Capturing Victory (Driven Hearts Book 3)

by Nikita Slater

  She tried her best to blend in with the crowd, which wouldn’t have been easy, due to Ivan’s insistence on her always wearing traditional sari’s, except everyone around her was soaking wet. No one paid any attention to her, despite her strangely wrapped bleeding arm and the shouting tiara-wearing princess trailing after her.

  She stumbled against a good-looking man who was trying to shelter under the awning of an upscale sandwich bistro. Sliding her hand into his jacket, she lowered her lashes and murmured an apology, making sure to thrust her soaking wet cleavage and swath of bared belly out. He was polite enough to glance down at the assets she was so kindly putting on display. He grinned and assured her that he was perfectly fine. He opened his mouth to say something else but Jaya spun away from him, running in the opposite direction, an irate princess hot on her heels.

  The lovely high-end stores were now pretty much empty. She would be quickly caught by either Ivan or one of his men if she didn’t leave the vicinity immediately. She took about five more steps when Ndari caught up with her, careful to take hold of her good arm. She was smart enough not to stop Jaya. Instead, she simply held on for the ride and ran with her.

  “Where are we off to, my dearest tiara buddy?” Ndari puffed from beside her, nearly losing her footing as the heel of her stiletto skidded along the wet marble floor. Jaya caught her and then, thinking fast, pushed Ndari into another store. Swarovski’s jewellery store. Apparently Tiffany’s had some competition in the shopping complex. Ndari gasped and reached out to grab hold of something. Unfortunately, she took hold of a display case full of diamond bracelets, which went crashing to the floor in a shower of sparkles. Two security guards converged on her while Jaya mouthed ‘sorry’ and began running.

  She knew that the main exits were going to be monitored by now, so that left the roof or the parking garage. She decided against the roof since she wouldn’t be able to get off quickly enough. She would have to go to the parking garage. She hurtled toward the stairs leading down, hitting the door so hard it hammered against the wall. There were no sprinklers in the stairwell because the heavy doors were fire resistant. Her waterlogged shoes squished as she ran down the stairs and she had to remind herself to slow down lest she slip on the concrete and hurt herself. Then who would Ivan murder in bloody revenge for hurting her? She snickered hysterically at that thought as she shoved the basement door open and ran into the parking area.

  Perfect! There was a nice selection of fancy cars to choose from and no uppity owners to get annoyed with her need to steal one. Though she dearly wanted to go with the aqua blue Lamborghini, she decided perhaps something a little more understated would be more likely to help her escape. So, channeling her ex-employer’s wife, Riley Hart, she set about hot-wiring a cute little Maserati. She didn’t have any practical experience, but after getting to know Katie’s little pack of misfits, she’d decided to learn. It didn’t take her long to get into the car and disable the alarm. Though it did take several precious minutes for her to overcome the electronic operation before she finally got the engine to turn over.

  “Yes!” she shouted, sitting upright in the seat, her arm shaking with weakness. The scarf was soaked through with blood. She put the car in gear and hit the gas, racing forward through the dim tunnel-like underground garage. She was about to reach for the seatbelt when a shadowy figure stepped out in front of the car.

  “Fuck!” she shouted slamming her foot down on the brake. She wasn’t used to driving a vehicle of any kind, but especially not standard transmission and she stalled the car. She was thrown into the steering wheel, the impact knocking the breath from her. She pushed herself back and glanced fearfully up, knowing exactly who would be standing in front of her stolen car.

  Ivan stood tall and solid, his legs spread, his eyes focused entirely on Jaya through the windshield of the Maserati. He’d discarded his suit jacket. He looked breathtaking, his soaking wet shirt plastered to the muscles of his chest, his dark hair slicked back like he’d run a frustrated hand through the wet mass. His thick eyebrows were lowered as though permanently set in a frown. What stole Jaya’s breath wasn’t the sheer masculine beauty she faced with. It was the empty holster tucked against his side, the gun held in his fist, ready to fire and the look in his eyes that told her that her latest escape attempt would end in severe punishment.

