Vow of Deception (Deception Trilogy #1) by Rina Kent

The moment of hesitation vanishes when Crooked Nose and Bulky Blond both face away from me.

I tug on the handle, but the door doesn’t open. “Shit.”

Jamming my sock-covered foot against it, I push, then pull until heat rises up my cheeks. I click the button to lower the glass, but it’s also locked.

“It’s useless. Save your effort.”

I flinch, my movements coming to a screeching halt. In my adrenaline-induced haze, I failed to notice that someone else was in the back seat with me.

Still gripping the handle, I slowly turn my head, hoping to hell that what I just heard was a play of my imagination.

That I’ve thought about him for so long, I’ve started hallucinating.

I’m not.

My lips part as I’m wrenched into those intense gray eyes from this afternoon. They appear darker, more shadowed, as if the night has cast a spell on them.

I cut off eye contact as soon as I make it, because if I keep staring, my skin will crawl, my head will get dizzy, and I’ll feel like vomiting my empty stomach out.

Using my foot on the door, I pull and push on the handle with all my might. At first, I thought the bulky man could be with the police and that he’s picking me up for killing Richard, but there’s no way this Russian stranger is a cop.

He doesn’t look like one.

Maybe he’s a spy, after all. This seems oddly similar to the beginning of some spy movie about an underdog—me—who will be recruited to work in secret for an intelligence agency.

When all the pushing and pulling doesn’t bring me any results, I jam my elbow into the glass. A zing of pain shoots through my whole arm, but I won’t stop, not until I’m out of this place.

It’s starting to feel like that damn closed box. I need out.

I’m about to punch the glass with my fist, when the stranger’s voice fills the air, “It’s bulletproof, so you’ll only hurt yourself.”

My arm lies limp beside me. I might be willing to sacrifice pain, but I won’t do it for no result.

“Are you done?” he asks in that calm, almost serene tone—just like royalty. His voice is velvety, smooth as silk, but still deep and masculine.

I don’t look at him and, instead, lunge to the front seat. If I can open the door or go out the window, I’ll run and—

Strong hands grip me by the hips and yank me back with effortless ease. I’m now so close to him that his thigh touches mine.

I expect him to let me go now that he has me by his side, but he doesn’t. If anything, his hold tightens on my hips, and even though I’m wearing multiple layers of clothes, I can feel the controlling warmth in his hands. It’s different from the heat in the car. This is burning, tearing holes through my clothes and aiming at my skin.

This close, I can smell him—or more like, I’m forced to inhale him with every drag of air. His scent is a mixture of leather and wood. Power and mysteriousness.

He speaks against my ear, his tone dropping in range with the purpose of cementing the words in my bones, “It’s useless to fight me, for you’ll only get hurt. You’re not at my level, so do not cause me trouble or I won’t hesitate to throw you to the wolves. I’m giving you my hand, so be grateful, thank your lucky stars, and take it without asking any fucking questions.”

My lips have been dry the entire time he’s been talking. He’s issuing clear threats, but he sounds like a calm lawyer presenting a case in front of a judge.

He has a particular way of speaking. His words are deliberate, sure, and have a commanding edge, without being too much in your face.

“What do you want from me?” I want to kick myself for the small voice. I almost sound scared. Scratch that. I definitely sound scared, because holy shit, I am. I just met this man today, and in the span of a few hours, my life has flipped upside down.

Up until now, my only purpose has been to live, but even that sounds impossible at the moment.

“I have an offer for you, Winter.”

How do you know my name? I want to ask that, but it’d be useless. He seems like the type of man who knows everything he needs to.

“What offer?”

His lips graze the shell of my ear as he murmurs, “Be my wife.”





5





Winter





My mom used to say that the best way to disarm someone is to tell them what they least expect.

I don’t know what I thought the Russian stranger would say, but ‘Be my wife’ certainly was not it.

It takes me a few seconds of staring blankly, caught in a state of shock I can’t shake off. He remains calm, composed. Unrailed.

Ever since I met him this afternoon, he’s been as sturdy as an oak and as still as a statue. Now, I realize why I kind of wanted him to smile earlier, why I waited for it with bated breath. It would’ve humanized him a little, and I was desperately and irrationally looking for some human trait in his robotic features.

Now, though? He seems like some sort of a force. A current. A tyranny that’s about to sweep away everything in its path before changing lanes to something else.

Be my wife.

His words, though calmly spoken, explode in my head like the Fourth of July fireworks. They’re so loud that they drown my own thoughts in a web of nothingness. They’re trapped somewhere beyond reach, in that tiny black box that brings on a shiver whenever I think of it.