Capture Me
2015 Heat 5/5
Capture Me by Anna Zaires is a 2015 romance. Tropes: betrayal-and-revenge, Captivity, captor-captive-romance, Dark Romance, Enemies to Lovers, Forced Proximity, hurt-and-comfort, international-espionage-thriller, mission-versus-the-heart, possessive-morally-gray-hero, Spies, spy-romance, trauma-survivor-heroine. Heat 5/5. Book 1 of Capture Me.
What happened in Capture Me?
She fears him from the first moment she sees him. Yulia Tzakova is no stranger to dangerous men. She grew up with them. She survived them. But when she meets Lucas Kent, she knows the hard ex-soldier may be the most dangerous of them all. One night—that’s all it should be. A chance to make up for a failed assignment and get information on Kent’s arms dealer boss. When his plane goes down, it should be the end. Instead, it’s just the beginning. He wants her from the first moment he sees her. Lucas Kent has always liked leggy blondes, and Yulia Tzakova is as beautiful as they come. The Russian interpreter might’ve tried to seduce his boss, but she ends up in Lucas’s bed—and he has every intention of seeing her there again. Then his plane goes down, and he learns the truth. She betrayed him. Now she will pay.
What tropes are in Capture Me?
Where does Capture Me fall in Capture Me?
Book 1 of Capture Me. Reading order
What should I read next?
Bind Me by Anna Zaires.
Chapters
Chapter 2
In the frozen streets of Moscow, intelligence operative Yulia poses as a translator for Russian official Arkady Buschekov during a clandestine meeting with arms dealer Julian Esguerra and his formidable right-hand man, Lucas Kent. Tasked with gathering intel on a covert weapons shipment bound for Donetsk’s freedom fighters, Yulia navigates the treacherous negotiation while concealing her true allegiance to Obenko. Though she attempts to deploy her considerable charm on the handsome but ruthless Esguerra, her advances fall flat against his cold indifference. Instead, an involuntary shiver of attraction escapes her during a security frisk by Kent—a reaction that alarms her, as the blond enforcer is not her target. As the deal seals and the men depart, Yulia retreats into the bitter cold with the mission’s intel secured but her romantic objective unmet, the dangerous allure of the wrong man lingering in her mind.
Chapter 3
Yulia reports to her handler Vasiliy Obenko that arms dealer Juan Esguerra has sealed an alliance with Russian interests to flood Donetsk with weapons, though she failed to seduce him for his departure date. After the tense call, she relaxes in a bath until Lucas Kent—a dangerous man she previously noticed watching her—arrives at her door. Claiming he wants "you," Kent forces her to choose between hiding her Agency identity or opening the door to gather intelligence. She disarms herself, adopts an innocent appearance, and unlocks the steel door, leaving the chapter suspended between the threat of exposure and the volatile charge of his undeniable interest.
Chapter 4
Lucas Kent arrives unannounced at Yulia's apartment, reversing their expected dynamic where she would seduce him for intelligence. Instead, he takes immediate control, initiating a raw, intense encounter that shatters her professional composure. Though she entered the night intending to use him for a mission, her body responds powerfully against her will, and his possessive, demanding dominance leaves her shaken and questioning her grip on the situation. As the physical intimacy concludes, he makes it brutally clear that the night is far from over, steering her toward the bed while she grapples with the uncomfortable realization that she enjoyed it far too much—and lost control in the process.
Chapter 5
Yulia awakens beside Lucas Kent after a night of intense intimacy, her body still sore from their repeated encounters. Though she maintains her cover as a carefree interpreter, she feels an unexpected pang at his announcement that he must leave by morning to catch a flight. As Lucas sleeps, she seizes the opportunity to complete her mission: she sends a coded message to her handler Obenko revealing Kent's departure time, effectively removing him from Esguerra's security detail. The act leaves her with a hollow victory—she has the intelligence she needs, yet her chest aches at the thought of him with other women. Trapped between professional duty and growing attraction, Yulia erases the evidence and resigns herself to waiting for Obenko's next move, the night's passion now a dangerous complication in her assignment.
