“This silence has to end.”

Jaya turned to glance back at Ivan as he stepped out on the balcony to join her. She ignored him and continued to watch Jakarta at night, sure she would never get enough. It was by far the most breathtaking sight she’d ever seen. Though she was a millionaire many times over, Jaya was not actually well travelled. Well… that wasn’t actually true. She’d travelled and lived on most of the world’s continents. But she’d lived mostly in basements, in out-of-the-way backwood hovels where no one would think to look for her. Or find her if they were looking. Until Ivan.

“I will be forced to use unsavoury methods if you don’t start talking, Jaya,” he said impatiently.

This time when she refused to speak he grabbed her arm and swung her around to face him. She frowned and glared up at him, finally acknowledging his existence with a derisive snort. “Like what?” she asked. “Drug me? Hit me? You already tried those things. I’m not impressed, Ivan. Do your worst. I’ve been trained to withstand you.”

He laughed, though the sound wasn’t pleasant. “You have no idea what I can do to you, little girl. You’re the one person in the world I would hesitate to harm. Otherwise you would’ve already given me everything I wanted by now and been irreparably harmed in the process.”

She shuddered but lifted her chin and refused to back down. “You don’t scare me.”

“You sound like a child,” he said derisively with a shake of his head. “You were sent to me on purpose, a meal to a lion. Your so-called father could not have thought you would survive the experience of meeting me, yet he sent you anyway.” She opened her mouth to reply, to deny him, but he shook her, squeezing her arm in a tight grip. “Do not bother to deny what we are both intelligent enough to know is true. You must simply look past the brainwashing.”

She gritted her teeth and yanked on her arm. He refused to let her go, instead taking her other arm and forcing her back against his front. She struggled, but he simply waited her out. There wasn’t much she could do. The only clothes he’d supplied were a selection of saris so she was already limited as her limbs were bound by flowing scarves and a long skirt. She wanted to scream and shout, but finally just huffed an annoyed breath and decided to stand stiffly in his arms. Unfortunately, her exertions made her breathe heavily and each intake of breath brought with it an inhalation of his delicious scent, tantalizing and teasing her until she was ready to scream.

Ivan Vogel was her enemy. Had been her enemy for twelve years. Since the moment Father had rescued her. Yet… Ivan was determined to keep her. To give her pleasure. To twist her against Father, to make her spill her secrets. The ones she was supposed to guard with her life. She was so confused.

He dropped his face against her neck and kissed her. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Something is happening to me, to us. I can’t stand the idea of hurting you. But if you don’t give me something else, I’ll have to hand you over to Keane. He doesn’t have the attachment I’ve developed. He’ll be able to get the information we need.”

She jerked against him, her heart speeding up until she thought it would leap out of her chest and run away like a scared little rabbit. She and Keane had bonded a tiny bit but she was under no illusion that the giant Irishman wouldn’t torture her for information. A sob erupted from her throat. “I don’t want that,” she whispered shakily. Of course she didn’t. No one wanted to be fucking tortured.

“Then give me something,” he said, resting his chin on her head. “Tell me something to stop me from handing you over. Because we need something, Jaya. I’m not trying to upset you needlessly, but this is a matter of your safety. Whoever is targeting me has shown a willingness to harm you as well and I won’t have that. You are the key to finding this individual.”

She gasped and twisted her head up to look at him. “Father would never hurt me!” she insisted trying to make him believe her.

He shook his head. “I think you’re wrong.”

Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know what to say,” her voice took on a panicky edge. “I don’t want Keane to torture me! But I can’t betray Father either. He took me under his wing when I was vulnerable. He trained me, made me his protégé. He took care of me when no one else would.”

Ivan’s eyes gleamed in the darkness of the balcony and she realized that her words, as innocuous as they were, were exactly what Ivan wanted. He said as much, taking her by the shoulders and turning her to face him, the lights of Jakarta at her back. “You don’t have to betray your adoptive father, Jaya. Just answer my questions as best you can. If you do that much, with as much honesty as you can, then I won’t give you to Keane.”

She thought about it for a second, a tear escaping her eye and streaking down her cheek. “It still feels like betrayal,” she whispered. “Like I shouldn’t be here with you. Touching you. H-he hates you so much. But you confuse me, Ivan.”

Ivan’s expression melted into something close to pity. He wrapped an arm around her and held her close. For once she accepted his comfort without putting up a struggle. She tucked her head beneath his chin and wrapped her arms around his waist. She felt a slight jolt of surprise go through him at her acquiescence, the first time since they’d met. Then he tightened his grip on her and gave her all the warm strength she could hope for. When they surfaced from the hug, he led her back into the room and sat her down on the bed.

“Answer as best you can, as truthfully as you can,” he said gruffly, his voice softer now.

She nodded.

“When did you meet your adoptive father?”

She thought about it. There was no reason to withhold the information. “When I was thirteen.”

He nodded and winced a little before smoothing his expression back to its usual granite. “Shortly after your family was killed then,” he said. “You met him in Mumbai?”

She nodded, her gaze following him as he paced the floor of the bedroom.

“How did you meet him, Jaya?”

The uncompromising way he said her name told her Ivan wasn’t going to give her a pass on this question. That he wanted to know the answer and she wasn’t going to get away with the so-called silent treatment she’d been giving him. She bit her lip and tried to rapidly sift through information in her head so he couldn’t identify Father through the story of how they met. It was a unique story, yet she didn’t think it would immediately identify the man that adopted her off the streets of Mumbai.