  Next to Ivan, held tight with his hand wrapped around her arm was Ndari. His gun was pressed against her temple. Gone was the usual playfulness on Ndari’s face. There was now only terror and the acceptance that a very dangerous man with the intention of murdering her held her. Jaya’s eyes met Ndari’s and tears spilled from her lashes. They both knew Ivan could reach Jaya and get her from the car if he wanted. There was no way she could start the engine again before he was able to get her out and back into his custody. No, this was punishment for her flight. He’d tested her and she’d failed, leaving the moment the cage door opened.

  She screamed and reached out for her friend, begging him not to do it. She turned to claw at the door, attempting to get to them, knowing it wouldn’t be in time.

  Something banged against the car making Jaya jump. Her eyes flew open and she stared up at the horrific tableau in front of her. Ivan still held Ndari, but he’d dropped his gun hand and slammed it against the hood of the car. His face was ice cold, but his eyes were a raging inferno of anger.

  “Get the fuck out,” he snarled.

  She reached for the door with shaking hands, pushing it open. She glanced down at the blood that flowed freely from her arm to drip onto the doorframe and the concrete below. As she gripped the door with her good hand and pulled herself out, she wondered exactly how bad she’d cut herself. She’d been too preoccupied with escape to really pay attention before. But now that the garage was beginning to swim around her, she thought perhaps the blood loss was somewhat significant.

  Something else caught her attention, something that sparkled for a second in the dim lighting of the underground tunnel. She forced her darkening vision to focus on her left hand as she carefully rounded the car toward Ivan. She was still wearing a beautiful diamond solitaire engagement ring. She let out a weak, bitter laugh. It was perfect. A large, beautifully cut square diamond set in a simple claw with a white gold band. Somehow the ring he’d thrust onto her finger just before she’d unleashed chaos in the jewellery store was exactly the ring she would have chosen.

  As soon as she was close enough Ivan gripped her shoulder and dragged her around the front of the car, pushing her back against the hood. He pinned her, his fingers wrapping around her neck. Even in his anger, his grip wasn’t overly tight, his fingers not hurtful. She could feel the tension thrumming from his body, his arm and through to his hand. He fought with himself, struggled to maintain his cool.

  “Tell me why,” he snarled.

  Jaya blinked up at him, trying to stave off the black fuzziness that ate at the edges of her vision. She licked her lips and shook her head sadly. “I w-was always going to run,” she said quietly. “You knew that, Ivan. A part of you wants to test me, see if I’ll finally stay, but deep down you know I’ll always run. Because you can’t keep something that doesn’t want you unless you keep it locked up.”

  His fingers squeezed just a little tighter, a reminder of her fragility. “I know,” he growled, acknowledging the truthfulness of her words. “That wasn’t what I was asking. I want to know why I didn’t shoot her to punish you.” He flicked his gun back toward Ndari who squeaked and jumped back a step. “We both know I would have. There’s no conscience stopping me.”

  Jaya studied him, feeling her consciousness begin to slip away. She blinked a few more times, forcing herself back to wakefulness. She glanced at Ndari who was hovering with a look of deep concern on her face. Jaya wanted to tell her to run, to save herself in case Ivan changed his mind and killed her in bloody retaliation for Jaya’s escape attempt. But she needed to stay awake long enough to have this conversation.

  “You can’t love me…
can you?” The words burst from her lips in a denial, but as soon as she saw rage morph his features for a split second she knew she was correct.

  He stood, looming over her, his stormy eyes taking her in her sadly bedraggled state. There was no sympathy evident in his gaze. “Anyone else would be well past dead for the things you have said and done to me.”

  Her lips parted as she took in his words. The intensity, the meaning. “You love me,” she whispered.