Chapter 6
Lucas wakes beside Yulia Tzakova, the Russian interpreter he pursued after watching her flirt with his boss, Esguerra, only to be ignored. Recalling his impulsive visit to her Moscow apartment, he reflects on how her initial vulnerability transformed into an intense, consuming passion that left him desperate for more. When Yulia abruptly distanced herself afterward, interpreting her distress as regret, Lucas's anger flared, driving him to prove her wrong through repeated intimacy. Now, as he prepares to leave for their Tajikistan mission, he vows to return to Moscow for her if his obsession persists, setting the stage for an unresolved claim between them.
Chapter 7
Yulia Tzakova wakes alone after a clandestine night with Lucas Kent, the man tied to arms dealer Esguerra, only to learn from her handler Obenko that their plan is to shoot down Esguerra’s Boeing C-17 over Uzbekistan—killing Lucas with it. Torn between duty and an attachment she refuses to name, Yulia packs her go-bag, wipes her Moscow apartment clean of fingerprints, and boards the metro for exfiltration to Kiev, where her adopted brother Misha waits. As the train stalls in frozen tunnels, she battles guilt and gnawing hunger, nearly calling Lucas to warn him before forcing herself to choose the mission. The chapter closes on the train’s uncertain arrival, leaving Lucas’s fate sealed by the missile countdown and Yulia’s heart heavy with a secret she can never voice.
Chapter 8
Lucas, a former Navy pilot from a wealthy Manhattan family, flies his team—led by his boss Esguerra—into Tajikistan on a mission to strike an Al-Quadar stronghold in the Pamir Mountains. Aboard the plane, the adrenaline of combat simmers between the men as they banter about Esguerra's recent marriage to Nora, whom he rescued from captivity. When their aircraft is suddenly hit and plunges toward the snow-covered peaks, the mission transforms into a fight for survival. Lucas wrestles the controls through a violent nosedive, the forest rushing up to meet them, until the plane crashes through the trees. In his final conscious moments, his thoughts drift not to family or duty, but to Yulia, the Russian interpreter he left behind—leaving the reader suspended between life, death, and unspoken longing.
Chapter 9
Trapped for seven and a half hours in a stalled Moscow metro train during a hostage crisis, agent Yulia Tzakova emerges starving, freezing, and desperate to reach her handlers. When she learns the target's plane has been shot down, the relief curdles into nausea—and a dangerous memory of Lucas surfaces before she shoves it down. With the team threatening to extract without her if she misses the deadline, Yulia battles gridlocked streets, icy parks, and harassing drunks to reach the border. Just as she spots a taxi, a speeding car slams into her, sending her world to black. A propulsive thriller chapter blending espionage stakes with simmering romantic tension and a brutal cliffhanger.
Chapter 10
Lucas Kent wakes in a Tashkent hospital, his body battered by a broken leg and concussion, his wrists cuffed to the bed. He learns his plane was shot down near the Tajikistan border despite promised safe passage—an "error" that left only five of fifty men alive. While Esguerra remains unconscious with a broken arm and cracked ribs, the other survivors lie in critical condition with severe burns. Racing against throbbing pain and rage, Lucas demands military protection for his boss against the terrorist group Al-Quadar, warning that Kremlin allies will not forgive another "accident." Just as he insists on contacting Peter Sokolov for extraction, a nurse sedates him, leaving the mystery of who ordered the strike—and the fate of his team—hanging in the dark.
