Total pages in book: 33
Estimated words: 30437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 152(@200wpm)___ 122(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 152(@200wpm)___ 122(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
“Sure.”
This surprised her.
She grabbed the hot chocolate mix, added it to the saucepan, getting it to the right consistency, then poured out a large mugful and walked across the room to take a seat on the sofa.
Dmitriy sat right beside her. She was so aware of how close he was. He had large hands, rough from doing hard work. She had a feeling this cabin looked the way it did because Dmitriy had been the one to fix it up.
She didn’t know anything about him. There were always whispers. He was not like other man who puffed out their chests, or showed off their thick muscles, but living with him the past six months, she knew he had them. She also knew he was covered in ink.
“Do you have any family?” she asked, after taking a sip of the hot chocolate and handing it back to him.
“No.”
She watched as he blew across the surface of the mug, and then took a sip.
“Do you like it?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She chuckled. “Do you know how to elaborate with your answer?”
“Ask me questions that require it.”
He turned his dark brown gaze toward her. She knew so many people feared that look, but she was not one of them. Dmitriy had saved her.
“Where is your family?” she asked.
“Dead. I killed them, and yes, they deserved it.”
“Why did they deserve it?”
“They were fucking sick bastards, and some of the scars I have are because of them.”
“What?” she asked.
“My parents liked to see how far they could push their son before he passed out. They would leave me bleeding for hours before getting a doctor. My dad liked to use his belt on me, and see how many cuts and bruises he could make. My mom liked to use her fists, and then attempt to make it all better.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“When I was strong enough, and I had training, I killed them.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I’m so sorry,” she said. She had known some parents were sick and twisted. She had seen girls and women with black eyes or broken noses. Her father had never raised a hand to her. There were times he would chase her around the house, and she would run away, but the worst that happened was he tickled her to the point she nearly wet her pants.
“It’s not your fault. Sometimes it is best to stick with singular answers, don’t you think?”
She didn’t want to agree with him, but in that moment, she didn’t have a choice.
Chapter Three
Dmitriy hated hot chocolate and he hated talking about his past, yet he was sitting on the sofa, sharing a drink he despised, recounting a moment in his youth. He had no fond memories of his parents.
They liked to hurt. When he was not good enough, or well enough, they would kidnap a homeless person and take their sick, twisted ways out on them. They always went too far, especially with homeless people. They were never careful, and more times than not, the person ended up dead. The body would be disposed of, and then the cycle would continue.
During their fun with other people, Dmitriy learned to fight. He learned to get strong and take the beatings. He built that anger internally, and when the time was right, he expelled it. His parents had been the ones screaming, begging, pleading with him to stop. That day, the monster had been born, because he had felt nothing. Most screams didn’t affect him.
Joy and laughter meant nothing to him—until Anastasia. He glanced over at her and watched as she took a sip, enjoying the hot chocolate. It was why he always made sure they were fully stocked with the good stuff. He never wanted her to go without the drinks she loved.
“I can’t believe your parents did that,” Anastasia said.
“I’m not a liar.”
“I mean, you hear of bad stuff, and ... my parents, they were good.”
“They wanted to marry you off to a pig.”
“Up until that point, they were good. I don’t know why they were so insistent, and it wasn’t like anything bad happened.”
“No, that is true.”
“Whatever happened to Lionel? Was that his name?” she asked with a frown.
“He was found dead, snorting too much cocaine, surrounded by a bunch of prostitutes that snorted the same stuff,” Dmitriy said.
He was not about to tell her that Lionel Kalinsky had every intention of hunting her down and making her suffer. He had wanted the Babkin bride, and would have her. Dmitriy knew he intended to have her hunted, captured, and at his mercy. Lionel would have tortured her, raped her, then sent her home in pieces. He had done that to women who had shown him disrespect in the past. So, Dmitriy had offered him an olive branch: Leave the Babkin girl alone, and he would supply him with cocaine for the next five years. Lionel hadn’t known that the cocaine given to him had been laced with poison. Dmitriy didn’t know Lionel was going to have a party of prostitutes around him. It had been quite a mess, but one he had cleaned up.