Enslave: The Taming of the Beast - By Cathy Yardley Page 0,2

seemed to be smirking.

“What are you going to do?” Nadia asked. “Kill him? Kill all of us? Over a car?”

He seemed surprised. Her father, on the other hand, was appalled. “Nadia!” he barked.

The man took a step closer to her, his presence overwhelming her senses. He stared down at her. “Don’t I frighten you?”

“Does it matter?” she countered, not flinching, not even taking a step back, even though her neck craned painfully to look up into his eyes. “What do you want?”

“Nadia,” her father hissed, stepping in front of her sisters, his eyes wild. “This is Dominic Luder. If you knew who he was…what he’s capable of…”

“No, no,” the man interrupted, without breaking eye contact with her. “In the first place, it wasn’t simply a car. It was a 1958 Ferrari Testa Rossa, in its original red.”

Testa Rossa. “Your rose,” she whispered, stunned. That sort of a car was a collector’s wet dream.

“Indeed,” he admitted. “Do you know how much something like that costs?”

“Millions.” She shot a quick, accusing glance at her father, who hung his head in shame.

“In the second place, it held a lot of, ah, personal meaning for me. It’s going to be murder to get it back,” the large man mused, and she wondered if he was being metaphorical. “You see why I’m so perturbed?”

“Perhaps I can steal it back,” her father offered in a shaky voice. “Please. I’m sure we can work something out!”

“I’m not in the habit of negotiating,” Dominic said, and slowly reached into his suit jacket. Impeccably tailored, the movement nevertheless revealed the telltale bulge of a gun. His eyes were a frozen, crystalline blue, like the sky in the Ukraine in December. He was going to do something terrible.

Unless she stopped him.

“What do you want?” she repeated, stepping between the giant and her father, her sisters. “If you kill him, or us, then you’ll just be causing yourself more problems, and you still won’t have your car. What would be the point?”

“Nadia!” This time, it was her sister Jelena who sounded horrified.

“Are you trying to get us killed?” Irina shrieked.

Nadia was waiting, trying to make sure he wasn’t about to pull his gun. If he didn’t kill her with the first shot, perhaps she could buy the others some time. Hopefully Deidre was out of the house. Should she try to shoot him? Or simply act as a shield? Her mind moved in the sped-up, hyper-clear mode that she shifted into when threatened. Quickly, efficiently, she cycled through possible scenarios.

She didn’t have many options. What few choices she had were very, very bleak.

“You’re either incredibly courageous, or astoundingly stupid,” Dominic said, letting out a low, rumbling chuckle. “You really aren’t afraid of me, are you?”

Something had changed in his eyes. She couldn’t place it.

“I’m terrified of you,” she said.

“But that hasn’t stopped you.”

She shook her head. “I’m not going to let you hurt my family,” she said quietly. “Not without doing something. Anything.”

“Nadia…” her father implored.

“Aren’t you the brave one,” the man said, with biting sarcasm. “What do you propose I do instead?”

Her mind whirred. She hadn’t considered that he might be open to negotiation. New options clicked and shifted.

“Take me.”

Everyone else in the room fell silent, and she felt them staring at her. She wasn’t even sure where the idea came from.

Her mind flashed back, to a terrible afternoon in Cherni-hiv.

Sex is a universally accepted currency. The old doctor’s horrible chuckle as he gave her an ultimatum: medicine in exchange for an hour on her back.

It hadn’t been easy. But it needed to be done.

“You can keep me as collateral,” she offered. “Until my father can get the car back. You can do whatever you want to me until then.”

“Nadia, no,” her father said, trying to pull her away. “Not this time! You don’t understand…”

Dominic shot him a level stare, and her father’s words stopped abruptly.

“Whatever I want, hmm?” Dominic’s voice tickled over her nerve endings like a cloud. “Do you really know what that entails?”

She bit her lip as fear slashed at her heart.

“No,” she admitted.

“But you’ll still agree to it?” he asked. His voice sounded toneless, maybe casually curious. But the burning in his eyes suggested something else. “You’ll do whatever I say? You’ll keep your end of the bargain?”

She looked at her family—her terrified sisters, her parch ment-pale father. Thought of her baby half-brother, still nestled in Deidre’s womb.

It’s temporary. You can survive it. For your family, you can do this.

She closed her eyes.

You always survive.

“Anything you