“Speak, Jaya,” Ivan demanded, stopping in front of her, his hands on his hips, his glacial eyes laser-focused on her.

She knew Ivan was giving her this one chance to have a conversation with him, to earn his trust, to find their way toward a mutual understanding that didn’t include a lifetime of distrust, torture and cages, at least until she found a way to leave. She nodded and took a breath, then released it and began speaking. “After my family died, I was left penniless, homeless and completely without family. Within days I was shunted onto the streets and then days after that I was dirty and starving.” Ivan made a sound as though he would interrupt so she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, I wasn’t the only child to face a situation like that in India. At least I was smart and resourceful. Before long, I was running with a gang of thieves and pickpockets.”

He nodded and sat beside her, picking her hand up. He remained quiet allowing her to continue the story. She glanced at him curiously. He was such a strange man, so driven, so brutal. Yet when he decided he wanted to make her part of his life, there was no hesitation. He softened a part of himself for her. She knew from his actions and words that it wasn’t a usual occurrence for him to soften himself for a woman, or for anyone for that matter. She was special, an anomaly.

“I was a highly intelligent child, so picking pockets became a skill I rapidly adapted too,” she said with a smirk. “Until I picked the wrong pocket. He noticed right away. Grabbed my scrawny wrist and shook it. I was holding his new phone in that hand. He threatened to cut my arm right off if I didn’t give it back, which if course I did. He looked like the bogeyman on steroids. I hit the pavement, bowing and scraping and swearing never to steal anything from anyone ever again.”

“Lies,” Ivan chuckled.

She smiled a little and ducked her head with a shrug. “Of course. I wasn’t about to starve in a gutter somewhere. Besides, I wasn’t after his actual phone.”

Ivan nodded, his eyes gleaming with pride. “Clever little girl, weren’t you? Tell me what you did then.”

Her slight smile turned into a full grin. “I cloned his phone, specifically the apps for financial institutions and credit cards. I usually targeted marks that looked wealthy and technologically advanced for the time.”

“And what year would that be?” Ivan asked. “2005?”

“2006,” she corrected him. Then gasped, slapped a hand over her mouth and scooted back on the bed. She shook her head and looked horrified. “I didn’t mean to say that!”

Ivan placed a hand on her knee and wrapped long fingers around her. “It’s okay sweetheart, calm down,” he instructed, his voice firm. “There’s no way we can identify Father from what little information you’ve given us. I’m a master at interrogation and you haven’t betrayed anyone. You need to just relax.”

She nodded, but she still felt torn up inside at what she’d accidentally said. Apparently the expression on her face told Ivan as much. He wrapped his arms around her and hauled her into his lap, rubbing his hands over her. He unwound the brightly patterned scarf from her shoulders and placed a kiss on her breastbone.

“Sweetheart, I really just want to hear more about what a clever child you were,” he said, tilting her face up so she could read the honesty in his clear grey eyes. “You are a remarkable woman. And I want to know how such a woman was created. Please continue your story.”

After a moment of thought she nodded and sniffled. “The population of Mumbai in 2006 was around twelve point four million people. The odds of you tracing Father from what I’ve told you so far are pretty astronomical.”

Ivan chuckled. “Indeed, I’d be at it for a long time if I tried to sift through the individuals. Please continue, Jaya.”

She glanced up at him sharply to see if he was making fun of her. “Well, I cloned the phone and then I took the clone back to my makeshift home. Basically, a box in the slums with some stolen computer equipment. I ran a program that quickly cracked the passcodes and then I emptied his accounts, easy as pie.” She said smugly. “Of course, I was too young to do more than set up a shell account to pour my stolen funds into. Didn’t have ID and wasn’t old enough to get any, but as soon as I turned sixteen my plan was to get some ID, transfer some money around and live like a queen in the Bahamas somewhere. At the time I didn’t have all the kinks worked out of that plan, but I would’ve figured it out.”

“I believe it. So what happened?” Ivan asked.

“He was smarter than my usual marks,” she admitted. “Figured out what happened, how it happened and who did it. He watched the marketplace where I targeted him and caught me in the act, doing it to another rich mark. He dragged me right off the streets and into his fancy car. I seriously thought I was about to die, then and there. Instead, he offered to mentor me for a warm place to stay and regular meals.”

“And you agreed?” Ivan asked skeptically.

“Of course not!” Jaya made a derisive sound. “A white dude offers a little Indian girl a place to stay and some food? Are you serious? No fucking way! I ran away so many times in the first few months, it makes what I did to your little island look like child’s play.”

Ivan started laughing. He couldn’t help it. The way she spoke, the look on her face as she spoke, the solid belief in her own intelligence and abilities, she was his perfect match. He just wished she would wise up and realize it.

“Fuck. My. Life!” she snapped.

“What?” Ivan asked, still laughing.

“I just told you Father is Caucasian,” she said with an annoyed sigh. “I may as well just draw you a map to his house and give you a family picture.”

Ivan sobered quickly, his gaze caressing her beautiful features. “Yes, you really should, sweetheart. Because this is going to end in one way only. The death of the man you call Father. His threat to me has become a threat to you and that can’t be allowed.”

Her eyes took on a haunted look. “Ivan,” she whispered. “I don’t know what to do. I think I’m becoming attached to you, but I owe him so much.”

He shook his head and smoothed the hair back from her face. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of everything for you.”