  “Of course,” he snarled. “Only a sadistic fuck like me would fall in love and do what I’ve done to you. Would lock up a woman and throw away the key. Which is exactly what I’m doing, Jaya. This thing between us is forever. Consider it as good as a marriage.”

  “Dear god,” she whispered.

  She should have run farther, faster. Should’ve just run him over when he stepped in front of the car. Because now he knew her thoughts, her desperate need to escape and return to Father. Now he would never trust her, would watch her every move. It could be months, years even, before another opportunity to leave arose. She was well and truly fucked.

  He said something else, his hands tightening on her, but she didn’t hear. She finally allowed herself to succumb to the swirling blackness that had been threatening to swallow her up. It was safer than contemplating a future as Ivan’s wife.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It occurred to Jaya, as she fought to swim back through the currents of her fuzzy mind toward wakefulness, that she’d never in her life been unconscious until she met Ivan. She’d never needed surgery, never been knocked out or hit in the head. Her luck had definitely taken a turn for the worse when she met the evil arms dealer with a penchant for drugging her and placing her in extreme situations. Perhaps, she would mention this when the shitstorm of his inevitable anger came down upon her head.

  His was the first voice she recognized as she began to wake up. His deep baritone was a sharp reprimand that she couldn’t escape, though she didn’t think she was the recipient of his displeasure this time. She tried to lift her lashes, tried to move her limbs as she waded toward the low murmur of voices, but couldn’t seem to get her own body to respond to her commands. As though he knew she was surfacing, Ivan’s voice drifted closer, his lips brushing against the edge of her ear, his voice taking on a quieter tone, though she still heard the dark promise within, the need to deliver pain as he spoke. “Take it slow, Jaya. You lost a lot of blood.”

  She tried to speak, but no sound emerged. She sucked her lips in, wetted them, and tried again. “Ndari…” she whispered.

  Jaya could sense Ivan’s disappointment. His hand fell on her body, ran down from her shoulder, where his thumb briefly caressed her collar bone before falling to her arm and wrapping around it possessively as if to remind her to whom she belonged, of her current fragility. That she shouldn’t be asking for someone else while at his mercy. She wanted to explain her desperate need to make sure that the other woman still lived, that he hadn’t punished her while Jaya was asleep. She didn’t trust him. But she was too weak to do more than murmur for her companion and pray that he would comply.

  He shifted on the mattress next to her and turned to say sharply to someone, “Get the princess.”

  “Yes sir.” The voice belonged to Keane. She heard a door shut. Jaya let out a sigh, happy her friend was still alive.

  As the seconds ticked by, silence weighed heavily in the room. Ivan’s hands felt like chains, pinning her to the bed beneath her back, though his hold wasn’t hard. Somehow the intent within his heart bled through his veins, making the air around them stormy and sinister. Though the last thing Jaya wanted to do was face him, she forced her eyes open and turned her head. What she saw chilled everything within her. His face was like granite, much the same as when she’d first met him. Except for his eyes; his eyes were on fire. They held possession, love, anger and punishment. He didn’t even attempt to hide his truth from her. He wanted her to know everything he felt.

  She shivered and looked away, glancing around the room. She was back in the bedroom she shared with Ivan, tucked carefully beneath the covers. She looked down at her arm, resting on top of a pillow. It was wrapped in a thick bandage from wrist to elbow. She asked in a tentative voice, “How bad?”

  “Sixteen stitches,” he said coolly. “You didn’t need a blood transfusion, though it was close. I had the best plastic surgeon in the city brought in to make sure the stitching was flawless.”

  She nodded and flexed her fingers then curled them as though about to type on a keyboard. Pain shot through her arm. She winced and relaxed the muscles, allowing her arm to drop back onto the pillow. Ivan watched dispassionately. “I-is there any permanent damage?” she asked hesitantly.

