Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
“Where are they going?”
Her eyes flashed and then she fell into fitful sobs. “To heaven, baby, they’re going to heaven.”
And I knew, she’d lied.
She’d lied.
I grabbed Katya’s doll and cried with my mama while my other older siblings turned on the TV as loud as they could.
“Prosti!” I screamed as I came back from the nightmare. “PROSTI!” Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.
My lungs burned as blood wet my face slipping down my chin onto my battered body.
“Prosti!” Tears mixed with blood.
He’d sold them.
Sold his own kids to the highest bidder.
Used them as collateral.
And kept me as his protégé.
Katya.
Pace.
I never said their names.
Never.
It hurt.
I let out another scream of pain.
The sound of a door opening didn’t bring me from the darkness, from the pressure in my lungs as more memories surfaced.
“Kill her.” Dad shrugged. “She’s of no use anymore.” He gave me his gun.
“She’s twelve,” I snapped at him, ready to point the gun in an entirely different direction now that I was sixteen.
“She’s costing us money,” he spat. “Kill her or I may just let her kill you.”
He was bluffing.
I picked up the gun and pointed it at her.
I didn’t look in her eyes.
I made it quick.
And I could have sworn her soul said thank you when she crashed against the cold hard ground.
Later that night, with shaking hands, I took a nail and etched another mark in my bed post understanding that most guys my age did that for an entirely different reason.
To remember the women they’d slept with.
I did it, to remember the ones I had killed.
Thirty-two.
“Prosti.” I clenched my teeth tasting blood as I threw my head back and roared until my voice was hoarse.
Something touched me.
The fires of hell were coming.
Licking at my heels.
Burning themselves against my flesh.
I deserved it.
I deserved it all.
And then I was moving, maybe my body was leaving this plane, going into a darker one, if that even existed.
Hell couldn’t be any worse than living life as a Petrov.
Something wet touched me next. It was warm.
And then it smelled like rose water.
Lips pressed against my temple.
The same temple I always held the gun against.
“Sleep… Andrei… Sleep.”
“Mom?” I rasped. “Mom?”
Arms hugged me.
Held me close.
“I’m sorry.” My body shook so violently it was hard to get the words out. “So fucking sorry.”
“Don’t ever be sorry for sacrificing yourself, don’t ever be sorry for living.” The familiar voice said. “Now rest.”
“The things I did…” My body pulsed with pain so intense that I felt like I was convulsing. My eyes couldn’t focus on anything other than the ceiling.
It was dark.
Nighttime?
I couldn’t tell.
The lips pressed against my face again.
And then my hand somehow found another hand.
I almost pulled away.
Gloves, I needed gloves.
Her hand was too hot.
My skin wasn’t worthy.
And yet, I couldn’t find it within myself to let go.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Alice
I stayed up all night.
Nikolai had put him under once he was back in the apartment, the bullet in his shoulder had lodged itself really close to the bone, but Nik was able to pull it out.
The knife wounds were all stitched up by both Nikolai and Sergio who informed me that he had studied to become a doctor but never finished school.
And one by one, the guys visited.
With their wives.
It was a strange thing, seeing all of them pull together after everything that had transpired in the last twenty-four hours.
The girls brought food and hung out in the living room like we hadn’t just been involved in a bloodbath, and the men stayed to make sure Andrei was alive.
Even Louis Sinacore, who I learned early in the night, loved to play checkers, stayed to check up on his grandson.
Their new boss.
It was a lot to take in.
More than a lot.
My mind was reeling by breakfast.
A beautiful girl with cropped brown hair and pretty eyes showed up right when everyone was starting to eat. One of the guys I recognized from Nixon’s house was with her.
He was massive.
And looked like he was going to eat humans for breakfast instead of bacon.
She clung to his hand and then burst into tears when she saw Louis. He pulled her in for a hug and whispered something in Italian against her hair.
“He’s apologizing.” Chase took a bite of bacon and then another while Luc, his wife came around him and laid her head on his shoulder.
Odd to imagine that twenty-four hours ago he’d punched me in the jaw.
“What’s he apologizing for?”
“I’ll introduce you,” Luc said with a wide smile. “Long story short, she’s a Sinacore as well. She was promised to one of his gross arrogant grandsons, and Andrei basically screwed them all over by making them believe that she was killed in the club when really Vic just wanted to marry her.”
“Vic.” I tried the name on my tongue. “Is Vic the scary one?”
She let out a snort. “Imagine him guarding Chase.”