Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 93463 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93463 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Rodion’s response finally comes in. It’s brief, but it’s enough.
Rodion
Okay. Be safe.
That’s all I need.
My alibi is set.
The night is mine.
Chapter 4
ZOYA
I glance toward the place where the body had been. My attacker. The man who tried to hurt me.
I should feel sick. I should feel guilt curling in my belly… but I don’t.
This isn’t the first dead body I’ve seen.
And if I’d had a decent weapon? I would’ve killed him myself. And it wouldn’t have been the first time.
I only remember flashes of the night my parents were murdered. I remember Semyon shoving us into a closet, Rafail yelling for us to stay put, Rodion trying to run—and Semyon threatening to hurt him if he did. I remember reaching for Rodion’s hand. Holding it. Holding my breath as the unmistakable crack of gunfire echoed around us.
That’s all I have. I don’t remember their funeral or the days after.
Just small bits and pieces. Glimpses.
The rest of my life has been one long act of survival, raised by brothers and a sister who love me fiercely. Maybe too fiercely.
“Well then,” I tell Seamus, my voice steadier now. “I’m set?”
“Alright,” he says, reaching down to brush his fingers against mine. A gentle, grounding touch. “Let’s go.”
A few minutes later, I’m tucked into the passenger seat of a sturdy SUV. It smells like him, leather and spice and something clean and wild. Probably a rental. He’s not from here.
He doesn’t turn on any music. Just drives and talks.
He asks me how my night was. Who I was with.
I give vague answers, careful answers. I don’t want to give him too much.
I wonder where his flat is. I wonder what it looks like.
Will it smell like him?
This moment with him, in the confines of his car… it feels stolen. Illicit. And yet I can’t help the way my thoughts spin, racing with questions I shouldn’t be asking.
What would it be like to go home with him… without having to hide?
To just be with him?
I can’t even imagine. But oh, I want to.
God, I want to.
I’m a virgin.
And now I’m going home with the man I’ve been crushing on hardcore. Of course my mind leaps to sex.
Not that casual sex has ever appealed to me.
But this?
This wouldn’t be casual.
Nothing with Seamus could ever be casual.
He pulls up to a high-rise building tucked into the city and drives all the way to the back entrance. Discreet and private. Makes sense.
“This it?” I ask.
“Aye,” he says. “You think you can walk on your own, lass?”
I glance at him, playful. “You offering to carry me again?”
His eyes sparkle. “My god, yer so fuckin’ cute,” he says, shaking his head.
Then he’s distracted for a second, talking to someone on the phone, low and clipped.
“Go within the hour,” he says into the receiver. “Before the game’s over. Don’t ask me again, McGekrin. You heard my answer.”
A pause.
“Right. Go. Call me.”
He ends the call and slides his phone into his pocket. Then leans in close to me, his blue eyes piercing mine.
And that damn dimple again.
“You hungry, lass?”
I nod, the fog lifting. The drugs are wearing off, and I feel it now. I’m so damn hungry. Hollowed out.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Starving.”
As we approach the building, he nods at an elderly neighbor with a cane, and the man smiles and greets him back as if Seamus isn’t dangerous. As if he didn’t just kill someone tonight.
And when we reach the entryway of the building, there’s a woman trying to balance a baby on one hip and an armful of grocery bags on the other.
“Here, I’ve got it,” he says softly, taking the door with one hand and the grocery bags with the other. And my heart melts.
He’s exactly the kind of guy who would hit the news because of something terrible he did, and the neighbors would all say, “But he was the nicest man!”
He’s strong. Dangerous. But still a gentleman. I love that about him. I love everything about this man. I know it’s a schoolgirl crush, and I’m well aware of my foolish heart. I know I’m infatuated, maybe even delusional.
But right now? Right now, I enjoy it. My god, I savor it.
And our secret relationship? It feels so good to have something of my own. Something I don’t have to share with my family. Something that’s mine, just mine.
I wonder if he feels the same?
So I watch him help his neighbor inside with the groceries, and I take note.
If there are bodyguards nearby, they’re damn good at discretion because I don’t see any.
And if anyone in this building is afraid of him, they hide it well.
He seems liked. Trusted, even, which doesn’t add up. But nothing about him ever really does.
Even if this persona of his is just a front or a cover, the interactions seem real. Genuine. And when he opens the door to his flat, I don’t know what I was expecting—but it sure as hell wasn’t this.