Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 57779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
“What is it?” Nikolai asks, well versed on my lost-in-thought expression.
We’ve been working together for years. It was more pickpocketing than a billion-dollar drug trade when we were pre-teens, but you get to know people’s quirks relatively fast when they’ve got enough intel on you to put you away for life.
I try to work through my confusion with words instead of violence. “Is Ma still doing the alterations for Justine’s dress?”
Nikolai looks at me as if I’ve grown a second head before he jerks up his chin, mindful I wouldn’t have asked if it weren’t important.
“She came by earlier this week.” Nothing but worship flares through his eyes when he says, “Justine’s stomach is growing more ravishing every day. We’ll have to make a handful more adjustments before Saturday afternoon.” He speaks as if Saturday isn’t tomorrow.
While his eyes stray to the wall of his office, I take a moment to deliberate. I became a part of the bratva because my mother was the head tailor for Nikolai’s father. She made all of Vladimir’s suits from scratch, and although that man rarely respected women, he appreciated my mother’s skills enough to introduce her to his number-one foot soldier.
That man was my father.
Now, my mother wouldn’t piss on my father if he were on fire.
Back then, she was instantly infatuated.
She went home with him the night they met, married him the following week, and was pregnant with me in less than a month.
They had three blissful years until one of my mother’s clients asked if she was nannying for her husband’s wife. She laughed off her claim, finding it hilarious that she would “nanny” her own child.
Her laughter turned to tears when the woman told her about my father’s other wives and children.
My mother removed us from my father’s life as quickly as he entered hers, and she’s not spoken a word about him or to him ever since—neither good nor bad.
I only know their story because respecting the sanctity of a marriage, and the possible outcome she would force me to face for ignoring it, was drilled into me from a young age.
I was so fearful of fucking up when I was a kid that I swore to remain celibate and to never marry.
The first pledge only lasted as long as it took for the females in my grade and those above it to grow boobs, but the last one stuck.
It only shifted when I spotted Miranda for the first time.
If I hadn’t noticed the plain, boring ring on her finger too bland for a woman of her caliber, we would have celebrated our first wedding anniversary last week.
My confession makes me panicked I am more like my father than I care to admit, but my obsession with Miranda ensures I will never betray her like my father did my mother.
I never had sex without a condom before Miranda, and even with no holes evident upon its removal, I aways made my hookups take Plan B the following morning.
I think that was the start of the end for Tasha and me. I had no recollection of our union, and no evidence we had consummated said vows, but I straight up told her she either take the morning-after pill or move her shit out of my penthouse.
She took it, begrudgingly, but I saw the hate in her eyes every time she looked at me. She acted as if I’d stolen her dreams out from beneath her when, in reality, that is what she had done to me.
I hadn’t touched a woman since the day my eyes landed on Miranda, and although I had no memories of my hookup with Tasha, I felt dirty. Like I had cheated.
It honestly made me feel ill—as I’m certain it would my mother if she hadn’t learned the story of my supposed “affair” in the right manner.
After working my mother’s many lectures and warnings through my head, I raise my eyes to Nikolai. He’s watching me, his gawk a mix of attention and unease.
His smirk turns malicious when I say, “Promise me if I bring back the coke untouched, you won’t prosecute the person who took it.”
“I thought you said it wasn’t her.”
“It wasn’t.”
He watches me for a handful of seconds, silently reading me, before he asks, “But you think you know who it is?”
It kills me, but I jerk up my chin.
The coke was stolen from Clark’s. Only those privileged know of its whereabouts. That’s why I took Miranda there. I wanted her to know this isn’t just a rebound thing for me, and if she’s willing to look past the stigma of my life, I’m just as willing to pretend she isn’t too good for me.
Nikolai leans forward, balancing his elbows on his desk. “Is she close to you as believed?”
Again, I nod. “That’s why I need your word.” When he doesn’t look close to agreeing to my terms, I say, “I’ll bring back the coke and pay the loss of revenue for it not being distributed over the past six days.”