Chapter 11
Yulia wakes in a Moscow hospital with a head injury and bruises, desperate to escape before authorities arrive. She learns from her handler Obenko that the exfiltration team has pulled out and the Kremlin—mobilized by Esguerra's contacts—is hunting her. Defying medical orders, she changes into her clothes, secures her emergency cash, and slips out of the hospital, using a taxi misdirection to evade immediate pursuit. When a police blockade appears, she flees on foot, scaling a fire ladder to the roof of a Soviet-era building. Cornered by officers, she fights back, disarming one and wounding another before Sergey and reinforcements finally handcuff her. Despite her injuries and fear, Yulia's resolve to reach the Ukrainian border and protect her brother Misha fuels every desperate move, but the chapter closes with her captured and hope extinguished.
Chapter 12
Lucas Kent wakes in an Uzbekistani hospital to devastating news: terrorists have overrun the facility and kidnapped his boss, Julian Esguerra, while he lay drugged and helpless. Consumed by rage and guilt over his failed protection, Lucas learns from Peter Sokolov that a desperate rescue plan is already in motion—Esguerra’s own wife, Nora, has volunteered to be bait, her body carrying hidden trackers that will lead them to Al-Quadar’s mountain compound. The chapter’s tension escalates when Lucas discovers the recent missile attack on his plane was orchestrated by a Ukrainian mole posing as an interpreter. Demanding to interrogate the traitorous missile officer himself, Lucas descends into a violent, gunpoint confrontation, executing the man after extracting what little he knows. The chapter closes with Lucas seething for vengeance against the interpreter, the hostage situation still unresolved.
Chapter 13
Yulia endures her second day in Russian custody, handcuffed to an interrogation table while official Arkady Buschekov pressures her to identify her agency. Ukraine has disavowed her, leaving her vulnerable to a treason charge that carries execution; she refuses to break, knowing her off-the-books handler Obenko will never claim her. Deprived of sleep, food, and water for over twenty-four hours, she suffers through ear-splitting alarms and physical collapse while guards observe through a two-way mirror. In the haze of exhaustion, she retreats into memory of her final night with Lucas Kent—now dead in a Moscow explosion—questioning whether their intimacy meant anything. The chapter closes on her unraveling grief and the crushing certainty that she will never know.
Chapter 14
Lucas Kent recovers from a clean tibial break and concussion in a Colombian hospital under armed guard, railing against his immobility while strategizing the rescue of Julian Esguerra. When Peter Sokolov calls with news that Esguerra has been pulled from Al-Quadar's cell—though the target lost an eye—and that Esguerra's wife Nora gunned down terrorist Majid during the extraction, Lucas feels a surge of relief mixed with dread. The team transfers to a private Swiss clinic where Esguerra undergoes facial reconstruction and receives a prosthetic eye. Peter departs to pursue his own vendetta against the list of men who destroyed his family, leaving Lucas to grapple with his own obsession: Yulia Tzakova, the Ukrainian spy who seduced and betrayed him, now in Russian custody. Haunted by memories of their encounter, Lucas cannot shake his fixation on her as he faces the flight back to Colombia, desperate to close this chapter.
Chapter 15
Two months after breaking his leg, Lucas Kent revels in walking without crutches as he orchestrates the transfer of Yulia Tzakova from Russian custody. Negotiating with the unyielding Buschekov over video call, Lucas bluffs about Esguerra's wrath—specifically the decimation of Al-Quadar—to force the Kremlin's hand into remitting the interpreter within twenty-four hours. He confesses to Esguerra that his obsession stems from both Yulia's betrayal and their volatile night together in Moscow, securing permission to interrogate her in his own quarters. Meanwhile, intelligence reveals Peter Sokolov is methodically eliminating names from a stolen list across Europe, leaving a trail of torture and explosions. The chapter closes with Lucas counting down the hours until his prisoner arrives, vowing that no one will save her from his vengeance.
