Obsession Mine (Tormentor Mine Book 2)

by Anna Zaires

  That’s what I should do, I know that. Keeping Sara with me will destroy her. I see it now, as clearly as the stitches on her forehead. Even though there were times she seemed content back in Japan, inside, she was torn and bleeding. The separation from her family and the loss of her career are wounds that may never fully heal. Already, here at the clinic, she’s trying to help the doctors with the other patients—when she’s not asking them to call the FBI, that is.

  My little bird hasn’t given up on flight, and I’m afraid she never will.

  The phone calls with her parents don’t help matters. I’ve let her talk to them every day this week, but that just seems to make things worse. By now, Sara has been gone for five months, and despite her reassurances to the contrary, her family is convinced she’s being held against her will.

  “Why won’t you just come home?” her mother asks in frustration as I listen in on one of those conversations. “If you’re just traveling with that man, you should have no problem coming home for a visit. You know they’ve already replaced you at the hospital, don’t you? Your dad and I begged and pleaded for them to wait, but they were swamped. And your friend Marsha—she’s been calling every week to ask about you. Why haven’t you called her or anyone else from the hospital? They’re all worried about you, darling, and so are we. And your dad’s heart—” She stops, but not before Sara turns sickly pale underneath her bruises.

  “What about Dad’s heart?” Her voice takes on a panicked note. “Please, Mom, what’s wrong with Dad’s heart?”

  “Well, he’s not getting any younger, and neither am I,” Lorna Weisman says, and I hear Sara blow out a relieved breath when she realizes her mother doesn’t mean anything specific. My hackers have been keeping an eye on the Weismans’ medical records, and I would’ve told Sara if there’d been any new developments. Still, I can tell this scared her. It’s one of Sara’s biggest fears: that something could happen to her parents while she’s not there… that she would not be able to help the people she loves most because she’s my prisoner halfway around the world.

  “Please, Mom, don’t even talk about such things,” she says, forcing a false cheerfulness into her tone. “I’m fine, and I will try to come home for a visit soon.”

  “When?” her mother demands. “Give us a date.”

  Sara glances in my direction. “I can’t. Not yet.”

  “Why not? Is it because he won’t let you?”

  “No, Mom. I already explained. The whole thing with the FBI is a big misunderstanding, but until it’s straightened out, Peter can’t go—”

  “Bullshit.” It’s her father cutting in; he must’ve been listening on the loudspeaker all along. “He can’t, but you certainly can—and you should. If he’s not holding you captive, then come home. Get away from that criminal. You know they think he’s killed people? They don’t tell us anything, of course, but we overheard them talking and—”

  “Dad, I have to go. I’m sorry. We’ll talk later in the week, okay? Love you!”

  Sara hangs up before her father can say another word, and though her face is carefully blank, I can tell she’s on the verge of tears. Quietly, I walk over to her bed, and taking care not to jostle her sore shoulder, I pull her into my lap.

  Then I hold her as she cries, my own despair growing as I realize that something’s going to have to change.

  I can’t let her go, but I can’t keep her either.

  What makes my dilemma worse is that since the accident, something’s changed between us. I feel it, and it crushes my nobler impulses whenever they arise. What I’ve always wanted—for Sara to share my feelings—seems to finally be within my reach. The way she clings to me, the way she looks at me these days—it all adds fuel to my compulsive need to keep her near, to hold her tight and never set her free.

  I want to keep her in a gilded cage forever, so I can make sure she’s always safe.

  I want to protect her from everything, including my own twisted needs.

  “The doctors said that it’s okay, you know,” she murmurs that night, reaching under the blanket to wrap her slender hand around my aching cock. “Let me—”

  “No.” Grimacing in agony, I carefully guide her hand away, even though every cell in my body weeps at the loss of her willing touch. “Not tonight, ptichka. You’re not well yet.”

