All Chapters of CAPTIVE SINS: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

"The men said they saw strange people when Konstantin was being lowered to the ground," Xavier said as both of them walked toward the car.Dimitri nodded. He had expected it. He had known the moment he confirmed Konstantin's burial date that certain people would show up, drawn to the event the way wolves were drawn to anything that smelled like weakness or opportunity. He had already instructed his men to track them quietly. He would get the report later.Right now he had somewhere else to be.They got into the car. Dimitri started the engine and pulled out of the church area without a word. The silence settled between them immediately, thick and loaded the way it always was when they were alone together. At least at the penthouse there were other people, other sounds, other things to look at. In the car there was nothing. Just the two of them and the road and every unresolved thing sitting in the air between them pretending not to exist.It was awkward in a way Dimitri refused to ack

Natasha pushed the phone away from her and then pulled it back.She stared at the email one more time.You met with Chloe, right?That was it. That was all it said. No name. No demand. No explanation. Just that one quiet sentence sitting there like it already knew the answer and was asking purely to let her know that it knew.She picked up her fork and set it down again.She was done eating. She had been done eating since the notification came in but she was still sitting here because getting up felt like admitting that this had properly rattled her and she was not ready to admit that yet.She opened the email and typed back.Who are you? Stop sending me cryptic messages and just tell me directly what you want from me. And how do you know I met with Chloe? Come out clearly or stop messaging me entirely.She sent it and put the phone face down on the table.Then she picked it up and looked at it again.Nothing. No reply. Of course no reply. Whoever this was only communicated on their o

Natasha stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked at Xavier and Xavier looked back at her and for a second neither of them moved.Then he smiled. Easy and natural like she had not just caught him whispering instructions into a phone at one in the morning in the dark."Oh, Natasha," he said. "What are you doing down here?"She walked to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. "Couldn't sleep," she said simply. She cracked the bottle open and drank. "What are you doing down here?""Business associate," he said. "Called at a bad time."She looked at him over the rim of the bottle.A business associate. In the middle of the night. She turned the explanation over once in her mind and then set it aside. People called at all hours. It happened. She was not going to stand here and make something out of nothing when her head was already full of things she could not sort through.She set the bottle on the dining table and pulled out a chair. Xavier came and sat across from her, settling

Natasha turned in her seat and looked at Dimitri standing at the bottom of the stairs and her first thought was how long has he been there.Her second thought was that his face was something she had not seen before. Not the cold control. Not the quiet intensity. Something underneath all of that. Something raw and ugly and tangled that was trying to come out as anger because anger was the only language he trusted."Are you trying to get people to buy your fake emotions?" he said. His voice was cold and angry and something else underneath both of those things. Something she could not name yet.Xavier stood up from his chair. He did not raise his voice. He did not match the energy. He just stood and looked at his brother and said, "Will you calm down? I am not selling anything. I am not manipulating anyone. I said I regret what I did. That is the truth.""So what?" Dimitri took one step down. His eyes were fixed on Xavier and only Xavier. Like Natasha had ceased to exist in the room enti

Natasha sat at the mirror desk and stared at Chloe's message.She read it again. Then again. Then she set the phone face down on the desk and looked at her own reflection for a long moment.Was she making the right choice.She looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were still slightly swollen from last night. Her hair was undone. She looked like someone who had spent five hours waiting for a message that never came and had finally decided to stop waiting.Yes. She was making the right choice.She stood up, grabbed her phone and typed fast."Where are we meeting?"She hit send before she could second guess it and walked straight out of the room without looking back. The elevator dinged as she stepped in and she rode it down with her arms crossed and her jaw set and her mind completely made up for the first time in weeks.She was leaving this penthouse. Today. Right now.She had blocked Dimitri. She had made her decision. She had forced her mind to close every door that led back to h