Chapter 16
Yulia Tzakova wakes in her Moscow Prison cell to the sound of the heavy door, conditioned to fear the guard Igor who uses her childhood nickname 'Yulechka' to demean her. After weeks of deprivation and abuse, she is told she will not return to her cell, sparking terror that she faces execution. When American operatives arrive to transport her to Colombia for arms dealer Julian Esguerra, she fights desperately before being overpowered, gagged, and loaded onto a private jet. Trapped in the luxurious aircraft, she grapples with the possibility that Esguerra survived a previous missile strike and that Lucas Kent—whom she mourned—might also be alive, while steeling herself to protect her brother Misha from retaliation. The chapter ends with her airborne and uncertain whether she faces torture or death.
Chapter 17
Yulia wakes from a drugged flight to discover she has been abducted from her Moscow prison cell and flown to the Colombian jungle, where she is handed over to Lucas Kent—the man she believed she had killed in a fiery plane crash. Though alive and raging, Lucas carries her through the humid air to his private quarters within Esguerra's fortified compound, his fury mixed with an undeniable, dangerous attraction. After releasing her handcuffs, he strips her of her prison clothes and forces her to shower under his watchful gaze, declaring she will pay for her crimes. Trapped between terror and the irrational relief of seeing him alive, Yulia realizes this is not a dream but a nightmare of captivity where violence and desire collide.
Chapter 18
Lucas finds his captive Yulia gaunt and bruised after two months of imprisonment, and his rage at her captors wars with a dangerous protectiveness he cannot control. In a tense shower scene, his lust and hatred collide with pity as he struggles against the urge to comfort the woman he intends to break. He feeds her in the kitchen and interrogates her about her identity—she reveals her birth name is Yulia but hides her surname—and when she deflects questions about her espionage, he physically restrains her, the tension between them reaching a breaking point. Yulia's confession that she has been spying since age eleven stuns him, leaving him to wrestle with the violence he nearly unleashed and the fragile prisoner who has somehow disarmed his hatred.
Chapter 19
Yulia collapses against the bathroom door, her PTSD flaring at the memory of her imprisonment when Lucas closes in. Desperate, she arms herself with a broken toothbrush and attacks, but his reflexes are too sharp; he overpowers her, pinning her naked and helpless on the carpet. As rage and primal need clash in his eyes, a traitorous spark of arousal ignites in her own body—a betrayal that terrifies her more than the violence. She begs him to stop, tears streaming, and to her shock, he does, rolling away and instead binding her to a chair with rope. He leaves her restrained and vulnerable, threatening to return for answers, leaving the chapter on the knife-edge of what comes next.
Chapter 20
Lucas retreats to the bathroom to regain control after a volatile confrontation with his captive, Yulia. Though his body aches with desire and rage, he stops himself from forcing himself on her when he hears genuine terror in her voice, choosing restraint over violence despite his dark history. He examines his injuries—a scratch on his ribcage where she aimed for his kidney and a throbbing jaw from her counterattack—revealing her as dangerous and treacherous. Consumed by possessive fury, he declares she is his alone, refusing to let the Russians have her. The chapter closes with him releasing his tension alone in the sink, the unresolved conflict between his hunger for her and his unexpected mercy leaving him shaken and more obsessed than ever.
Chapter 21
Yulia Tzakova, a Ukrainian intelligence operative held captive at Esguerra's Colombian compound, processes the shock that her captor, Lucas Kent, chose mercy over the sexual violence she expected. As the interrogation resumes, she reveals the brutal truth of her recruitment: taken at eleven, she was forced to seduce government officials beginning at sixteen to gain access to power. Lucas, a former Navy SEAL with a violent past, grips her hair and demands to know if she desired her targets, his rage masking a disturbing protectiveness. When she admits she was sixteen when her first affair began with Boris Ladrikov, a thirty-eight-year-old State Duma member, his fury shifts to something more complex. He releases her abruptly, promising the session will continue later, leaving Yulia alone with the unresolved threat of what comes next and the weight of her coerced history.