  The doctors might’ve cleared some low-impact sexual activities, but I know myself, and the intensity of my lust for Sara terrifies me. My need for her is too violent, too uncontrolled. I can’t risk touching her until she’s fully healed, so I force myself to wait until she’s better.

  Until I can get past my excruciating indecision and figure out what to do.

  By the end of the second week, Sara’s stitches come out, and the doctors tell us point blank that there’s zero reason for us to remain at the clinic. One even dares to point out that in a regular hospital, Sara would have been discharged after the first night. I don’t give a fuck about their opinions, of course, but Sara’s is a different matter.

  She’s sick of staying at the clinic and ready to go anywhere, even back to our home in Japan.

  “Please, Peter, it’s enough. I’m perfectly fine,” she insists, and I finally give in, telling Anton to prepare the plane for tomorrow morning.

  “About fucking time,” he mutters darkly. “We were sure you decided to retire and take up residency at this place.”

  I fight the urge to snarl at him, because he’s absolutely right. Ever since Sara’s accident, I’ve put everything on hold, ignoring the job offers that have been pouring in. Our fame in the underworld is spreading, and we should capitalize on it.

  A few more jobs like the one in Turkey, and my teammates and I will actually be able to retire.

  We’ll have enough to evade authorities for life.

  It’s late that evening when I get up to check my email. As usual, my inbox is flooded with messages from clients both current and prospective. Some of the offers coming in are laughable—five hundred thousand dollars to eliminate a local mobster, a million euros to rid someone of a wealthy uncle—but many are worth considering.

  I’m almost done reading through the messages when a new email comes in. I open it—and stare in shock at the amount offered.

  One hundred million euros.

  Four times more than our most lucrative payout to date.

  It’s from Danilo Novak, the Serbian arms dealer who’s making inroads into Kent and Esguerra’s business. And if the amount wasn’t enough to intrigue me, the name of the target definitely does.

  Novak wants me to eliminate Julian Esguerra, my former employer—the man who vowed to kill me for saving his life while endangering his wife.

  Stunned, I go through the email again, my mind racing with the implications. Reading between the lines, Novak seems to have some assets in play that would reduce the difficulty of the hit from impossible to impossibly dangerous. Regardless, if we took this job, Esguerra would be our most challenging target yet.

  It’s also the only job we’d need to be set financially for life.

  As I sit there, staring at my laptop screen, another idea comes to me—one just as dangerous, and infinitely more tempting.

  If I handle things just right, this job could indeed be the answer to everything.

  I could keep Sara… and give her the life she wants.

  The End

  Thank you for reading! If you would consider leaving a review, it would be greatly appreciated. Peter & Sara’s story concludes in Destiny Mine. If you’d like to be notified when it’s out, please sign up for my new release email list at http://www.annazaires.com/.

  If you’re enjoying this series, you might like the following books:

  The Twist Me Trilogy – Julian & Nora’s story, where Peter appears as a secondary character and gets his list

  The Capture Me Trilogy – Lucas & Yulia’s story

  The Mia & Korum Trilogy – A dark sci-fi romance

  The Krinar Captive – A standalo
ne sci-fi romance

  The Krinar Kindle World stories – Sci-fi romance stories by other authors, set in the Krinar world

  Collaborations with my husband, Dima Zales:

  Mind Machines – An action-packed technothriller

  The Mind Dimensions Series – Urban fantasy

  The Last Humans Trilogy – Dystopian/post-apocalyptic science fiction

  The Sorcery Code – Epic fantasy

  Additionally, if you like audiobooks, please click HERE to check out this series and our other books in audio.

  And now please turn the page for a little taste of Twist Me, Capture Me, and The Krinar Captive.

  Excerpt from Twist Me

  Author’s Note: Twist Me is a dark erotic trilogy about Nora and Julian Esguerra. All three books are now available.

  Kidnapped. Taken to a private island.

  I never thought this could happen to me. I never imagined one chance meeting on the eve of my eighteenth birthday could change my life so completely.

