Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 62994 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62994 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
“With your baby?” he asks in amusement.
I nod once, and his face lights up.
“Pozdravlyayu, brat,” he says with a laugh. “Congratulations and welcome to the club!”
“Da ladno,” I deflect. “It’s no big deal.”
“I’ve never seen you this way with a woman before,” he says in awe, as if the realization is just hitting him. “This most certainly is a huge deal! We must celebrate.”
“I’ll celebrate when my baby arrives healthy, and when Molly is no longer in danger. Until then…” I gesture for him to leave.
He does, laughing as he goes.
I sit down heavily behind my desk, the missing shipment forgotten for a moment, replaced by the image of Molly being taken from me. My chest aches in a way I don’t like. I don’t want to be the overprotective prick she feels she has to tiptoe around. I miss her.
I miss the feel of her in my bed. I miss her soft voice in the morning. I miss her small hand resting on her stomach while she talks to the baby like it can hear her. I miss the way she looks at me when she’s tired and letting her walls slip.
Yet none of that matters when the alternative is losing her forever. Her attacker is hardly our only threat. I have plenty of enemies who would love to use her as leverage against me. There are men who would pay millions of dollars for this kind of information. The truth is, even if we catch the man who threatened her, there’s no guarantee she’ll be safe.
It’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
14
MOLLY
Idon’t know why Davýd’s comment sticks with me the way it does. He’s Samuil’s friend, so it was just a jab at him, right? He said it like it was an inside joke I was supposed to laugh at too. But something about the way he looked at Samuil when he said it didn’t feel like a joke.
Living with the Devil himself.
The words keep repeating in my head as I make my way to the kitchen. I open the fridge, pull out vegetables, and start rinsing them in the sink. I tell myself I’m overthinking it.
But there’s a small, steady knot in my chest that won’t loosen.
It feels like a tiny fist tightening under my ribs, unbearably persistent. I keep rolling my shoulders back, trying to ease the tension, but nothing helps. A weird static buzz moves through me, like the air is too charged. I realize my body has gone into fight-or-flight, ready to bolt at the earliest sign of danger.
I chop carrots slowly, mechanically, trying to shake it off. The knife taps rhythmically against the cutting board, the familiar motion grounding me a little. Still, my mind won’t stop circling the same question.
What did he mean by the Devil?
Each time the word repeats in my head, something cold sweeps down my spine. I’m not someone who spooks easily, but there was something so casual in the way Davýd compared Samuil to evil. He’s Samuil’s friend, so he’s aware of exactly who he is and what he’s done. I’m the one who’s not in on the joke.
I pull out a pot and start putting in the ingredients. On such a cold day, I thought it would be nice to make some homemade soup. I didn’t expect to get caught up in such an awful loop of my own thoughts.
Cooking doesn’t bring me any comfort. I move through the kitchen mechanically, too focused on who Samuil might be to really pay attention to what I’m doing.
I’m stirring the pot on the stove when I hear his footsteps behind me. He pauses in the doorway like he’s taking me in before committing to stepping into the room.
His voice is warm when he speaks. “Something smells good.”
I nod but don’t look up. “It’s good soup weather,” I answer as casually as I can.
Even as I say it, I feel my pulse spike. I don’t want him near me all of a sudden. My body reacts as if there’s a predator in the room. Alarm bells are going off. I try to catalog everything I know about him and realize there’s so little in that file. How could I be so stupid?
He comes closer, stopping at the island counter, watching me with that quiet focus he always has. It always knocks me a little off-balance. I take a breath, steady my voice, and finally look at him.
“Hey,” I say lightly, as if the question means nothing. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” he answers immediately.
That single word nearly breaks me apart. He’s so open with me, so confident that he can give me any answer I’m searching for. He doesn’t realize that I’m bursting at the seams, ready to tear open at the wrong word.
“What did Davýd mean earlier,” I ask quietly, “when he called you the Devil?”