Chapter 22
Lucas seethes with protective fury in his compound's training gym, hammering a sandbag for forty minutes after learning that his captive, Yulia, was trafficked as a child by government operatives in Moscow. When fellow guard Diego makes a crude remark about Yulia's appearance, Lucas's rage detonates—he beats Diego until Esguerra and others intervene. Now Lucas faces the impossible reality that the woman restrained in his living room, whom he blames for a devastating plane crash, is also a victim of systematic abuse, leaving him paralyzed between revenge and compassion as he prepares for a critical call with their Hong Kong supplier.
Chapter 23
Yulia remains imprisoned in Esguerra's compound, bound and vulnerable after weeks of deprivation. When a mysterious girl peers through her window asking for Lucas, Yulia realizes her captor may have a girlfriend, explaining his earlier restraint. Lucas returns with bruised knuckles, unties her to offer basic comfort—food, water, and a shower—yet his kindness is a calculated tactic to extract intelligence about her employers. Their charged exchange crackles with dangerous attraction as Yulia confronts the terrifying truth that her desire for Lucas persists despite his violence. When she asks how he survived the plane crash that was presumed fatal, his fury reignites, and he abruptly rebinds her, leaving the chapter on a cliffhanger of unresolved hostility and mutual captivation.
Chapter 24
Lucas grapples with violent conflicting emotions toward his captive, Yulia, torn between avenging the plane crash that killed forty-five of his men and shielding her from the brutal fate he imagines. Haunted by her past as a child operative trained to infiltrate governments, he rejects the flirtatious attention of the estate's maid, Rosa, while struggling with his obsessive attraction to his prisoner. After finding Yulia asleep and restrained, a surge of dark desire crashes over him until an urgent call from Diego interrupts the moment, summoning Lucas to investigate a trespasser at North Tower One. Before departing, he secures Yulia more firmly to the bed, leaving her bound while he handles the security breach, the chapter closing on his unresolved need to control both his lust and his rage.
Chapter 25
Yulia wakes bound to a king-sized bed, her wrists and ankles secured to opposite legs with rope that bites into her skin. Lucas has vanished after a text message, leaving her to spiral through worst-case scenarios about his mysterious girlfriend—who has already seen her in his house and might be calling him away. Trapped and helpless, Yulia confronts the cruel irony of her captivity: though Lucas intends to kill her eventually, a traitorous part of her craves his return, fantasizing that in another life they could be lovers rather than enemies divided by a plane crash and opposing loyalties. The chapter simmers with psychological tension as she weighs escape against the futility of her restraints, her anxiety spiking with every minute of silence, leaving her suspended between terror and a dangerous, unwanted longing.
Chapter 26
Lucas returns to Esguerra's compound at night after interrogating and dispatching a trespasser sent by a Bogotá drug lord, the incineration leaving a message for the cartel. The violence leaves him adrenalized and possessive, driving him to Yulia, his captive prisoner from Moscow. In her bedroom, his dark obsession surfaces as he unbinds her and claims her with primal, coercive intensity, demanding verbal submission while she yields beneath a mix of fear and involuntary arousal. The chapter closes on the threshold of sexual violence, his possessiveness reaching its peak as he prepares to take what he considers his due.
Chapter 27
Yulia, a captive held by the dangerous Lucas, finds herself drawn to him despite knowing he may one day kill her. What begins as a desperate kiss escalates into a raw, consuming encounter on the mattress where Lucas asserts brutal ownership over her body. Midway, he pins her wrists above her head, his fury mixing with desire as traumatic memories of her former captor Kirill surface, blurring past horror with present sensation. Yet Lucas's touch pulls her back to the moment, driving them both to a shattering climax that leaves Yulia emotionally undone. Though the act proves Lucas is alive and her prisoner, the chapter closes on the chilling realization that her captivity has only just begun, leaving her steeling herself against whatever comes next.
Editions
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Capture Me by Anna Zaires. https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/anna-zaires/capture-me Plot summaries, not full text.