Page 18 of Kept By the Bratva
Nate.
The stranger.
No. No!I repelled the idea.
They were the same. Nate was my one-time lover, that man I couldn’t forget, but somehow, he was the same person as that stranger who’d kissed me in the alley last night.
And here, right now, my eyes were deceiving me, making me think this killer, this criminal was the man I yearned for.
“Run home and don’t tell the cops who you saw or where you were.”
His voice. I froze at the tone of his voice. Itwashim. He’d spoken so roughly and with authority that night we’d shared.
“Go!” he shouted at the girl he’d rescued.
It’s him. It’s fucking him!
He didn’t look the same. Not at all. His eyes were light blue, not dark green. His hair was golden and buzzed short, not long and brown. But his features remained the same.
Nate.
“I’m going to sample you, bitch,” a man threatened to the woman trapped next to me.
“Please,” she begged. “Please don’t hurt me.”
He grinned, and I watched in horror as he felt her up while cutting at her rope. “Yeah. We’re going to have some fun.”
My stomach clenched and roiled as I tried to shy back from another man reaching for me.
“Yeah. Nothing wrong with sampling a little here and there, huh?” he taunted as he reached for my rope.
“Let me go!” I shouted and tried to dodge his attempts to touch me under my dress.
We all cried out, almost in a chorus. “You releasedher, so let me go too! I won’t tell anyone. I won’t say a word!” another woman sobbed.
I didn’t have time to get over the shock of realizing Nate was here. I had to survive. I had to get away. The soldier gave up trying to reach for me, and I kicked out and kneed at him, grunting and breathing hard to fight and escape with all my might.
I needed control. Something. I couldn’t let this be my life. Taken and kidnapped, only to be taken captive by another who’d sample me and defile me. I refused to let that be my life!
“Let mego, asshole!” I gritted my teeth, pulling on the ropes that still bound me to the wall like I was nothing more than a leashed animal. Bringing my foot up, I kicked him square in the crotch, triumphant when he groaned and reached over to protect his nuts.
He straightened too soon, snarling at me with the clear intention to hurt me burning in his eyes. I tightened my muscles, bracing for the hit of his hand as he reared back his arm to slap me.
The pain never came.
His arm remained still in the air, held back with another man’s strong fingers clutched around his wrist.
Nate.
He stared at me like nothing else mattered. Like he couldn’t believe that he was looking at me. Surprise was an understatement. He looked shocked and rooted in disbelief that he’d encountered me here, like this.
“Don’t even think about it,” he growled at the other man.
The possessive wrath in his gaze chilled me as he flung the other man’s arm away. Still grimacing and rubbing his crotch, the other man retreated, letting my former lover step up closer to me.
His gaze never left me. Looking me over, up and down, then every time returning to my face, he seemed to study me in further conviction that I was the woman he’d fucked so well that he’d imprinted himself on my soul.
“Let me go,” I pleaded, quieter and hoping he would have some thread of compassion now that he realized we weren’t strangers.