Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 107407 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107407 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
He may not have been looking for her, but I was relentless. I even had our private investigator attempting to track her down behind his back, but the search yielded nothing. There were no credit card transactions, no bank activity, and no passport stamps revealing her whereabouts. It felt like chasing shadows. Little did I know, she had been right under our noses with Viktor, exactly where we had sent Vika, hidden in plain sight.
I feel like a fucking idiot.
“Why here?” I mutter. “Why here of all the fucking places on the planet?”
“Because,” my brother says with a snort. “Life’s a cunt.”
I suck down the cold vodka and slam my glass on the table. “Viktor never once mentioned her in our meetings.”
“It’s just business. Why would he bring her up?” he growls. “He doesn’t know what she was to us.”
“So what’s the plan now?”
“We’ve finalized the deal on the club and now we implement our plans. Nothing has changed.”
Everything has changed. She’s here.
“We ignore her and show her she lost the best thing that ever happened to her.” He shrugs. “I can see why someone would leave me, but not you, Z. It’s unforgivable.”
Ignore her.
Satisfying for mere mortals.
Not for Rodion and I, and he knows it.
She owes us so much more than a damn note and tears.
“It doesn’t feel like enough,” I grumble, scrubbing my palm across my face in frustration.
Rodion’s green eyes glimmer in the deviant way that usually gets my dick hard.
“She’s just some bitch we used to fuck, Z.” He spits out the words as though he actually means them. We both know he’s a liar. She was everything to us.
“Right,” I bite out. “Just some bitch.”
I can’t help but remember the way she’d whimper out my name right before she’d come. The moment she found her pleasure, she’d all but roar like a fucking lioness. My dick throbs with need in my slacks. I absently rub my palm against it.
Zahkar.
My name on her lips always sounded like music rather than a curse. I didn’t like hearing my name out loud before her, only if Rodion used it. I associated my name with death. With Rodion’s mother. But with her, it was something better. Something good.
Eighteen Years Ago…
It’s only been a few weeks since I was adopted. With her pitying smile, the lady at the children’s home called it unheard of for someone to want a boy of my age and background, whatever that meant. But here I am, in a house bigger than the malls back home in the US. It’s a world apart from the small, cramped room I shared with my older brother. This house is so big I can wander the halls and still not run into Rodion’s mom and dad for days. Rodion insists they are also my mom and dad too now, but that doesn’t feel right. It’s strange to me, like trying to wear shoes that don’t fit.
My real mom and dad are dead.
Rodion’s parents are nice and all, but they can barely even look at me when I come down to join them all for dinner. There’s something sad about his mom, like she tries to smile, but it physically hurts her or something. I hear her crying in the home library most days. So, I don’t go in, but I need to get books from there to study. Andru says I must learn how to speak fluently in their language because it’s my home now. Even though they speak perfectly in mine.
I creep across the hallway carpet, which my toes sink into because it’s so thick. It’s so warm in this place that I don’t even need to wear socks. I slept in three pairs at my house to stop my toes from falling off.
As I reach the massive library door, a tight knot forms in my stomach, and a wave of nervousness washes over me, making all the tiny hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I’ve felt this way before–the dread.
Don’t go inside.
Don’t go inside.
Don’t go inside.
Despite the warning echoing in my mind, I find myself pushing open the heavy door and stepping into the study. It’s so quiet except for the tinkling of the chandelier. I’d never seen a light fixture like them before, like huge diamonds floating from the ceiling. Rodion told me what they’re called, said his mom loves them, and got them designed by someone famous. I wonder if that’s why she chose this one to hang herself from.
“No…No…” Andru’s voice bellows so loud from behind me, I cover my ears with my hands.
He runs into the room, crying and grabbing at her body to lift her, but she keeps slipping out of his arms. Her blonde hair sways, and that tinkling fills the room.
Tink.
Tink.
Tink.
Stepping forward, I reach to help, but his palm slams against my chest, and I hit a chair, landing with a thud, pain exploding up my back.