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)
I, along with numerous members of the Popov crew, thought my head would be on the chopping block.
Mercifully, it wasn’t.
The street value of the flour in my pantry was higher than the wholesale price of the goods Nero’s mother had stolen, and the deficit was made up by selling the goods I had made.
Consuming cocaine is far more dangerous than snorting it or smoking it in a pipe, but its stimulation is more direct to the brain from ingestion, so it has become some users’ method of choice.
Wrapping it in sugary treats is an avenue Nikolai’s crew had never considered, but I see it being on the agenda at future meetings with how fast the goods Nero didn’t consume sold.
It is fortunate Nero’s sweet tooth had him veering for the slices and treats that were gluten free, or my baking efforts that afternoon could have killed him as Roy falsely claimed my sweet tooth would kill me—it would have just been decades faster.
When Shiloh stares at me with wide eyes and a sweat-dotted brow, I say, “I’ll go grab them.”
She mouths her thanks before she returns to curling the chocolate ribbons that will sit behind cupcakes and gold-dipped chocolate strawberries.
“Sorry,” I apologize when I bump into someone partway to my van.
It’s parked close enough to the catering tent to be walkable, but far enough away not to distract from the natural beauty of Nikolai’s chosen location to marry his ahren.
My steps slow when the voice of the person I bumped into registers as familiar. “Why are you in such a hurry, Mir? Did you finally realize you’re too good for these men?”
As I twist to face Roy, my panic surges. I’m not worried about me. I don’t want his arrival pulling Nero away from the wedding reception of one of his closest friends.
“What are you doing here, Roy?”
He steps closer, filling the air and my senses with his boozy breath. “I want to speak with you.”
“Then you should have picked a better location and time. I don’t have time to talk to you right now. I’m busy.”
I commence walking again, only to be stopped by a snivel. “I’ve tried to see you since... since…”
“Since you were forced to face the consequences of your actions?”
He nods, darkening his eyes further when the cap hiding the perfect word for his betrayal lowers down his forehead. “But he wouldn’t give me the chance. He told me if he saw me anywhere near you, he’d kill me.” The way he sneers “he” announces who he is speaking about, but before I can warn him I won’t be held accountable for my actions if he mocks Nero in front of me again, he continues. “I made a mistake—”
“A mistake?” I “ha!” him. “It was more than once, and I’m not solely talking about the pictures that surrounded your feet in the hotel room you booked for your mistress.”
I’m not asking a question, but he acts as if I am. “They meant nothing to me.”
I scoff before I continue for the van.
He follows me like a lost dog, but I don’t feel an ounce of sympathy that he may end up alone and on the streets.
My empathy commenced disappearing the day he called me a heffer for the first time, and it fully vanished when he referred to Nero as he.
“Stop following me, Roy,” I warn when I hear footsteps. “Because I make no promises that my van is knife-free.”
“Stop this, Mir. You’re not like them.” He thrusts his hand at the reception area whose noise subdues a smidge when his shouts reach some guests’ ears. “So why the fuck are you acting like violence is the solution for everything?”
“How do you know I’m not like them?” I ask, my tone lower than his, but my anger way higher. “Even after fourteen years, you don’t know a damn thing about me. Not a single thing.”
“I know that I love you and that you love me. You’re just blinded by the shiny new toy pretending he likes you how you are now.”
His eyes lower down my body.
They don’t spark with envy.
He looks disgusted.
“I give him days before he either loses interest in you or puts you on a diet.”
I laugh. It is witchlike and full of disbelief. “Nero is nothing like you.” I don’t wait for him to bite at the bait I’m dangling in front of him. I hit him with the utmost truths. “And that love you’re talking about isn’t close to what true love feels like. I thought I loved you, but I am learning that love isn’t being belittled by your other half, being badgered by them to the point you consider suicide, and it isn’t being fat shamed in front of an audience with the hope it will double the loss on the scales the following week. It isn’t breaking someone’s soul and then walking away without offering to pick up the pieces you smashed. That isn’t love, Roy. That’s abuse.”