  Now I belong to him. To Julian. To a man who is as ruthless as he is beautiful—a man whose touch makes me burn. A man whose tenderness I find more devastating than his cruelty.

  My captor is an enigma. I don’t know who he is or why he took me. There is a darkness inside him—a darkness that scares me even as it draws me in.

  My name is Nora Leston, and this is my story.

  It’s evening now. With every minute that passes, I’m starting to get more and more anxious at the thought of seeing my captor again.

  The novel that I’ve been reading can no longer hold my interest. I put it down and walk in circles around the room.

  I am dressed in the clothes Beth had given me earlier. It’s not what I would’ve chosen to wear, but it’s better than a bathrobe. A sexy pair of white lacy panties and a matching bra for underwear. A pretty blue sundress that buttons in the front. Everything fits me suspiciously well. Has he been stalking me for a while? Learning everything about me, including my clothing size?

  The thought makes me sick.

  I am trying not to think about what’s to come, but it’s impossible. I don’t know why I’m so sure he’ll come to me tonight. It’s possible he has an entire harem of women stashed away on this island, and he visits each one only once a week, like sultans used to do.

  Yet somehow I know he’ll be here soon. Last night had simply whetted his appetite. I know he’s not done with me, not by a long shot.

  Finally, the door opens.

  He walks in like he owns the place. Which, of course, he does.

  I am again struck by his masculine beauty. He could’ve been a model or a movie star, with a face like his. If there was any fairness in the world, he would’ve been short or had some other imperfection to offset that face.

  But he doesn’t. His body is tall and muscular, perfectly proportioned. I remember what it feels like to have him inside me, and I feel an unwelcome jolt of arousal.

  He’s again wearing jeans and a T-shirt. A gray one this time. He seems to favor simple clothing, and he’s smart to do so. His looks don’t need any enhancement.

  He smiles at me. It’s his fallen angel smile—dark and seductive at the same time. “Hello, Nora.”

  I don’t know what to say to him, so I blurt out the first thing that pops into my head. “How long are you going to keep me here?”

  He cocks his head slightly to the side. “Here in the room? Or on the island?”

  “Both.”

  “Beth will show you around tomorrow, take you swimming if you’d like,” he says, approaching me. “You won’t be locked in, unless you do something foolish.”

  “Such as?” I ask, my heart pounding in my chest as he stops next to me and lifts his hand to stroke my hair.

  “Trying to harm Beth or yourself.” His voice is soft, his gaze hypnotic as he looks down at me. The way he’s touching my hair is oddly relaxing.

  I blink, trying to break his spell. “And what about on the island? How long will you keep me here?”

  His hand caresses my face, curves around my cheek. I catch myself leaning into his touch, like a cat getting petted, and I immediately stiffen.

  His lips curl into a knowing smile. The bastard knows the effect he has on me. “A long time, I hope,” he says.

  For some reason, I’m not surprised. He wouldn’t have bothered bringing me all the way here if he just wanted to fuck me a few times. I’m terrified, but I’m not surprised.

  I gather my courage and ask the next logical question. “Why did you kidnap me?”

  The smile leaves his face. He doesn’t answer, just looks at me with an inscrutable blue gaze.

  I begin to shake. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “No, Nora, I won’t kill you.”

  His denial reassures me, although he could obviously be lying.

  “Are you going to sell me?” I can barely get the words out. “Like to be a prostitute or something?”

  “No,” he says softly. “Never. You’re mine and mine alone.”

  I feel a tiny bit calmer, but there is one more thing I have to know. “Are you going to hurt me?”

  For a moment, he doesn’t answer again. Something dark briefly flashes in his eyes. “Probably,” he says quietly.

  And then he leans down and kisses me, his warm lips soft and gentle on mine.

  For a second, I stand there frozen, unresponsive. I believe him. I know he’s telling the truth when he says he’ll hurt me. There’s something in him that scares me—that has scared me from the very beginning.