  He didn’t answer for a moment. She glanced back at him, studying his face. She knew exactly what he was thinking; the same thing as she. He was replaying each moment of her escape up to and including the moment she got hurt and then every minute after until he recaptured her. His face darkened as their eyes met and his hand fell on her good wrist, tightening while he thought about how close he came to losing her.

  “No permanent damage,” he growled.

  She stared up at him helplessly and watched the storm brewing within. She knew something awful was coming but didn’t know what. He’d admitted to loving her. But he was not a good man. So what did being loved by a man like Ivan Vogel mean? She suspected she was about to find out.

  “You betrayed me,” he said, ice and fury clashing in his voice. She could feel the barely leashed vibrations running through him.

  He was well and truly pissed at her. “I’ve betrayed you before, run away before, remember?” she said. She twisted her wrist in an attempt to pull it from his hold. He tightened his grip, pressing the metal of her bracelet into her flesh.

  “Not like this,” he said coldly, his grey eyes flickering down her body outlined beneath the covers. “I’ve given you every chance to settle down. I’ve given you more chances than I would have given any other person. You knew better and yet you did it anyway.”

  She sighed and lifted her injured hand, wincing as she did, and pushed a swath of hair from her forehead before letting her arm drop again. He made an annoyed sound and lifted her wrist back onto the pillow, elevating it. “I had to… had to get to Father,” she said quietly. “I don’t belong here anymore.”

  He took her chin in a hard grip and forced her to look at him. “You aren’t going anywhere, ever,” he said. His words were said with such quiet decisiveness that she had no choice but to believe him. “If you make any more attempts to leave I will kill someone you love. Starting with the princess, then your precious cat, then your American friend, Katie Pullman.”

  Tears filled her eyes and she shook her head. “I-I don’t believe you.” She tried to call his bluff, though every part of her screamed that he wasn’t lying. She knew what this man was capable of.

  He stood and leaned over her, placing his hands on either side of her body and caging her in with his tall body. He blocked out the bright Indonesian sunlight and any comfort she might have found in the open balcony doors with the hangings thrown wide, allowing a breeze to flow through.

  “You know the dreams that I have, the night terrors?” When she nodded, he continued. “They aren’t about my family, not really. In them I’m reliving what I did to the families of the men that mowed down my village. How I stalked and hunted them. How I maimed and murdered, not just men, but women and children… elderly… everyone. I killed them all, and Jaya, I enjoyed every moment of it. If I could go back, I would. Just so I could relive those moments, spill the blood that runs through the veins of my enemies. Only this time, I would utilize the patience I’ve learned over the years. If I could go back, I would prologue their suffering, explain to them why they were dying with such bloody brutality.”

  “Stop!” she gasped, trying to wrench her chin from his grasp. The horrors of what he was describing were playing out vividly in her mind. He refused to let her go
.

  “Never.” He leaned closer, until his lips brushed against hers in a soft parody of gentleness while his words hit her like bullets. His icy grey eyes pinned her to the bed with maniacal fervor. “I will never let you go, Jaya. And you will never again underestimate me or I will make you regret it.”

  She shivered helplessly, pressing back against the pillows. “How can you want to keep me this way? Doesn’t it matter to you that you’ll never know my love?” Her words came out in a plea.

  He shook his head. “It would seem we are past the point where I can force your love. Now I will have to keep you any way I can have you.” He leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers again. As always there was a jolt between them as currents of attraction passed from one to the other. He leaned back far enough to whisper, “Remember, I will kill the things you love if you betray me again.”

  She nodded, a tear leaking from the corner of her eye and spilling across her cheek to drip from her chin. She gulped back the sobs that threatened to burst from her lips. He released her and stood back, watching her coolly as she struggled to collect herself. When she finally had her emotions under control, she looked up at him and said, “What now? Will you put me back in a cage?”

  He shook his head. “No, I think you understand how serious I am. I’m hoping I won’t have to make an example out of any of your friends. If you agree to my terms then I can allow you the freedom of my property and limited excursions into the city with the appropriate permissions and an armed escort.”