Liam's Witness Protection (Man On A Mission 4) by Amelia Autin Page B

Cate. Dreams of saving her from a fire-breathing dragon...a dungeon...the black knight, who bore a strong resemblance to Aleksandrov Vishenko in armor. Dreams of riding off with Cate on horseback, her slender body cradled protectively in his arms. Even in his dreams he knew it was ridiculous—he didn’t know how to ride. But that detail wasn’t germane, because in his dreams he was invincible—he could damn near do anything he wanted to...in his dreams. And what he wanted to do more than anything was keep Cate safe. No matter what he had to do.

Chapter 5
    A leksandrov Vishenko jerked awake, his heart pounding, shreds of a nightmare still lingering in his mind. He sat up and reached for the ever-present water bottle he kept beside his bed and drank deeply.
    A body stirred beside him. “What is it?” the young woman asked drowsily.
    “Nothing. Go back to sleep,” he answered in harsh tones.
    She obeyed, resettling her blond head on her pillow—
they always obey
—he told himself contemptuously.
Whores always obey.
Only one woman had defied him. One woman had fought him for more than a year, as if she was still the virgin she’d been the first time he’d taken her. Her desperate struggles had added immeasurably to his excitement, and he’d relished conquering her. Each time. Every time.
    Caterina hadn’t cried after the first night. Hadn’t begged him to let her go. Hadn’t begged him for
anything.
But her eyes...her eyes had betrayed her. He’d still been virile enough then to lust after her at least every day. Overpowering her futile struggles—laughing even, when she fought him—his ultimate victory ramping up his sexual prowess in a way he hadn’t achieved since his teenage years. Every time he forced her to admit defeat he walked away feeling like a king. Like a god.
    Then she’d surrendered—or seemed to—and that conquest had been even sweeter. Infinitely sweeter. Knowing she acknowledged him as her master. Knowing, too, she hated his touch despite her surface acquiescence—ahhh, that had kept his excitement flowing. He’d known she tried to escape him in her mind, but he hadn’t cared...so long as her body belonged to him.
    Then she’d escaped in truth, taking all the evidence of his crimes she could lay her hands on. And his life had never been the same. At first he’d tried to find her because he was afraid she’d take her evidence to the authorities. But when the arrest he’d expected almost hourly failed to materialize, his motive for finding her changed. Then he’d thought it was because she’d dared to run, diminishing him in his men’s eyes. In the first year after her departure he’d been forced to put down two attempted takeovers of his empire by men within his organization who’d thought he was losing his touch...just because Caterina had made him look foolish by escaping.
    But after his empire was secure again, after he’d killed a few men to prove himself still the most powerful, the most ruthless of men in the
Bratva
, he realized the real truth. He wanted to bring her back to him—to
force
her back into his bed where she belonged—because sex without Caterina had lost its zest.
    Even though he had his pick of the young women brought into the US by the human trafficking ring, even though his men singled out the prettiest, youngest, most virginal-looking blondes for him to deflower before putting them to work as prostitutes, it still hadn’t been enough. The tears of the women he raped did nothing for him—he’d craved the hate in Caterina’s eyes. The hate...and the immensely powerful feeling it gave him to know she couldn’t stop him taking her...despite her hatred.
    But eventually...after all these years without her...he’d adjusted. The fire to possess her, control her, conquer her, had dimmed. Then he’d merely wanted her dead. Not just to ensure the evidence she’d stolen never fell into the wrong hands—though that had been a concern—but to have his