  He’s nothing like the boys I’ve gone on dates with. He’s capable of anything.

  And I’m completely at his mercy.

  I think about trying to fight him again. That would be the normal thing to do in my situation. The brave thing to do.

  And yet I don’t do it.

  I can feel the darkness inside him. There’s something wrong with him. His outer beauty hides something monstrous underneath.

  I don’t want to unleash that darkness. I don’t know what will happen if I do.

  So I stand still in his embrace and let him kiss me. And when he picks me up again and takes me to bed, I don’t try to resist in any way.

  Instead, I close my eyes and give in to the sensations.

  All three books in the Twist Me trilogy are now available (click HERE). Please visit my website at www.annazaires.com to learn more and to sign up for my new release email list.

  Excerpt from Capture Me

  Author’s Note: Capture Me is a dark romance trilogy featuring Lucas & Yulia. It parallels some of the events in the Twist Me trilogy. All three books are now available.

  She fears him from the first moment she sees him.

  Yulia Tzakova is no stranger to dangerous men. She grew up with them. She survived them. But when she meets Lucas Kent, she knows the hard ex-soldier may be the most dangerous of them all.

  One night—that’s all it should be. A chance to make up for a failed assignment and get information on Kent’s arms dealer boss. When his plane goes down, it should be the end.

  Instead, it's just the beginning.

  He wants her from the first moment he sees her.

  Lucas Kent has always liked leggy blondes, and Yulia Tzakova is as beautiful as they come. The Russian interpreter might’ve tried to seduce his boss, but she ends up in Lucas’s bed—and he has every intention of seeing her there again.

  Then his plane goes down, and he learns the truth.

  She betrayed him.

  Now she will pay.

  He steps into my apartment as soon as the door swings open. No hesitation, no greeting—he just comes in.

  Startled, I step back, the short, narrow hallway suddenly stiflingly small. I’d somehow forgotten how big he is, how broad his shoulders are. I’m tall for a woman—tall enough to fake being a model if an assignment calls for it—but he towers a full head above me. With the heavy down jacket he’s wearing, he takes up almost the entire hallway.


  Still not saying a word, he closes the door behind him and advances toward me. Instinctively, I back away, feeling like cornered prey.

  “Hello, Yulia,” he murmurs, stopping when we’re out of the hallway. His pale gaze is locked on my face. “I wasn’t expecting to see you like this.”

  I swallow, my pulse racing. “I just took a bath.” I want to seem calm and confident, but he’s got me completely off-balance. “I wasn’t expecting visitors.”

  “No, I can see that.” A faint smile appears on his lips, softening the hard line of his mouth. “Yet you let me in. Why?”

  “Because I didn’t want to continue talking through the door.” I take a steadying breath. “Can I offer you some tea?” It’s a stupid thing to say, given what he’s here for, but I need a few moments to compose myself.

  He raises his eyebrows. “Tea? No, thanks.”

  “Then can I take your jacket?” I can’t seem to stop playing the hostess, using politeness to cover my anxiety. “It looks quite warm.”

  Amusement flickers in his wintry gaze. “Sure.” He takes off his down jacket and hands it to me. He’s left wearing a black sweater and dark jeans tucked into black winter boots. The jeans hug his legs, revealing muscular thighs and powerful calves, and on his belt, I see a gun sitting in a holster.

  Irrationally, my breathing quickens at the sight, and it takes a concerted effort to keep my hands from shaking as I take the jacket and walk over to hang it in my tiny closet. It’s not a surprise that he’s armed—it would be a shock if he wasn’t—but the gun is a stark reminder of who Lucas Kent is.

  What he is.

  It’s no big deal, I tell myself, trying to calm my frayed nerves. I’m used to dangerous men. I was raised among them. This man is not that different. I’ll sleep with him, get whatever information I can, and then he’ll be out of my life.