Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 147734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Good fucking riddance.
After I gave Levian a lecture on how to take care of Alya and made sure she left for her new home safely, I drove back to the mansion from the airport with Cyrus.
Now, he’s also disappeared, seeming preoccupied with a new “project,” as he called it. Honestly, I feel sorry for whoever is the subject of his project. I feel more sorry if that subject is that nerdy dude who looked like he was peaceful and completely disconnected from our world.
No, seriously, Cy has changed lately. At the reception, I caught him sitting in a corner, wearing a manic expression, staring at a photo that had been ripped in half, then glued back together.
In it, there was a younger version of him, maybe thirteen, with his arm thrown over the shoulder of a guy in frameless glasses. And lo and behold, it was the nerdy-looking guy Cy’s been stalking in the library. The guy looked almost the same, even though the picture is several years old.
Cy, however, seemed completely different. For one, he was smiling, so wide that his eyes were half closed. In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never, and I mean never, seen Cy smile that wide.
He hid the picture as soon as he saw me snooping, then waved me off when I tried to ask questions about his past that he keeps under lock and key.
Anyway, Cy’s current location doesn’t matter, because all I want to do is go to Vaughn.
Sure enough, when I turned on my phone, I was bombarded with notifications. He called me fifty-seven times and sent me a string of texts. At first, they were angry, then pleading, then he threatened that I better not get married or he’d ruin it.
But before I could reply to him, or better yet, fly back to that peaceful nook in the mountains, Lukas asked me to come to the lower levels.
Now, I don’t usually listen to Lukas’s demands, but after that conversation with Alya, I do head to that godforsaken place. It’s to my and Alya’s benefit not to be targeted by Lukas. Dad is already a hassle as it is. Add a power-hungry brother to that, and it’s chaos.
Well, at least Alya has a husband who seems to care about her, so we’re safe in that regard, but I still wouldn’t trust Lukas not to go after her in his quest for power.
The men stationed in front of the door look…different. They’re not the usual goons my dad uses, though Vaughn did say he killed many of them.
For me.
That rule-stickler guy brought his parents and the elites in New York with him and broke into the Chicago mafia leader’s residence just to get me out.
“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” he said when I asked if he’d thought of the consequences.
And now, my chest hurts because it was such a shitty idea to tell him goodbye in a letter. Hopefully, he doesn’t hate me too much.
The new goons-in-chief bow upon seeing me and even open the door for me.
I raise a brow. “You guys get a personality transplant? Or maybe you don’t want me to chew your body parts off?”
They say nothing, and I step into the dungeon, my muscles tightening and my ribs protesting at the memories of the last time I was here.
I place a hand in my pocket. My wedding tux doesn’t feel so suffocating now, but I did throw the bow tie and jacket somewhere during the reception as I carried Alya in my arms and danced with her. She was giggling so hard, and I saw Mama’s softness in her eyes.
My train of thought stops, and so do my feet. The smell of dampness and blood permeates the air, but it’s not the onslaught of memories that overtake me. It’s the view of the person tied to a chair in the middle of the room, just like I was not long ago.
Dad.
His massive body is completely bound, and his pale-blue shirt is soaked through with blood, his face bruised, swollen, and bloodied, almost unrecognizable.
“What the fuck you looking at?” Yaroslav shouts, blood dripping from his lips and into the puddle by his feet. “Free me, Yulian!”
“I don’t recommend it.” Lukas emerges from the shadows like a creep, his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, splatters of blood all over it.
That was the shirt of the suit he was wearing at Alya’s wedding ceremony when he took Dad to the side during the reception for urgent business.
“So the emergency was…” I stare between him and Dad. “This?”
“Yes. Thought it would be poetic to give Alina an appropriate wedding gift,” Lukas says.
“Appropriate is a stretch.”
“Why the fuck are you talking to him? Yulian, unbind me, now—”
His words turn into a mumble when Lukas slaps duct tape over his mouth. “Shh. You’ve talked enough for a lifetime.”