanted to scream, I wanted to run away, but Master had ordered me not to move.

A hot feeling suddenly filled my arm; the hot feeling quickly shot through my body. I gritted my teeth as the liquid turned to fire in my veins. It hurt, it hurt so much.

My body shook. Something was stabbing my stomach. I couldn’t stand it. It was making me angry; so angry I needed to scream out the pain, I needed to get it out.

But I couldn’t move.… I couldn’t move.…

Snapping my eyes open, I blinked and my body jerked. I blew out a breath. I could move?

I could move.

I squeezed my eyes shut to chase away the nightmare. Master had been there. Master and a man in a white coat, both hurting a boy. Hurting a child who was … who was—

Hearing breathing beside me, I sat up, braced to kill, when I saw her. The golden hair, the brown eyes … her.

I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut trying to remember. Water. Water. She’d washed me. She—

Opening my eyes again, I reached out and, taking her arm, pulled her closer. She let out a shocked cry and her eyes grew big. She looked scared. I didn’t want her scared. I thought she must have been like me. She must be Master’s, too. He never let females that weren’t his near me. Ever.

I had to protect her.

Remembering her from before, I picked up her hand and stared at it. It was so small. Her fingers were so little, and they had a strange color on the end.

Her hand was hot. It was so soft. I ran my fingers over her palm and heard her breathing change. I saw her light skin go red. I wanted to touch it.

Lifting my hand, she went still. I moved my fingers closer and pressed them against her skin. It was soft like her hand. No, softer. And it was warm.